In 2021, I reported on an internal meeting at Facebook about discussions to put facial recognition on new smartglasses. One of their execs complained about the coverage and said the co would have a "very public discussion" about the tech. They never did. And now: www.nytimes.com/2026/02/13/t...

👋 EFF's team of activists, lawyers, and technologists regularly take on multiple threats to digital rights and privacy. We've noticed, we're not distracted, and we'll be fighting back.

America 2026. www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/f...

WOW. Incredible. This is the case in which DHS claimed that ICE officers had been attacked with a shovel and fired back in self-defense. Evidence since suggests an ICE officer fired through a closed door and struck someone on the other side. Will DHS retract the prior claims?

🚨 ICE is authorized to covertly infiltrate and interact with social media accounts under a new program called "masked engagement," per documents leaked to me: www.kenklippenstein.com/p/exclusive-...

Meta smart glasses - already becoming notorious for secretive recordings, now with facial recognition being built in. And they're already being used by ICE and CBP agents.... gizmodo.com/why-are-fede...

Meta is working to build facial recognition into its Smart Glasses. These devices have already been used to secretly record by visitors to massage parlors, pickup artists, viral content creators, and most disturbingly, ICE and CBP agents working in the field: dailynorthwestern.com/2026/01/07/c...

Meta's plan for launching glasses that people can use to secretly identify strangers on the street is to do it "during a dynamic political environment" when people who care about why that's bad are "focused on other concerns." www.nytimes.com/2026/02/13/t...

In general I think "Block anyone who's replies refuse to acknowledge basic nuance" is a very good way to live on Bluesky

This news comes less than a week after Ring's Super Bowl commercial stoked controversy over the company's capacity for mass surveillance.

Keep up the attention, keep up the pressure, keep up the good trouble www.cnbc.com/2026/02/12/a...

Breaking WSJ: The highly classified whistleblower complaint against Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard is related to a conversation intercepted last spring in which two foreign nationals discussed Jared Kushner, according to U.S. officials familiar with the matter.

BREAKING: Judge blocks Hegseth effort to punish Sen. Kelly. "This Court has all it needs to conclude that Defendants have trampled on Senator Kelly's First Amendment freedoms and threatened the constitutional liberties of millions of military retirees." Background: www.lawdork.com/p/breaking-k...

They're tracking lawmakers' Epstein searches Pam Bondi and the Justice Department have been monitoring the search histories of members of Congress who looked at the Epstein files. Why is the Trump administration being so guarded about these documents? What are they trying to hide?

Lyons’ claim that 60% of people in detention have a pending or final criminal charge is false. The number is exactly backwards. Approximately 60% of people in ICE custody have NO conviction or even a pending charge. And only 5% have a conviction for a violent crime.

The IRS illgally shared THOUSANDS of taxpayers private data with ICE As CDT's Tom Bowman notes, the scandalous and reckless data sharing between IRS and ICE shows "precisely why strict legal firewalls exist and have — until now — been treated as an important guardrail.” apnews.com/article/trea...

Something I learned writing this: More than a quarter of US homes have doorbell cameras now. If the backlash is real this time, it comes as the devices are firmly entrenched across the country.

New from 404 Media: we've confirmed cops are buying access to GeoSpy, an AI that can geolocate photos in seconds. Doesn't use metadata, but clues in the photo like soil, architecture, to pinpoint where social media photos taken. Being used in investigations www.404media.co/cops-are-buy...

My guess is that sooner or later it’s going to become common for places of public accommodation and for social gatherings (bars, gyms, shops) to ban wearables that record

“By comparison to the millennials, Gen Z are far more quiet and reserved because they have a strange fear of being cringe or judged as cringe,” Cohen said. “From both observation and asking them, I know they feel paranoid when they’re answering a question, aware that someone may record them.”

CNN confirms what MSNBC reported live a few hours ago: DOJ is surveilling Dem lawmakers when they go to the DOJ to search unredacted Epstein files.

NEW: ICE is crashing the US court system in Minnesota. Thanks to Trump's push to detain an unprecedented number of people, and its attempt to kill bond hearings, petitions to secure people's release from custody have skyrocketed. @regret.bsky.social w/ the scoop: www.wired.com/story/ice-cr...

Some surveillance news to keep an eye on: A bipartisan group of Senators are preparing to introduce a FISA 702 reform bill. The law is set to expire in 2 months... www.nextgov.com/policy/2026/...

Typically, the humiliation of a no-bill is that prosecutors could not persuade a *majority* of grand jurors to indict on a relatively low burden of proof. Every single grand juror knew this case was a disgrace, per this reporting. 🔽

New reporting indicated El Paso airport closure was due to use of counter-drone technology Congress has for years been kicking the can on updating counter-drone authorities and enacting stronger oversight and accountability measures CDT, EFF, EPIC, and ACLU have called for

Here's the history of what Clearview AI is:

Excited to have my first piece out as a @techpolicypress.bsky.social Fellow: Outlining the vast surveillance powers ICE can use to monitor protesters, and how you can fight back to change the law, build new safeguards, and protect your privacy

Setting aside that you don't show your ID to get on a train ... ICE stated policy is that it can use a (unreliable) facial recognition scan as the sole basis to ID someone for detainment, and can even have that facial recognition scan override documents you have indicating citizenship/lawful status

A huge and alarming expansion of DHS use of facial recognition, and one that seems ripe for abuse to go after protesters and dissent

the statute that Jeanine Pirro reportedly tried to indict congressional Dems under, 18 USC 2387, was originally passed as part of the 1947 Smith Act, a notorious law used to clamp down on free speech during the Red Scare

Oh fun it's that terrifying Synthetic CDO scene from Big Short but now everyone can do it www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pxr_...

Wait, Are We The Baddies™

NEW: ICE has a plan to lease offices across the US as part of a secret, months-long expansion campaign. Today, @wired.com is publishing dozens of those locations. Many are near schools, medical offices, and places of worship. Vital work from @leahfeiger.bsky.social that I'm proud to publish.

The vagueness and contradictions on surveillance is part of the point. The idea of The Panopticon isn't actually an all-seeing surveillance system, it's that the government can control people by making them constantly feel watched and spied on, even when they don't have capacity to do that.

REP. CORREA: One of your officers in Maine said to a protester, "We're gonna put your face in a little database." Do you? ICE DIRECTOR: No sir, we don't. CORREA: Then why do you think your ICE agent said those statements? ICE DIRECTOR: I can't speak for that individual.

The Trump administration is cracking down on Americans who protest its immigration raids, the government is charging people with assaulting or impeding federal agents at a rate even faster than after the Jan. 6 siege of the U.S. Capitol. www.reuters.com/world/us/ice...

Yesterday the Washington Post rid itself of Publisher and Chief Executive Will Lewis. If you're interested in those events and their tumultuous background, I would recommend this detailed account from NPR's @davidfolkenflik.bsky.social No paywall. www.npr.org/2026/02/07/n...

This important story, which details the dangers of ICE and CBP’s face-recognition app, is available to read for free, thanks to @wired.com's initiative in partnership with @freedom.press to unpaywall FOIA-based reporting. Other outlets should follow suit.

The key point I would tack on to this: ICE's facial recognition system isn't designed for how ICE is using it in the field because that's not how *any* facial recognition system is designed to be used Experts, privacy advocates, even police all view this type of use as irresponsible:

Mobile Fortify, the facial recognition tool ICE claims offers definitive proof of legal status, isn’t even designed for what it’s being used for, and was rolled out after a Project 2025 guy dismantled DHS’s centralized privacy assessments

Alarming new details about ICE facial recognition: -DHS secretly rolled back its rules on the tech (which forbid current uses) -No gallery of potential matches or confidence threshold ratings (standard practices for the tech) -Agents told to prioritize it over fingerprint (which is more reliable)

@wyden.senate.gov's record of warning that there is deep and constitutionally-serious dirt being done by the intelligence agencies in secret is unblemished. The vaguer he is, the filthier the dirt is. This is the vaguest I've ever seen him

The White House may have "heightened Democratic lawmakers’ unease about how surveillance authorities could be used in practice" A great breakdown of the complex situation for FISA 702 as the clock ticks down to its expiration from @ddimolfetta.bsky.social www.nextgov.com/cybersecurit...

Proud to play a role in helping get this together for @justsecurity.org. It provides you with details from the sworn declarations filed in support of the ACLU's lawsuit in Minnesota, Hussen v. Noem. The details of abuses by federal agents across the 29 declarations we looked at are chilling.

As far as I know, this is DHS's first effort to explain their position that I-205 forms allow entry into the home. They rely on the dicta in the 1960 Abel case (before Payton) and re-imagine the plurality opinion in Lucas as if it were the majority (and then overrely on it).

Important piece. The key context for the administrative warrants ICE is using is that they come from “immigration judges” - these are not real judges, they’re DOJ employees who can be fired for not rubber stamping orders

What a week

*taps the sign*

INBOX: Washington Post Ukraine Correspondent Lizzie Johnson announces that she has been laid off in the middle of a below-freezing war zone without power, heat, or running water.

🎙️ON AIR: We're talking to @brennancenter.org's @rlevinsonwaldman.bsky.social and @nytimes.com's @sheeraf.bsky.social about how the facial-recognition tools used by federal immigration agencies work and what they mean for enforcement and civil liberties. ❓What are your Qs about this tech? 📻Listen: