NEW YORK—The United Automobile Workers (UAW), Communications Workers of America (CWA), and American Federation of Teachers (AFT) filed a lawsuit today against the Departments of State and Homeland Security for their viewpoint-based surveillance and suppression of protected expression online. The complaint asks a federal court to stop this unconstitutional surveillance program, which has silenced and...

Joseph Cox reports: Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has bought access to a surveillance tool that is updated every day with billions of pieces of location data from hundreds of millions of mobile phones, according to ICE documents reviewed by 404 Media. The documents explicitly show that ICE is choosing this product over others offered...

From the Federal Trade Commission: The Federal Trade Commission is taking action against the operator of the Sendit anonymous messaging app for unlawfully collecting personal data from children, misleading users by sending messages from fake “people,” and tricking consumers into purchasing paid subscriptions by falsely promising to reveal the senders of anonymous messages. A complaint,...

Dell Cameron reports: For years, Customs and Border Protection agents have been quietly harvesting DNA from American citizens, including minors, and funneling the samples into an FBI crime database, government data shows. This expansion of genetic surveillance was never authorized by Congress for citizens, children, or civil detainees. According to newly released government data analyzed by Georgetown Law’s Center on Privacy...

Tim Starks reports: Department of Government Efficiency practices at three federal agencies “violate statutory requirements, creating unprecedented privacy and cybersecurity risks,” according to a report that Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Democrats published Thursday. The report — drawn from a mix of media reports, legal filings, whistleblower disclosures to the committee and staff visits...

Joseph Cox reports: A data broker owned by the country’s major airlines, including American Airlines, United, and Delta, is selling access to five billion plane ticketing records to the government for warrantless searching and monitoring of peoples’ movements, including by the FBI, Secret Service, ICE, and many other agencies, according to a new contract and...

Thomas Brewster reports: It’s been some time since Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has been seen using a tool known as a Stingray, or a cell-site simulator, in its attempts to find and remove undocumented immigrants. The tool tricks a phone into thinking it’s a cell tower, and when a suspect’s device connects, the cops can trace...

This one pushes my irony button. Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg reports: The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) says filming and posting videos of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents constitutes “violence,” and has threatened to potentially charge people who take videos and photos of agents conducting immigration raids in their communities, despite First Amendment protections. DHS Assistant...

Landon Mion reports: A North Carolina city has approved a measure declaring itself a “Fourth Amendment Workplace” and boosting protections for illegal immigrant workers targeted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The Durham City Council passed the resolution on Tuesday with a unanimous vote to shield city workers against raids and arrests carried out by federal...

Cooper Quintin writes: It was recently reported by Jack Poulson on Substack that ICE has reactivated its 2 million dollar contract with Paragon Solutions, a cyber-mercenary and spyware manufacturer. The reactivation of the contract between the Department of Homeland Security and Paragon Solutions, a known spyware vendor, is extremely troubling. Paragon’s “Graphite” malware has been implicated in widespread...

From the Federal Trade Commission: The Federal Trade Commission is taking action against robot toy maker Apitor Technology over allegations that its app enabled a third party in China to collect geolocation information from children without parental consent. A complaint, filed by the Department of Justice upon notification and referral from the FTC, alleges that despite...

Natalie Alms reports: The Labor Department is planning to require states to hand over sensitive unemployment information in the name of fighting fraud. The plan, detailed in a notice of proposed rulemaking issued on Friday, would require states to hand over confidential unemployment claims information to federal officials. The department is also considering creating a national claims...

From the Federal Trade Commission: Disney will pay $10 million to settle Federal Trade Commission allegations that the company allowed personal data to be collected from children who viewed kid-directed videos on YouTube without notifying parents or obtaining their consent as required by the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule (COPPA Rule). The proposed order would transform how the...

Jason Koebler reports: Customs and Border Protection (CBP) regularly searched more than 80,000 Flock automated license plate reader (ALPR) cameras, according to data released by three police departments. The data shows that CBP’s access to Flock’s network is far more robust and widespread than has been previously reported. One of the police departments 404 Media...

From EPIC.org: On August 19, EPIC led a coalition including Public Knowledge, the Center for Democracy and Technology, the Demand Progress Education Fund, Fairplay, and Free Press, in urging the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to deny Scott Zuckerman’s petition to modify or vacate the Consent Decree he and the agency agreed to in 2021 in response...

Miranda Nazzaro reports: Social Security Administration database in a “vulnerable” custom cloud environment, putting more than 300 million people’s personal information at risk, the agency’s chief data officer said in a new whistleblower complaint. The complaint, filed with Congress on Tuesday, revealed new concerns from CDO Charles Borges about “serious data security lapses” allegedly involving...

Brad Reed reports: US President Donald Trump has attempted to portray his deployment of National Guard troops and other federal agents in Washington, DC as a boon for public safety. Inside DC courtrooms, however, judges and defense attorneys have expressed alarm at the tactics being used by law enforcement officers to unfairly charge local residents with serious crimes...

Ian Lopez reports: A Texas judge’s striking down of abortion protections threatens broader federal health privacy rights and the government’s ability to regulate them, attorneys warn. Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Trump appointee and go-to jurist for conservative litigants, vacated a Biden administration rule that sought to strengthen Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act protections involving abortion records. The rule...

yLindsey Tonsager, Libbie Canter, and Andrew Longhi of Covington and Burling write: Earlier this month, the California Privacy Protection Agency (“CPPA”) filed a petition in Sacramento County Superior Court to enforce an investigative subpoena against Tractor Supply Company (“Tractor Supply”). The CPPA issued the subpoena in January, and alleges that Tractor Supply objected to the...

Jay Stanley of the ACLU writes: The cloud Automatic License Plate Reader (ALPR or LPR) company Flock is building a dangerous nationwide mass-surveillance infrastructure, as we have been pointing out for several years now. The problem with mass surveillance is that it always expands beyond the uses for which it is initially justified — and sure enough,...