Joseph Cox

Feds Create Drone No Fly Zone That Would Stop People Filming ICE The FAA has altered a no fly zone designation that was originally created for US military bases to apply to DHS units.

Feds have created a drone no fly zone that will stop people from filming ICE. It's not just above stationary facilities, but convoys of vehicles too.

www.404media.co/feds-create-...

YouTube video by 404 Media How Wikipedia Will Survive in the Age of AI (With Wikipedia’s CTO Selena Deckelmann)

Here's our interview with Wikipedia's CTO on how the crucial resource will survive in the age of AI

www.youtube.com/watch?v=39LR...

And I said (speaking Spanish). I said, "I need to take your photo." So I took her photo, where she kind of looked at me. And then when I looked down at my mobile query, it came up to a very -- like, a similar person. I wasn't sure if it was her or not.

And then I tried taking her photo again, and this time it came up to someone else. I can't recall the name, but we used that name as well, "Are you this person?" She looked at us. Like, I remember her eyebrows kind of like -- like, "Who are you talking about?" she gave us that

Here are parts of the transcript showing Mobile Fortify returned two different names for the woman being detained. Her lawyer told me both names were wrong www.404media.co/ices-facial-...

ICE’s Facial Recognition App Misidentified a Woman. Twice In testimony from a CBP official obtained by 404 Media, the official described how Mobile Fortify returned two different names after scanning a woman's face during an immigration raid. ICE has said th...

One of the first things anyone learns about facial recognition is that it is often wrong and that it is biased. And yet ICE is using it all day every day to determine legal status & who to detain. And now we have a high-profile example of it being flat out wrong:

www.404media.co/ices-facial-...

ICE’s Facial Recognition App Misidentified a Woman. Twice In testimony from a CBP official obtained by 404 Media, the official described how Mobile Fortify returned two different names after scanning a woman's face during an immigration raid. ICE has said th...

New from 404 Media: ICE's facial recognition app, which the agency is using to decide who to detain and deport, misidentified a woman. Twice.

ICE says results of the app are definitive and override a birth certificate; obviously this case shows the app is inaccurate

www.404media.co/ices-facial-...

Behind the Blog: Putting the Puzzle Together This week, we discuss the staying power of surveillance coverage, the jigsaw of reporting, and eyestrain.

I wrote more about putting the puzzle of Palantir and ICE together, why it feels like we're all dealing with different corners of the jigsaw

www.404media.co/behind-the-b...

New Legislation Would Rein In ICE’s Facial Recognition App The proposed law would force DHS only use the app, called Mobile Fortify, at ports of entry; delete all photos of U.S. citizens taken by the app; and effectively kill the local law enforcement of the ...

You can read more about this here, in this piece we published today about legislation designed to rein it in www.404media.co/new-legislat...

I compared the user interface in this photo to the leaked user guide I have for Mobile Fortify, and it's the same. Mobile Fortify is ICE's app for verifying someone's identity, immigration status, whether issued order of deportation. ICE says it overrides a birth certificate bsky.app/profile/donm...

There’s a Lootbox With Rare Pokémon Cards Sitting in the Pentagon Food Court Frowned upon in video games, loot boxes are back in real life–and one’s in the Pentagon.

There's a lootboox with rare Pokemon cards sitting in the Pentagon food court. Thanks to a company called Lucky Box Vending, anyone passing through the center of American military power can pay to win a piece of randomized memorabilia from a machine www.404media.co/theres-a-loo...

Those sources can include HHS, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), and “CLEAR.” The guide does not provide any more specifics on what CLEAR might be, but ICE has repeatedly contracted with Thomson Reuters which sells a data product called CLEAR. Thomson Reuters did not respond to a request for comment. HHS did not respond to a request for comment. The documents don’t say if those are the only entities providing data for ELITE. The user guide says ELITE is “integrating new data sources” to reduce officer workload.

ELITE gets data from lots of sources, and one of them appears to be Thomson Reuters' CLEAR data product. ICE has long contracted with the company, which sells addresses and other personal data. Those addresses can come from credit header data (when you open a card) www.404media.co/elite-the-pa...

“It pulls from all kinds of sources,” JB continued. “It’s a newer app that was actually given to us in ICE.” JB said ELITE is what ICE sometimes uses to track the apparent density of people at a particular location to target. “You’re going to go to a more dense population rather than [...] like, if there’s one pin at a house and the likelihood of them actually living there is like 10 percent [...] you’re not going to go there.” For that raid in Woodburn, JB suggested the immigration officers used ELITE to generate leads. Additionally, in a text thread of immigration officers, someone described the area as “target rich,” which JB explained meant the officials had run multiple license plates in that area and found vehicles registered to people “who had either a criminal or immigration nexus.”

This tool is what ICE is using to find places it thinks lots of immigrants are located. “You’re going to go to a more dense population rather than [...] like, if there’s one pin at a house” www.404media.co/elite-the-pa...

The findings, based on internal ICE material obtained by 404 Media, public records, and testimony from an ICE official, shows what kind of technological infrastructure Palantir is building for ICE. @evystadium.bsky.social has more.

Scoop by @josephcox.bsky.social: www.404media.co/elite-the-pa...

Once a person is selected on the map interface, ELITE then shows a dossier on that particular person, according to the user guide. That includes their name, a photo, their Alien Number (the unique code given by the U.S. government to each immigrant), their date of birth, and their full address. ELITE notes the source of the address (such as the government agency that supplied it), and gives an “address confidence score.” One address confidence score example in the guide is 98.95 out of 100; another is 77.25 out of 100. This score is based on both the source of the address and how recent the data is, the user guide says. (ICE is paying skip tracers, private investigators, and bounty hunters to help verify peoples’ addresses.)

Then when ICE zooms in on a specific person, it brings up their dossier. Name and most importantly, address. ELITE gives an address "confidence score" based on where the data came from. ELITE gets data from Department of Health, other sources www.404media.co/elite-the-pa...

New Legislation Would Rein In ICE’s Facial Recognition App The proposed law would force DHS only use the app, called Mobile Fortify, at ports of entry; delete all photos of U.S. citizens taken by the app; and effectively kill the local law enforcement of the ...

New from 404 Media: lawmakers are proposing legislation that would dramatically rein in ICE's facial recognition app Mobile Fortify. Scan face, queries government databases to verify citizenship. Legislation in response to us revealing the app's existence last year
www.404media.co/new-legislat...

‘ELITE’: The Palantir App ICE Uses to Find Neighborhoods to Raid Internal ICE material and testimony from an official obtained by 404 Media provides the clearest link yet between the technological infrastructure Palantir is building for ICE and the agency’s activit...

“[ELITE] tells you how many people are living in this area and what’s the likelihood of them actually being there,” a deportation officer with ICE’s Fugitive Operations Unit testified. “It’s basically a map of the United States. It’s kind of like Google Maps."

All right. And in this incident, in Woodburn on October 30th, what were you -- what were you working off of to identify targets? THE WITNESS: Either an Elite lead. THE COURT: Elite lead? THE WITNESS: Elite lead. THE COURT: As in E-l-i-t-e? THE WITNESS: Yep, Elite, E-l-i-t-e. THE COURT: Okay. So tell me -- THE WITNESS: That's -- that's an immigration system that -- it's basically a map of the United States. It's kind of like Google Maps. And then you -- you'll be like, "All right. In this area it's heavily -- the likelihood of -- of -- of this individual living," right? So if it's --

“It’s basically a map of the United States. It’s kind of like Google Maps.” This is how an ICE agent described the app Palantir worked on for finding neighborhoods to raid.

I've seen the interface, it does look exactly like that www.404media.co/elite-the-pa...

‘ELITE’: The Palantir App ICE Uses to Find Neighborhoods to Raid Internal ICE material and testimony from an official obtained by 404 Media provides the clearest link yet between the technological infrastructure Palantir is building for ICE and the agency’s activit...

SCOOP: Internal ICE material and testimony from an official obtained by 404 Media provides the clearest link yet between the technological infrastructure Palantir is building for ICE and the agency’s activities on the ground.

Inside the app called ELITE—what ICE uses to find neighborhoods to raid.

“Enhanced Leads Identification & Targeting for Enforcement (ELITE) is a targeting tool designed to improve capabilities for identifying and prioritizing high-value targets through advanced analytics,” a user guide for ELITE obtained by 404 Media says. The tool aims to be nearly all encompassing when it comes to finding ICE targets, from identifying subjects in the first place, to building a list of people, to supervisors approving selections for officers to ultimately go into the field and apprehend.

This piece is based on leaked ICE material, sworn testimony from an ICE official we obtained, and public procurement records. ELITE's full name is "Enhanced Leads Identification & Targeting for Enforcement". Specifically for finding communities and people to target www.404media.co/elite-the-pa...

‘ELITE’: The Palantir App ICE Uses to Find Neighborhoods to Raid Internal ICE material and testimony from an official obtained by 404 Media provides the clearest link yet between the technological infrastructure Palantir is building for ICE and the agency’s activit...

New: meet ELITE, the Palantir app ICE is using to find neighborhoods to raid. Map interface; officers search for immigrants; click person to bring up individual dossier. This is clearest link between what Palantir is building and ICE's activities on the ground yet www.404media.co/elite-the-pa...

How One Guy Crowdsourced More Than 500 Dashcams for Minneapolis to Film ICE ‘We have to make sure people are watching. We have to make sure we’re keeping track of our community members.’

When self-employed software engineer Nick Benson put out the call for dashcams online, he thought he’d get maybe 10 people to donate. More than 500 have shown up on his front porch. Here's how one guy crowdsourced 500+ dashcams for Minneapolis to film ICE www.404media.co/how-one-guy-...

ICE is stopping its purchase of warrantless airline travel data, according to a new procurement record. This comes after the company selling it said it would not sell that data anymore, following our months of reporting on the company. More here: www.404media.co/airlines-wil...

YouTube video by 404 Media Flock used to wrongly accuse Colorado woman body camera footage

This bodycam we got is crazy. Cop used Flock to wrongfully accuse innocent woman of package theft, yelled at her when she had evidence exonerating her. "Nothing gets in or out of the town without us knowing about it" cop said

www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBDu...

Article: www.404media.co/cop-used-flo...

YouTube video by 404 Media The ICE Tool That Tracks Entire Neighborhoods

Here is our breakdown of Webloc, the phone surveillance tool ICE has bought which lets the agency track phones in entire neighborhoods. See phones it has data on in an area, follow them home or to work, see the exact route they took www.youtube.com/watch?v=rurJ...

Instagram AI Influencers Are Defaming Celebrities With Sex Scandals Fake images of LeBron James, iShowSpeed, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, and even Nicolás Maduro show them in bed with AI-generated influencers.

I wonder how long it will take for some of these celebs to go after Meta directly www.404media.co/instagram-ai...

Police Unmask Millions of Surveillance Targets Because of Flock Redaction Error Flock is going after a website called HaveIBeenFlocked.com that has collated public records files released by police.

New from 404 Media: police have unwittingly unmasked millions of their surveillance targets because of a Flock redaction error. Police didn't redact specific license plates in public record releases. A site is now making that information searchable, 2.3 million plates www.404media.co/police-unmas...

Police Unmask Millions of Surveillance Targets Because of Flock Redaction Error Flock is going after a website called HaveIBeenFlocked.com that has collated public records files released by police.

New: Police have released info about millions of surveillance targets nationwide from thousands of different police departments because of a public records redaction error in Flock data. Reveals active police investigations, border patrol & ICE targets, lots more:

www.404media.co/police-unmas...

Masterful Gambit: Musk Attempts to Monetize Grok's Wave of Sexual Abuse Imagery In an attempt to push more people toward a paying subscription, Grok now refuses to generate images in replies. The paywall is pretty leaky, though.

In Musk's latest masterful gambit, instead of putting a stop to the wave of sexual abuse imagery generated by Grok, he's attempting to monetize it instead by only letting paying subscribers generate images in replies. This isn't curbing abuse, it's profiting off it www.404media.co/x-premium-gr...

Github Banned a Ton of Adult Game Developers and Won’t Explain Why In the aftermath of Github banning or suspending dozens of popular accounts, the erotic game modding community wonders if they should move to platforms like GitGoon instead.

github mass-suspended a bunch of developers making mods for popular erotic games, without warning or explanation. even when users try their best to stay withing platforms' rules, they get fucked www.404media.co/github-ban-s...

Once a Webloc user has identified a device of interest, they can get more details about that particular phone, and, by extension, its owner, by seeing where else it has travelled both locally and across the country. Users can click a route feature which shows the path the device took. The material suggests that if users look at where the device was located at night, they might find the person’s possible home, and during the day, the person’s possible employer. The software can also do a multi-permiter analysis, which monitors multiple locations at once to see which devices have been present at two or more specific places. A results page then displays the list of discovered devices. This includes whether the phone is an Android or iOS device; the number of days the device visited a given location; the average amount of time a device stayed at the location; and the total number of pieces of location data for that phone.

Here's the sort of thing Webloc can do:
- zoom in on specific phone, see where else that device has been locally or around country
- click a 'route' button to see the specific route
- click a nighttime button to see where at night; their likely home

No warrant www.404media.co/inside-ices-...

404 Media has obtained material that explains how two surveillance systems ICE recently purchased, work. One can track phones without a warrant and follow their owners home or to their employer. @evystadium.bsky.social has more.

Scoop by @josephcox.bsky.social: www.404media.co/inside-ices-...