Here's who the Washington Post just laid off.

Great story by @iainmartin.bsky.social on VC Masha Bucher and her deep, years-long relationship w/ Jeffrey Epstein @forbes.com www.forbes.com/sites/iainma...

Laying off @joemenn.bsky.social is the newsroom management equivalent of stapling your dick to the wall. Truly insane move, and one of many.

The FBI is using facial recognition to identify ICE protestors from YouTube and social media — a chilling escalation of surveillance against the constitutional right to protest. @thomasbrewster.bsky.social reports on what’s at stake for protest and privacy rights:

When a PR fixer turned VC introduced a startup founder to Jeffrey Epstein... what a lede from @iainmartin.bsky.social 🫠 www.forbes.com/sites/iainma...

Keep in mind the FBI is relying heavily on footage from tipsters at ICE protests, some of whom are likely against the anti-ICE movement.

There's a lot of Steven Bannon in the Epstein files, but I laughed out loud when Epstein asked a contact if he thought it possible Bannon could do a talk at DEF CON. @thedarktangent.defcon.social.ap.brid.gy - thoughts?!

The FBI Is Using Facial Recognition To Identify ICE Protestors In Social Media Videos

Worth a repost given all the protests happening today…

In one case, a citizen helped out—an FBI tipster used their own facial recognition to identify someone allegedly stealing a weapon from an FBI car during the Minneapolis protests. They then gave the FBI the identity and social media profiles of the person. www.forbes.com/sites/thomas...

🚨NEW🚨 The FBI used facial recognition to identify then charge ICE protestors causing damage to gov property in Minneapolis. Agents have been looking through YouTube footage, as well as video sent in by tipsters at the protests, before deploying the surveillance tech. www.forbes.com/sites/thomas...

🚨NEW🚨 The FBI used facial recognition to identify then charge ICE protestors causing damage to gov property in Minneapolis. Agents have been looking through YouTube footage, as well as video sent in by tipsters at the protests, before deploying the surveillance tech. www.forbes.com/sites/thomas...

New: "House Health Panel Member Kevin Hern Sold UnitedHealth Amid Stock-Trading Ban Push" me, for @forbes.com

🚨 UPDATED 🚨 - to include confirmation that Safariland pepper spray is being used on protestors in Minneapolis, via a court document.

"Safariland pepper spray is being used in Minneapolis; Forbes reviewed a court filing in Minnesota from earlier this month, in which a federal agent used 'MK-9' pepper spray on a protestor. That brand of chemical weapon is sold by Safariland’s Defense Technology."

"Safariland pepper spray is being used in Minneapolis; Forbes reviewed a court filing in Minnesota from earlier this month, in which a federal agent used 'MK-9' pepper spray on a protestor. That brand of chemical weapon is sold by Safariland’s Defense Technology."

🚨 NEW 🚨 ICE And CBP have spent a record $140 Million on Amazon and Microsoft tech during Trump's second term. Many of their staff aren't happy about it. www.forbes.com/sites/the-wi...

🚨 NEW 🚨 The Men Making Millions Selling Pepper Spray To ICE Safariland, owned by billionaire Warren Kanders, remains the number one supplier of pepper spray and tear gas to ICE and CBP, via a large federal distributor run by a MAGA-aligned former Marine. www.forbes.com/sites/thomas...

New: Trump claims Rep. Ilhan Omar is worth $44M. Here’s why that’s highly unlikely— and how the controversy was fueled by an entry on her own disclosure that may have run afoul of House ethics guidance. me, for @forbes.com 1/

SCOOP: Palantir Defends Work With ICE to Staff Following Killing of Alex Pretti WIRED obtained Slack conversations + an updated internal Palantir wiki defending the company's work for ICE to outraged workers. More here: www.wired.com/story/palant...

Gosh this brings back memories of breaking this NSO story after helping the activist find out if his phone was infected. Was crazy sitting in a cafe with him and wondering if we were being listened to right then and there. The long tail of impact journalism. www.forbes.com/sites/thomas...

Something of note I found in researching this: ICE's Homeland Security Investigations unit has tried and failed to break into BitLocker devices. It simply doesn't have the capability, per an HSI forensic specialist's letter to a court in 2025. But we now know it can ask Microsoft for help.

Microsoft Gave FBI Keys To Unlock Encrypted Data, Exposing Major Privacy Flaw

Something of note I found in researching this: ICE's Homeland Security Investigations unit has tried and failed to break into BitLocker devices. It simply doesn't have the capability, per an HSI forensic specialist's letter to a court in 2025. But we now know it can ask Microsoft for help.

Microsoft is handing over Bitlocker keys to law enforcement. www.forbes.com/sites/thomas...

New: "Microsoft Gave FBI Keys To Unlock Encrypted Data, Exposing Major Privacy Flaw" @thomasbrewster.bsky.social for @forbes.com

🚨 SCOOP 🚨 Microsoft gives encryption keys to the FBI to unlock data on seized computers. Comes from a fraud case in Guam. But Microsoft tells me it gets around 20 requests for BitLocker keys a year. How many keys has it given to feds over the years? www.forbes.com/sites/thomas...

Today's story: arstechnica.com/security/202...

If I create a company through vibe coding alone, would there be any need for someone to pay for my product if they can just ask Claude/ChatGPT/whatever to make it for them at much lower cost? Basically: is it really feasible there will be major one-man, AI-generated unicorns?

"This hacking campaign also exposed victims' data" is a song that never gets old. Excellent work by Zack Whittaker, uncovering a new (maybe Iranian, maybe targeted) phishing campaign. techcrunch.com/2026/01/16/h...

New: Defense Contractor CEO Pours $4 Million Into Pro-Trump PAC me, for @forbes.com 1/

🚨 NEW (ish) 🚨 Facial recognition, AI behavioral analysis, drones,, bathroom listening devices, Flock Safety car surveillance—schools across America are rolling out all manner of AI snooping tools. It's just not clear just how effective any of these tools are. www.forbes.com/sites/thomas...

🚨 NEW 🚨 During three months in summer last year, over 30,000 Apple devices, worth some $35 million, were shipped to a warehouse in a small industrial park. DHS says it's part of a sprawling Chinese fraud involving gift cards obtained in sextortion and romance scams. www.forbes.com/sites/thomas...

UK police have blamed Microsoft Copilot for an intelligence mistake. Microsoft's Copilot AI assistant made up a non-existent football match and British police included the mistake in an intelligence report. Yikes. Details on the Copilot mistake here👇 www.theverge.com/news/861668/...

"A woman was targeted by a pig butcher who tricked her into draining her retirement savings of $1.3 million. She later passed away from cancer, leaving her husband to have to sell assets to deal with the fallout." Crypto thieves stole as much as $17bn in 2025. www.forbes.com/sites/the-wi...

🚨 In Nov., Trump's Labor Dept. lowered the minimum wage for foreign farmworkers. A month later, Trump's winery filed to hire 36 foreign, temporary workers. The rate? Almost $2/hour less than in 2025. 1/ me, for @forbes.com

UK communications regulator has announced it's opening an official investigation into X over non-consensual imagery. This follows it getting in touch with X last week. It's investigating on a host of grounds: from whether X has done proper risk assessments to failing to take down illegal content

Didn’t post this before Christmas because I’ve been off, but know that ICE can get deleted social messages if it thinks you’re making violent threats against agents www.forbes.com/sites/the-wi...

What struck me most in reporting this out was that while the teacher I spoke to had serious privacy concerns, a recently-departed student felt the opposite. Younger generations don't seem as privacy conscious, from the conversations I've had over the years, now playing out in school surveillance.

Didn't get around to posting here as I've been off work and will be until mid-Jan.

🚨 NEW (ish) 🚨 Facial recognition, AI behavioral analysis, drones,, bathroom listening devices, Flock Safety car surveillance—schools across America are rolling out all manner of AI snooping tools. It's just not clear just how effective any of these tools are. www.forbes.com/sites/thomas...

‪What could go wrong? great reporting from @thomasbrewster.bsky.social AI Bathroom Monitors? Welcome To America’s New Surveillance High Schools www.forbes.com/sites/thomas...

ICE just spent another $300,000 on social media surveillance tool Tangles, per contract records. More here on that company: www.forbes.com/sites/thomas...

Here's HSI accidentally destroying iPhones in a major drug trafficking investigation at the Mexico border. They've asked Apple to provide data instead. Related: www.forbes.com/sites/the-wi...

🚨 NEW 🚨 Brinc, founded by 25-year-old Blake Resnick, is trying to get DJIs out of American cops drone fleets. Come December 23, the Chinese giant may not be able to put new devices in the hands of the police. Some cops are really not happy about it. www.forbes.com/sites/zoyaha...

🚨NEW🚨 At the southern border, officers use Cellebrite forensic devices to access iPhones of immigration crime suspects. Except they don't always get the data CBP wants. So CBP orders Apple to provide it instead. A CBP playbook on border surveillance. www.forbes.com/sites/the-wi...

🚨NEW🚨 At the southern border, officers use Cellebrite forensic devices to access iPhones of immigration crime suspects. Except they don't always get the data CBP wants. So CBP orders Apple to provide it instead. A CBP playbook on border surveillance. www.forbes.com/sites/the-wi...

Thanks for the shoutout in Forbes, @thomasbrewster.bsky.social www.forbes.com/sites/the-wi...

The new edition of Forbes magazine just dropped - the cover story is on two 30-year-old entrepreneurs from Poland, who sick of bad movie dubbing, built their own voice AI model. Today, it's worth $6.6 billion, they are new billionaires & are beating Silicon Valley's tech giants