Alice Wong, Presente. Thank you for everything.

According to reports, ICE officers are being told to trust the results of a faulty facial recognition app over evidence of citizenship. The Trump administration is steamrolling our due process and privacy rights to support its mass deportation agenda.

Catalina “Xóchitl” Santiago spent nearly two months in ICE detention—despite having protection under DACA—until a federal judge ruled that the government had no reason to keep her in custody and ordered her release. DHS is still vowing to "explore every available option to remove" her. My latest:

pre-writing a devastating obituary for your enemy is god-tier hating of a kind you don’t often see anymore. renaissance haterism. beautiful stuff.

www.technologyreview.com/2025/10/15/1... oh no

For folks (and journalists) who want to search the Oversight Committee email texts, I made a database for searching the 20k text files: splendorous-chaja-f79791.netlify.app

Fall 2017: Then-NYT reporter literally warning Epstein that someone is "digging around again."

New: A judge in Washington has ruled images from Flock surveillance cameras are public records and that anyone can request them. Highlights the pervasiveness of this tech and just how much surveillance is being done. Very notable ruling www.404media.co/judge-rules-...

one of the funniest parts about Joyce Carol Oates going viral for nuking Elon Musk is that he absolutely needed someone tell him who Joyce Carol Oates is

The Authoritarian Stack: how tech billionaires are building a post-democratic America and why Europe is next. My new project is an interactive investigation and open data platform to expose tech authoritarianism and mobilize collective power for democratic alternatives. www.authoritarian-stack.info

Breaking News: Late last night Conde Nast illegally fired 4 union organizers who asked company execs to explain the downsizing of Teen Vogue and continued layoffs. We’ve filed a grievance.

Must-read report from @chrisgeidner.bsky.social on today’s SCOTUS order allowing the Trump administration to implement its anti-trans and anti-nonbinary passport policy.

www.cnn.com/2025/11/05/p... Lina Khan on the team! Called it

NEW from me: open.substack.com/pub/cjspolit... Colombo is a Democrat running for borough president in ruby red Staten Island. I met him handing flyers to commuters outside St George ferry terminal this morning

NEW: Think Staten Island is just MAGA? Think again. Spent today reporting on the mayoral election from Staten Island open.substack.com/pub/cjspolit...

Hey NYC, if it's useful to have this google map of polling sites, here ya go: www.google.com/maps/d/viewe...

Two people died in flooded New York City buildings on Thursday after sudden and intense rain brought a deluge of water to the city in a major afternoon squall. buff.ly/ZMd1Ow4

NEW: “As of Sept. 30, the department no longer presumes service connection for male breast cancer,” a Veterans Affairs rep confirmed to @propublica.org, meaning newly diagnosed veterans will have to show that their cancer is linked to their military service. By @ericumansky.bsky.social

This was a tough but necessary decision - I posted my own notes on this here, from the perspective of a current PSF board member simonwillison.net/2025/Oct/27/...

Q: Do data centers use a lot of water? A: What are you, a fish? theonion.com/what-to-know...

Picture of the East Wing demolition of the White House taken on my flight out of DCA.

That’s called burying the lead

An estimated 100 million people live with facial differences. As face recognition tech becomes widespread, some say they’re getting blocked from accessing essential systems and services. www.wired.com/story/when-f...

BREAKING: Marco Rubio's State Department announces publicly that it is exercising unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination in revoking people's visas based on comments about the killing of Charlie Kirk.

And also today @thesicktimes.org: My latest attempt to summarize COVID-19 trends, while we have absolutely zero new CDC data during the government shutdown. Luckily some wastewater & state-level sources are still updating! thesicktimes.org/2025/10/14/n...

Legendary work from @gabrielgeiger.bsky.social. He and a team uncovered a trove of data from a surveillance firm — location data from thousands of phone numbers from nearly every country on Earth. The firm had been tracking everyone from Erik Prince to journalists to Jared Leto.

"A frog [..] standing up to ICE covered in weapons and armor is absurd, and that’s part of why it’s hitting so hard. But the frog is also a practical piece [..] in an age of mass surveillance, police brutality, and masked federal agents disappearing people" www.404media.co/the-surreal-...

Incredible reporting and writing from the CNN investigative team on the scammy world of crypto ATMs

Never heard of Elle Bisgaard-Church? You will soon. The 34-year-old DSA member is Zohran Mamdani's most trusted staffer and helped shape his successful primary campaign. @hollypret.bsky.social profiled her for @cityandstateny.bsky.social: www.cityandstateny.com/personality/...

I had the honor of once organizing a dialogue between Miss Major and Tourmaline for the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion, hosted by the NYPL. Major was a people’s hero, a tremendous force of revolutionary commitment and love.

HUD laid off so many fair housing investigators on Friday that it shuttered the regional offices that oversee discrimination cases in 9 states: www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

BREAKING: Masked Border Patrol agents aggressively arrested WGN video producer Debbie Brockman in Lincoln Square Friday morning, supposedly for "obstructing justice." (Video via Josh Thomas on Facebook) Follow @heartlandsignal for more.

“Apple is reportedly prepping a Health+ service that will use AI to dispense advice on nutrition, exercise and more.”

This interactive map of citibike usage in nyc is fascinating: bikesharemap.com/newyork/time...

when you try and get your PhD advisor to review your manuscript 😂

I love when student journalists break a crazy story, especially about their own school. This one is extraordinarily macabre. www.uscannenbergmedia.com/2025/10/01/u...

“Supreme Court will let Trump _______ _____ _____ _____ for now” (Mad Libs, 2025 Edition)

ICE Wants to Build Out a 24/7 Social Media Surveillance Team www.wired.com/story/ice-so...

BAD COMPANY Private Equity and the Death of the American Dream bookshop.org/a/109816/978...

This is the essential value of a union contract. Without one, the boss always has the right to change terms and conditions. With one, both sides are legally bound to the agreement and changes have to be negotiated. If management wants a change, they have to make it worthwhile to employees.

Really enjoyed this piece by @jjlee.bsky.social on the @kickstarterunited.org strike: what the union is fighting for, and why it matters to all of us. medium.com/labor-new-yo...

NEW: Kickstarter United went on strike yesterday morning over compensation and codifying a four-day workweek. medium.com/labor-new-yo...

@thexylom.com doing the good work as usual. H-1B are not just used by rich tech companies!!! Wild how much misconception I’ve seen from people I thought would be better informed

BREAKING: Our client Mario Guevara, an Emmy-winning journalist detained by ICE in retaliation for livestreaming law enforcement activity, will be deported tomorrow to El Salvador. Mario and his family are being punished for his reporting. This cruelty is meant to stifle our free press.

NLRB website is completely down due to the shutdown, so won't be any new organizing filings for a while. I'll try to get data from the state public sector relations boards to still have some content for the time being.

Another journalist hit his head in the fray: “he was seriously injured … he was semiconscious, but he didn’t move from the position for 35 to 40 minutes.”