This $470 Million Surveillance Program Is Watching Immigrants Across the US

Diallo crossed the U.S.-Mexico border without authorization in December 2023, with hopes of escaping the violence and injustice he experienced back home in Guinea, Conakry. He traveled from Guinea through Turkey, then through South America and Central America, and finally to the United States. After arriving in New York, he filed for asylum within the required one-year deadline.
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This Isn’t the First Time Chicago’s Been Used as a Laboratory for Policing

As the Trump administration turbocharges the growth of a nonstop dragnet, turning daily life into a data trail ready to be weaponized, Chicago is serving as one of its most visible targets. The city has long been a flashpoint for the oppressive expansion of digital surveillance. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), universities, and local police have all deployed powerful new technologies to…
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ICE Just Spent Millions on a Social Media Surveillance AI Program

Immigration and Customs Enforcement has inked a new $5.7 million contract for AI-driven social media surveillance software, according to federal procurement records reviewed by The Lever. It’s the latest move in the agency’s ongoing quest to build out a social media surveillance dragnet. The five-year contract with government technology middleman Carahsoft Technology, made public in September…
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Senators Warn Trump Administration Is Developing Secret Watchlist of Americans

The Trump administration is drawing up “secret lists of terrorist groups inside the United States,” Senator Elissa Slotkin said on the floor of Congress yesterday — the first such reference to the effects of National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 (NSPM-7). The directive, as I’ve reported, lays out Donald Trump’s policies with regard to equating “anti-Christian” and “anti-capitalist”…
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From AI to TikTok to TV, This Pro-Israel Billionaire Is Expanding Power in US

Larry Ellison’s name isn’t always mentioned alongside more public-facing megabillionaires like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, or Mark Zuckerberg. But as he vaults to the top of the U.S. power elite after a string of high-profile corporate deals, that’s about to change. Ellison, the founder of the tech giant Oracle, is quickly emerging as the new face of oligarchic power in the U.S.
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By Enabling Police Surveillance, Elected Officials Fuel Trump’s Agenda

In a remarkable series of avoidable mistakes, elected officials in Illinois have demonstrated to the rest of the country the impossibility of meaningful regulation of police use of surveillance technology. In May of this year, 404 Media published evidence that Illinois automated license plate reader data was being accessed on behalf of federal agencies like Immigration and Customs Enforcement…
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