DHS AND ICE ABUSES
Political Surveillance
DHS is part of a coordinated Trump administration effort to identify, disrupt and imprison anti-ICE, anti-Flock, anti-data center and anti-fascist protesters. The administration’s perspective on anti-ICE protests is that any attempt to protest ICE constitutes an effort to “impede”, or at least to “conspire to impede”, the lawful activities of federal agents. There is ambiguity over whether a conviction for such impedance is valid, especially where there was no “assault” on (=physical contact with) a federal government agent; but while that ambiguity gets resolved, it doesn’t stop people being arrested and charged, or any nonprofit advocacy groups such as LUCE involved with such work being investigated. Behind all this are persistent signals that the Trump administration intends to deploy ICE in some capacity in some districts in relation to the 2026 midterms, on the theory of preventing noncitizen voting, and in practice to intimidate potential Democratic voters.
Meanwhile, it’s important to be aware of the broader context of these DHS actions. As with prior administrations, undercover government agents are infiltrating social movements’ groups and chats in person, and attempting to incite easily prosecutable actions. Fusion centers are once again On The Case to disrupt DeFlock and other protests. As under Nixon, the administration is using unconstitutional tactics to target political enemies, using warrantless wiretaps for Jim Comey’s phone (and probably many more), and firing intelligence analysts who don’t support conclusions convenient for the administration.
Exclusive: Government Spy Hubs [fusion centers] Are Surveilling Anti-Flock Camera Activists Dan Boguslaw, July 21, 2026
URL: https://danboguslaw.substack.com/p/exclusive-government-spy-hubs-are
What They Want to Hear: The Politicization of U.S. Intelligence
Julia Curlee, Lawfare, July 27, 2026
URL: https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/what-they-want-to-hear–the-politicization-of-u.s.-intelligence
An Interview With the Person Arrested for Clapping at a Data Center Meeting
Mathew Gault, 404 Media, July 29, 2026
Commentary: https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/regular-people-data-center-arrest-protest
DHS Wants Protesters’ Signal Group Chats
Maddy Varner, WIRED, August 5, 2026
DOJ offers mea culpa in ‘Broadview Six’ case, says no further inquiry warranted
Jason Meisner, Chicago Tribune, August 5, 2026
URL: https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/08/05/us-attorneys-office-mea-culpa-broadview-six-case/
How Many Other Trump Enemies Are Being Warrantlessly Wiretapped?
Miles Taylor, DEFIANCE.org, August 3, 2026
URL: https://substack.com/redirect/108557dd-2415-4120-9ab5-8873e55553a1
US Inciting Global Persecution of “Far-Left” Dissidents
Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales, Consortium News, August 4, 2026
URL: https://consortiumnews.com/2026/08/04/us-inciting-global-persecution-of-dissidents/
A veteran was detained by the National Guard in her front yard. Now she’s suing
Kat Lonsdorf, NPR, August 4, 2026
URL: https://www.npr.org/2026/08/04/nx-s1-5918354/national-guard-dc-veteran-detained
ICE Spent $525 Million on Surveillance Tech. Some of It Is Infringing on Americans’ Freedom of Speech.
Autumn Billings, Reason, August 7, 2026
Journalist Don Lemon challenges Trump’s constitutionality of the FACE Act after anti-ICE protest at church
Max Nesterak, Minnesota Reformer, August 7, 2026
MO Protesters Marking 10 Years After Michael Brown’s Killing Face Arrest and Prison
Jacqui Germain, Truthout, August 8, 2026
Private Intelligence Firms Selling Dossiers on AI Data Center Critics
Dan Boguslaw, The American Prospect, August 10, 2026
Anger as ICE dances around judge’s demand to reveal polling place plans
Jordan Green, Raw Story, August 11, 2026
URL: https://www.rawstory.com/raw-investigates/ice-at-polling-places/
DHS Considers Anti-Flock Activists a National Security Threat
Joe Cadillic, Politically Incorrect News, August 12, 2026
URL: https://joecadillic.substack.com/p/dhs-considers-anti-flock-activists
Secret ICE Agent Tried To “Entice” Minneapolis Activists Into Confrontational Tactics
Matt Sledge, The Intercept, August 15, 2026
URL: https://theintercept.com/2026/08/15/undercover-ice-agents-minneapolis-sunrise-movement/
State Efforts To Rein In ICE
There’s a persistent problem where states try to rein in unmasked ICE agents by directly banning all unmasked agents, state or federal; and then those bans, as applied to federal agents, get overturned on Supremacy Clause grounds because states cannot in fact regulate federal agents in the discharge of federal duties. RT4 Boston / Digital Fourth has a workaround for this problem that no state has yet tried, but which was developed with the help of Supremacy Clause specialist Prof. Noah Chauvin, and which we heartily recommend. Where states are having more success is in regulating the procedures relating to federal government agents at state courthouses and prisons. In retaliation for state efforts to bolster sanctuary provisions, the Trump administration has been leaning on states and municipalities, threatening the withdrawal of funds for surveillance technologies and public safety in general, as well as other forms of funding, and expecting states to furnish voter rolls and benefits data.
Judge Blocks New York Ban On ICE Agents Wearing Face Coverings
Erik Uebelacker, Courthouse News Service, August 4, 2026
URL: https://www.courthousenews.com/judge-blocks-new-york-from-unmasking-ice-agents/
Massachusetts Passes Law Limiting ICE. Now Comes the Backlash.
Steph Solis, MSN, August 5, 2026
URL: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/mass-passes-law-limiting-ice-now-comes-the-backlash/ar-AA29t94k
Hostile, paywalled commentary: https://www.bostonherald.com/2026/08/05/dhs-mass-lawmakers-putting-politics-above-public-safety-with-signing-of-protect-act/
States, groups sue over Trump policy of sharing benefits data with immigration authorities
Nate Raymond, Reuters, August 3, 2026
ICE Abuses On The Street
A useful article this month from Vera highlights the ways in which the Supreme Court’s blessing of so-called “pretextual stops” is giving ICE (and other law enforcement agencies) permission to profile based on drivers’ appearance. And ICE is now purchasing $90 million worth of “electric shock gloves” which, according to the vendor, are better than Taser because they don’t leave any outward evidence of having been used.
Traffic Stops Were Already Harmful. ICE Is Making Them Worse
Alex Pareene and Sam Raim, Vera Institute of Justice, July 31, 2026
URL: https://www.vera.org/news/traffic-stops-were-already-harmful-ice-is-making-them-worse
ICE plans to outfit officers with electric shock gloves
Meg Anderson, NPR, August 12, 2026
URL: https://www.npr.org/2026/08/12/nx-s1-5929284/ice-plans-to-outfit-officers-with-electric-shock-gloves
Commentary: https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/if-the-shock-glove-fits
ICE’s Deep Data Dives
The Trump administration has misled Congress relating to aspects of the data-sharing agreements between ICE and HSI on the one hand, and federal agencies and private vendors on the other, implicating FBI, TSA, AAMVA, Selective Service, Palantir, Clearview AI and potentially (subject to court review) the Social Security Administration and the IRS as well. The aim of such data integration is both to find and deport undocumented people, and to find enough cases of non-citizen voting to justify the effort and time invested in uncovering them; but actual cases of non-citizens voting have proven (as they have always proven before) to be scarce.
Undisclosed TSA-ICE Agreement Raises Questions About Sworn Trump Administration Testimony
American Oversight, July 28, 2026
URL: https://americanoversight.org/ice-tsa-data-sharing-agreement-lawsuit-foia-07282026/
ICE Collected Nearly 1 Million People’s DNA Last Year—Including Young Children
Dhruv Mehrotra, WIRED, August 3, 2026
Democrats urge appeals court to keep block on ICE from using IRS data
Matt Bracken, FedScoop, August 3, 2026
URL: https://fedscoop.com/irs-ice-data-sharing-amicus-brief-democrats/
ICE’s Surveillance Technology Expands Its Capacity For Abuse
Connor Swenson, Human Rights Watch, August 6, 2026
URL: https://www.hrw.org/news/2026/08/06/technology-expands-ices-capacity-for-abuse
Why are we paying billions to tech companies for data to enforce immigration laws and policies?
Roopika Risam, The Boston Globe, August 12, 2026
DHS Demands AAMVA’s National Commercial Driver Database
Edward Hasbrouck, Papers, Please!, August 14, 2026
URL: https://papersplease.org/wp/2026/08/14/dhs-demands-aamvas-national-commercial-driver-database/
Inside Trump’s Failed Hunt for Noncitizen Voters
Peter Elkind, Jen Fifield, Doug Bock Clark, Ken B. Morales and Andy Mannix, ProPublica, August 14, 2026
URL: https://www.propublica.org/article/noncitizen-voting-trump-homeland-security-investigations
Shoplifting Is Terrorism Now
A new bill, “CORCA”, with broad and bipartisan support, threatens to set up under ICE a new “Organized Retail and Supply Chain Crime Coordination Center” that would bring under one roof analysts and agents from myriad agencies, including FBI, DEA, CBP and the Secret Service, and, in the name of countering an implausible threat from shoplifting rings, would increase penalties and add terrorism enhancements for people engaging in “organized retail and supply chain crime.” RT4 joined a letter opposing this bill, from 125 organizations. The Senate has not yet passed it, so please consider calling your Senators and asking them to oppose it.
NATIONAL DIGITAL IDs, AGE VERIFICATION AND ENCRYPTION
The Senate Commerce Committee held a hearing on “bad internet bills” on August 5. They reported out the Kids’ Online Safety Act unanimously, and the even more invasive SCREEN Act by 15-13, but the bills did not actually advance because of a lack of quorum in committee. These bills remain a powerful threat to the privacy of all users of the Internet, and RT4 opposes them both. By mandating age verification and ruling out self-certification of age, the SCREEN Act would effectively end anonymous Internet use, lead to firms having to gather and retain millions of face nets or photo IDs, bar use of VPNs and end-to-end encrypted services, and enable the government to request data on who had gone to which sites and when. It’s not too late, but Senators are going to need a lot of education on the threat to people’s privacy in order for them not to join the House in passing invasive legislation. Foreign consortia are pushing these laws both federally and at the state level, and courts, upset at Big Tech’s lack of liability, are starting to actually order them to implement age verification, without considering the privacy harms of such mandates.
The SCREEN Act of 2026 Threatens Privacy Far Beyond Adult Websites
India McKinney, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Updated August 5
URL: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/07/screen-act-threatens-privacy-far-beyond-adult-websites
Commentary: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/03/the-screen-act-threatens-privacy-far-beyond-adult-websites/, https://reclaimthenet.org/senate-bill-would-put-age-checks-in-every-us-operating-system, https://cyberscoop.com/senate-kids-online-safety-act-ai-bills-markup/, https://gizmodo.com/did-kosa-pass-senate-yet-2000794830
Meta Officially Ruled a Public Nuisance: Judge Orders It to Pay $567 Million, Implement Age Verification
Bruce Gil, Gizmodo, August 7, 2026
POLICE SURVEILLANCE TECHNOLOGIES: LICENSE PLATE READERS & FLOCK SAFETY
This month has seen an enormous amount of news relating to embattled automated license plate reader firm Flock Safety. There’s a groundswell of local resistance to this technology around the country; at least 54 jurisdictions have revoked their contracts, and RT4 has had a hand in some of that. Some people are even taking matters into their own hands and vandalizing or blocking license plate reader cameras, and some of them are facing criminal charges. Some cities are immediately switching over to Axon-provided ALPRs instead of taking the opportunity to remove ALPRs altogether. Flock Safety is constructed to facilitate frictionless, nationwide data sharing between law enforcement agencies, creating in effect a nationwide network of over 100,000 cameras tracking drivers wherever they go. Not only that, but Flock cameras can sometimes be found in places where cars can’t, such as at protests and kids’ playgrounds, and sometimes are even funded by private, wealthy individuals rather than through public funds. The company itself has dishonestly claimed to not share data with federal agencies, and tried to integrate its systems recently with Uber and Lyft. There have been reports of abuses by police officers using the technology to stalk exes, to improperly gin up probable cause, or to aggressively monitor expired registrations. There are also reports that it can be surprisingly inaccurate. This month, Flock tried to address criticisms by reducing its standard data retention period from 30 days to 7, improving their internal auditing of suspicious searches, and allowing municipalities to limit the kinds of searches other law enforcement agencies can perform on their network. But all of this is essentially a token effort; the fundamental software and the business model of Flock cannot exist in the context of proper privacy protections, such as a warrant requirement for searches of automated license plate data that would otherwise be held in an end-to-end-encrypted manner. It’s not even clear that they do on net reduce crime. Opposition to Flock is bipartisan, with California lawmakers and U. S. Rep. Keith Self (R-TX) introducing legislation and Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT) campaigning against Flock on X/Twitter. The Supreme Court decision in Chatrie in June may throw new doubt on whether ALPR is Constitutional at all. And, most recently, journalists got hold of the code for Flock’s AI offering, “OS Investigate,” which shows how poor their internal controls are, the dizzying scope of the firm’s ambitions, and that yes, they’re definitely tracking people, not just cars.
Selected jurisdictions fighting, revoking or limiting Flock Safety: Greers Ferry, AR; Brentwood, CA; Orange County, CA; Stanford, CA; Killingworth, CT; Windsor, CT; New Bedford, MA; Littleton, MA; Stow, MA; Duluth, MN; Sherburne County, MN; Winona, MN; Burnet County, TX; Millcreek, UT; Roanoke, VA (Flock Raven gunshot detection).
Jurisdictions adopting or expanding Flock Safety: Redwood City, CA; Glynn County, GA; Cambridge, MA (ShotSpotter); Norman, OK;
POLICE SURVEILLANCE TECHNOLOGIES: DRONES
In 2025, Congress added grants for drones to existing grant programs for law enforcement, like the Byrne grants and COPS. As a result, vendors are eagerly encouraging police “drone as first responder” programs, which are rolling out across many states and cities and which they can sometimes obtain almost for free as military surplus (CT; Sacramento, CA; Honolulu, HI; Kalamazoo, MI; Lancaster, PA; RI; El Paso, TX (“dock as first responder”)). The extreme edge of this technology is allowing the rollout of weaponized drones, reported here from CO, FL, GA and LA, equipped with pepper spray or sirens. Drone deployment to a scene saves time and is cheaper than a live police deployment, but we haven’t noticed any reduction in police personnel budgets from departments adopting DFR programs, and drones necessarily diminish the role of human judgment and empathy in the police response. RT4’s perspective is that police use of drones, if allowed at all, should require a warrant relating to a felony investigation, and should entirely ban weaponized drones, drones equipped with facial recognition, and their use over protests. Drones are better adopted by cities if housed at fire departments or Departments of Public Works, and where then police could only access them subject to a warrant. We were instrumental in blocking police drones in Cambridge, MA in 2025. An article from Hong Kong showcases that once deployed, as with other police technologies, drones can and will be used to police the most minor of misdemeanors. Look for more “innovation” in this space.
New Orleans Cops Published Policy Document Allowing Weaponized Drones
Matthew Gault, 404 Media, July 20, 2026
URL: https://www.404media.co/new-orleans-cops-published-policy-document-allowing-weaponized-drones/
Schools In CO, FL and GA Are Adding Pepper-Spraying Drones “To Help Combat Active Shooters”
Cole Reynolds, The Washington Post, July 28, 2026
URL (paywalled): https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2026/07/28/schools-are-adding-pepper-spraying-drones-help-combat-active-shooters/
Hong Kong Mulls AI Facial Recognition Enabled Drones to Police Smoking Ban at Construction Sites; 39 Fines Issued So Far
Hillary Leung, Hong Kong Free Press, August 5, 2026
POLICE SURVEILLANCE TECHNOLOGIES: FACIAL RECOGNITION AND OTHER TECHNOLOGIES
In the U. S., the Fourth Amendment inhibits to some degree the spread of live facial recognition as used by government authorities. In the EU, there is a necessity and proportionality test that can also inhibit its use. In India, the Supreme Court passed a similar proportionality test, which is now being tested with respect to facial recognition. The NYPD article here deals with the use of retrospective facial recognition – applying it to already existing footage in the context of an investigation. Generally, RT4 supports bans on police use of facial recognition, and has helped to pass them in some places, like in Greater Boston and the Twin Cities. In several other countries, and particularly in the UK, on the other hand, police, transit and even educational authorities are enthusiastically rolling out live facial recognition, and when journalists cover the rollouts, they often don’t cover civil liberties concerns, whether respectfully or dismissively.
NYPD Used CCTV Cameras and Facial Recognition to ID Gaza Paint Splatter Pro-Palestine Protester
C. Frances, The Intercept, August 3, 2026
Singapore Experimenting With Facial Recognition On Public Transit
Esther Loi, The Straits Times, August 4, 2026
Indonesia’s ETLE System Couples Facial Recognition With ALPR
Antara, Tempo, August 5, 2026
Pakistan’s Sindh province will roll out facial recognition Aug 17 to ensure teachers attend class
Independent News Pakistan, August 4, 2026
UK: Live Facial Recognition Technology Leads to Two Arrests for Breaches of Sexual Harm Prevention Orders in Stockport
Livia Gregor, Stockport Nub News, August 14, 2026
UK: London Transport Police Expand Live Facial Recognition Trials in London Underground Stations
British Transport Police, August 10, 2026
UK: Growing gap between power and regulation of police facial recognition
Chris Jones, Statewatch, August 5, 2026
Japanese Police to Force People to Use Their Faces or Eyes to Unlock Their Phones
Kim Minpyo, SBS News Korea, August 12, 2026
URL: https://news.sbs.co.kr/amp/news.amp?news_id=N1008701868
India: Supreme Court to Hear Challenge to Police Using Facial Recognition to ID
Ananthakrishnan G, The Indian Express, August 13, 2026
Brazil’s Data Protection Agency Weighs the Benefits and Risks of Police Facial Recognition
Constance Malleret, The Christian Science Monitor, August 13, 2026
URL: https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/2026/0813/brazil-facial-recognition-artificial-intelligence
Spies in the sky: how worried should we be about the arrival of AI-enabled smart lamp-posts?
Zoe Williams, The Guardian, July 28, 2026
THE FOURTH AMENDMENT IN THE COURTS
The blockbuster Supreme Court ruling in June in Chatrie could be a game-changer for warrant protections for location records. It could also, as Lawfare suggests, slowly fizzle out if not buttressed by state statutes that explicitly apply it. That sounds like, in part, a job for RT4. Meanwhile, the continued sorry state of the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence on qualified immunity means that it’s still major news when qualified immunity is actually denied to any police officer; NYPD is, probably illegally, seizing thousands of New Yorkers’ DNA and keeping it more or less forever; and some states still aren’t adopting a rule that could avoid juries relying on junk science.
After Chatrie, the Real Fight Over Digital Privacy Is Just Beginning
Christy Lopez, Lawfare, August 4, 2026
The Fourth Amendment After Chatrie
Orin Kerr, SSRN, August 5, 2026
URL: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=7238178
NYPD Secretly Taking DNA From New Yorkers: Amicus Briefs Filed
Legal Defense Fund, July 31, 2026
Georgia Supreme Court Reaffirms a Constitutional Right of Privacy in Medical Records
Hall, FourthAmendment.com, August 12, 2026
URL: https://fourthamendment.com/?p=64641
NC Court Ruled Officers Not Entitled To Qualified Immunity After SWAT Team Raided And Damaged Wrong Home And Lied About It
Dan King, Institute for Justice, August 7, 2026
Oregon Police Officers Lobby Ninth Circuit for Immunity in Wrongful Conviction Case
Monique Merrill, Courthouse News Service, August 6, 2026
When Junk Science Decides Guilt in the South
Jeremy Hutchinson, Mark Bowling, Mary Kate Mull, Magnolia Tribune, July 27, 2026
URL: https://magnoliatribune.com/2026/07/27/when-junk-science-decides-guilt-in-the-south/
AI REGULATION, POLICING AND INTELLIGENCE
One serious problem connected to the battle over FISA reauthorization is: We can (perhaps) get Congress to require a warrant for government agent queries of FISA databases. But the law as it stands says nothing about getting a warrant for government agent prompts of an LLM into which FISA databases have been fed – even if the results of the prompt may be far more detailed, invasive, and contextualized than the products of a mere query. CDT explores this deep threat to the Fourth Amendment in relation to both intelligence and law enforcement in the first of a new series by Jake Laperruque below. Meanwhile, Palantir continues to insinuate itself into the world’s information supply chain, and is objecting to newly proposed AI acquisition rules from the General Services Administration that, Palantir says, would irrationally and illegally “hold[] a commercial platform provider contractually responsible for every aspect of how a third party’s probabilistic AI system functions once deployed.” France and Spain are also resisting Palantir. Germany is going the other way, handing new powers to its intelligence agencies out of fear of Russian aggression. China is rapidly deploying deeper surveillance through its own, non-Palantir systems. Efforts to integrate policing data in the EU using AI tools have also run into trouble, with a new opinion opposing them from European Data Protection Supervisor Wojciech Wiewiórowski.
How China’s Vast Surveillance Machine Allows Police to Track Thousands of Foreigners
Lily Kuo and Pei-Lin Wu, New York Times, August 2, 2026
EU AI Act Transparency Rules Are Now In Effect. Was It A Missed Opportunity?
Bruna Santos and Jacobo Castellanos, Tech Policy Press, August 3, 2026
Europe wants to kick its Palantir habit
Antoaneta Roussi, Émile Marzolf and Anouk Schlung, POLITICO Europe, August 3, 2024
URL: https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-wants-to-kick-its-palantir-habit/
Will AI Sycophancy Contaminate Law Enforcement?
Jake Laperruque, Tech Policy Press, August 5, 2026
URL: https://www.techpolicy.press/will-ai-sycophancy-contaminate-law-enforcement/
Palantir calls on the General Services Administration to withdraw draft AI acquisition rule
Christian Robles, Nextgov/FCW, August 6, 2026
Government to give intelligence services sweeping new powers
Björn Stritzel, Euractiv, August 11, 2026
URL: https://www.euractiv.com/news/germany-plans-to-give-intelligence-services-sweeping-new-powers/
Privacy Watchdog Warns of “Serious Risks” Over Europol Surveilling People Who Aren’t Criminals
Ellen O’Regan, POLITICO Europe, August 13, 2026
URL: https://www.politico.eu/article/europol-data-processing-reform-privacy-risks-edps-warning/
COMMERCIAL SURVEILLANCE
The major matter of press discussion in the sphere of commercial surveillance products this month has been Meta Glasses, or, as they’re less politely known, “pervert glasses.” This is, for those who remember Google Glasses or even Ray-Ban Stories, not the first time firms have tried to make this concept socially acceptable.
In other device-related news, an array of intrusive new gadgets and updates are on the market. Roku sells info on everything you watch on TV, Apple’s smart home Siri hub will recognize faces in your home, baby-monitoring startups are using AI for everything, and every part of these data ecosystems can be subpoenaed by the government and tied to you and those you love. Then, if that evidence sends you to jail, don’t worry; there may be AI listening to you there too.
Apple’s Smart Home Siri Hub Will Use Facial Recognition
Mark Gurman, Bloomberg, July 28, 2026
AI Will Now Be Listening To Everything You Say In Jail
Tamara Weston, LEO Technologies, July 31. 2026
Nanit and Other Baby Monitoring Start-Ups Have Created an AI Surveillance System
Sapna Maheshwari, New York Times, August 3, 2026
How to stop Roku from tracking everything you watch
Alec Hively, Engadget, August 6, 2026
URL: https://www.engadget.com/2227777/roku-how-to-stop-tracking-everything-you-watch/
Are Ray Ban Meta Glasses a Privacy Risk?
Karissa Bell, Engadget, August 7, 2026
England and Wales Ban Meta Glasses from Courtrooms
Lawrence Bonk, Engadget, August 11, 2026
URL: https://www.engadget.com/2234606/england-and-wales-ban-meta-glasses-from-courtrooms/