Makena Kelly Vittoria Elliott Operatives from Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) are building a master database at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that could track and surveil undocumented immigrants, two sources with direct knowledge tell WIRED. DOGE is knitting together immigration databases from across DHS and uploading data from outside agencies including the Social Security…
Category: Surveillance
Judge Rules Blanket Search of Cell Tower Data Unconstitutional
Matthew Gault reports: This article was produced in collaboration with 404 Media, a new independent technology investigations site. A judge in Nevada has ruled that “tower dumps”—the law enforcement practice of grabbing vast troves of private personal data from cell towers—is unconstitutional. The judge also ruled that the cops could, this one time, still use the…
FCC Asked to Eliminate Cyber, Privacy Rules in ‘Delete, Delete, Delete’ Proceeding, (Apr 15, 2025)
Lynn Stanton reports: Stakeholders are seeking the elimination of a broad swath of FCC rules they argue are unnecessary and harmful to competition, deployment, and innovation, including some related to cybersecurity, privacy, and data breach reporting. Parties were responding to a public notice in GN docket 25-133, the FCC’s broad “delete, delete, delete” deregulatory proceeding…
Protecting your data from cops and robbers: A cyber-security primer for travellers, immigrants, emigrants, dissidents, and activists
From Ed Hasbrouck of Papers, Please! and The Practical Nomad A cyber-security primer for travellers, immigrants, emigrants, dissidents, and activists Threats Introduction to threat modeling Threats to travellers’ digital devices and data Data at risk Backups Data minimization and curation Apps to watch out for Leave fewer traces. Passwords Overview and summary Device encryption Passwords…