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Inside the DHS forum where ICE agents trash talk one another

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Complaining about your job

Forum members have discussed their discomfort with mass deportation efforts.

Credit: Al Drago/Getty Images

Every day, people log into an online forum for current and former Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) officers to share their thoughts on the news of the day and complain about their colleagues in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

“ERO is too busy dressing up as Black Ops Commandos with Tactical body armor, drop down thigh rigs, balaclavas, multiple M4 magazines, and Punisher patches, to do an Admin arrest of a non criminal, non-violent EWI that weighs 90 pounds and is 5 foot 2, inside a secure Federal building where everyone has been screened for weapons,” wrote one user in July 2025. (ERO stands for Enforcement and Removal Operations; along with HSI, it’s one of the two major divisions of ICE, and is responsible for detaining and deporting immigrants.)

The forum describes itself as a space for current and prospective HSI agents, “designed for the seasoned HSI Special Agent as well as applicants for entry level Special Agent positions.” HSI is the division within ICE whose agents are normally responsible for investigating crimes like drug smuggling, terrorism, and human trafficking.

In the forum, users discuss their discomfort with the US’s mass deportation efforts, debate the way federal agents have interacted with protesters and the public, and complain about the state of their working conditions. Members have also had heated discussions about the shooting of two protesters in Minneapolis, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, and the ways immigration enforcement has taken place around the US.

The forum is one of several related forums where people working in different parts of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) share experiences and discuss specific details of their work. WIRED previously reported on a forum where current and former deportation officers from ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) similarly complained about their jobs and discussed the way the agency was conducting immigration raids. The HSI forum appears to be linked, even including some of the same members.

People do not need to show proof of their employment to join these forums, and the platform does not appear to be heavily moderated. WIRED has not confirmed the individual identities of these posters, though posters share details that likely would only be known to those intimately familiar with the job. There are more than 2,000 members with posts going back to at least 2004.

DHS and ICE did not respond to requests for comment.

Following the killings of both Good and Pretti, the forum’s members were heavily divided. In a January 12 thread, five days after Good was shot by ICE agent Jonathan Ross, a poster who has been a part of the forum since 2016 wrote, “IMHO, the situation with ICE Operations have gotten to an unprecedented level of violence from both the Suspects and the General Public. I hope the AG is looking at the temporary suspension of Civil Liberties, (during and in the geographic locales where ICE Operations are being conducted).”

A user who joined the forum in 2018 and identifies as a recently retired agent responded, “This is an excellent idea and well warranted. These are organized, well financed civil disturbances, dare I say an INSURRECTION?!?”

In a January 16 post titled “The Shooting,” some posters took a more nuanced view. “I get that it is a good shoot legally and all that, but all he had to do was step aside, he nearly shot one of his partners for Gods sake!” wrote a poster who first joined the forum in March 2022. “A USC woman non-crim shot in the head on TV for what? Just doesn’t sit well with me… A seasoned SRT guy who was able to execute someone while holding a phone seems to me he could have simply got out of the way.” SRT refers to ICE’s elite special response team, who undergo special training to operate in high-risk situations. USC refers to US citizens.

“You clearly haven’t been TDY anywhere. Yes, they were going to arrest her for 111,” responded another poster who joined the forum in June 2018. “Tons of USCs are being arrested for it daily.” 111 refers to the part of the US criminal code that deals with assaulting, resisting, or impeding federal officers; TDY refers to “temporary duty,” where officers are pulled to different locations for a limited period of time.

“Can’t believe we have ‘supposed agents’ here questioning the shooting of a domestic terrorist,” wrote a third user who joined the forum in December 2025. (In the wake of the shooting, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem called Good a “domestic terrorist.”)

“If you think a fat unarmed lesbian in a Honda is a ‘Terrorist’ then you are a fake ass cop!” the original poster replied. “I have worked real Terrorism cases, and I am not saying it was a bad shoot and not defending her. I am just saying it did not have to happen.”

Later in the thread, a poster who joined the forum in July 2023 replied, “Remember, these are the same agents who think J6’ers were just misunderstood rowdy tourists, and that Ashley Babbitt is a national hero…and if you dare say something negative about Trump, or try to hold him accountable, you’re suddenly a leftie, communist, lunatic (even though I’m a Republican).”

In a different thread following the shooting of Pretti on January 24 by a CBP agent, a poster who has been a part of the forum since 2023 and who also identified as a retired agent wrote, “Yet another ‘justified’ fatal shooting…They all carry gun belts and vest with 9,000 pieces of equipment on them and then best they can do is shoot a guy in the back.”

The thread devolved into posters debating whether members of the January 6 insurrection were domestic terrorists, and why Kyle Rittenhouse, who shot and killed two people during a 2020 Black Lives Matter protest, was apprehended alive.

“I just want to mention, we all get emotions are heightened right now. But I highly doubt being a legacy customs guy you ever did anything where the risk was beyond the potential for paper cuts,” wrote a user who first joined the forum in June 2025. “It’s a new day with new threats in an environment you never fathomed in your career.”

Even before the shootings of Good and Pretti, members of the forum questioned the wisdom of bringing HSI into the Trump administration’s mass mobilization around immigration enforcement. HSI deals specifically with criminal cases and investigations, but living and working in the US without documentation is a civil offense, and the majority of immigrants who were detained or deported in 2025 had not committed any crimes.

One poster complained that doing so was pulling HSI resources away from more urgent casework.

“The use of 1811s — HSI or otherwise — for administrative immigration enforcement is a complete misuse of resources,” wrote a user who joined the forum in October 2022 in a January 7 post. 1811’s refers to a category of law enforcement officers generally referred to as special agents who conduct criminal investigations. “They could be doing these crime surges for literally any type of federal criminal investigations (drugs, child exploitation, gangs, etc.), and it would be a much better use of resources. Not only that, our reputations would still be intact.”

Others in the forum have complained about HSI’s relationship with ICE’s ERO teams. “It’s pretty bad when ERO at a large metropolitan city get’s backed up with 30 bodies and they call the SA’s in to process,” wrote a poster on July 7, 2025 who has been a part of the forum since 2010. SAs refers to special agents. “I guess that is what happens when they have not done any immigration work in decades.”

“Complete opposite in our [area of responsibility],” a poster who first joined the forum in 2012 replied. “No one has a clue what most of ero is doing and are asking us to be included on anything immigration we’re doing and introduce them to DEA contacts working investigations involving illegals.”

A third poster, who has been a forum member since 2024, added that “ERO does essentially nothing. I walked in the office the other day and the HSI SAs were doing jail pickups and processing. The ERO folks were gathered around a desk drinking coffee and joking around.” In cases where ICE has a request out to jails for a person they’re pursuing, known as an immigration detainer, jails will hold that person for up to “48 hours beyond the time they would ordinarily release them” to allow ICE to pick them up.

In the lead up to federal immigration authorities’ operations in Minneapolis, members complained about long hours. “How are RHAs expected to go on TDYs with NO days off and lots of [overtime] when they are all capped out (biweekly and yearly [sic]),” complained a user who first joined the forum in December 2004 in a post from December 7, 2025. RHAs refers to rehired annuitants, or retired federal agents who have returned to the job and continue to collect their federal retirement benefits. “ERO has NO caps.”

“I’m capped out so only getting paid for 5 days at 10 hours a day,” wrote the user who first joined the forum in 2010 in another thread (overtime pay rules can vary from agency to agency). ”Anything over 50 hours a week and I’m working for free.”

Others in the forum said they were waiting for their promised sign-on bonuses, and expressed disappointment with what they saw in their paychecks. For rehired annuitants, ICE offered a signing bonus of up to $50,000. “Not sure how they calculated the current pay from the super check received today, but mine can’t be right,” a poster who joined the forum in 2021 wrote in an October post. “My super check netted me a grand total of $600 more.”

In another thread on bonuses, a user who has been a forum member since 2005 replied, “I got a deposit last night or early this morning,” they wrote. “It looks like 10k after taxes plus my regular pay check. Not sure yet. However the deal was 20K. WTF?!”

In a December thread, other members discussed the way immigration agents had begun to interact more aggressively with protesters. The user identified as a retired agent wrote, “I’ve seen a lot of videos lately of HSI or ERO agents getting triggered by civilians taking photos or videos of them or their vehicles. In several of the videos the agents are seen jumping out of their GOVs, manhandling the civilian, and smashing or confiscating their phones.” The user expressed bewilderment about the behavior, writing that they “would have been fired and/or prosecuted for something like this. I believe everyone knows at this point that taking photos/videos is a protected act unless someone is clearly impeding or obstructing (which doesn’t always appear to be the case).”

Another poster, who joined the forum in September 2025, replied, “Ah…Cell phone video. You can make them tell what ever story you want with creative editing.”

As part of the response to immigration operations, particularly in Minnesota, civilians have organized to monitor federal agents, coordinating to witness and record their operations, and sometimes tailing suspected ICE vehicles, checking licence plates in Signal groups. Federal agents, in turn, have been seen taking photos and videos of protesters, with one legal observer in Maine claiming that an agent told her she would be added to a terror watchlist. (In testimony this week, Todd Lyons, acting director of ICE told members of Congress that ICE was not making such a list of US citizens.)

In posts throughout the forum, members also complain about their access to gear and the agency’s technology. “Apparently there is enough money to buy a bunch of ICE marked cars but not get us some basic protective gear…” wrote one user on January 27, who joined the forum in 2025.

“I also have a suspicion that HQ or the [Executive Associate Director] have not advocated to get us gear to handle all the nut job protesters,” they wrote in a follow up post.

On a thread named “Alien Processing” that started in July 2025, posters complained about “How is it that with all the technology we have and an entire fkn building full of computer geeks this fkn agency cannot make a fkn system that works properly and effectively in a simple user friendly fashion? This Eagle crap is a total mess!” one poster wrote. EAGLE refers to Enforcement Integrated Database (EID) called EID Arrest Guide for Law Enforcement, a system to process the biometric and personal information for people arrested by ICE. “It takes longer to process a fkn alien than it does to actually catch them. We dont need 10,000 new ICE Officers/Agents, just hire fkn people to process them so we can do our jobs of catching them.”

Members also talked about their preferred pieces of ICE tech: Another user, who joined the forum in March 2025, responded to the “Alien Processing” thread, writing “Mobile Fortify is the best thing that has come out in a long time,” in reference to the mobile facial recognition app used by federal agents to identify people in the field.

According to DHS’s 2025 AI Use Case Inventory, agents have been able to use Mobile Fortify since May 2025. The app uses AI, trained with CBP’s “Vetting/Border Crossing Information/ Trusted Traveler Information,” to match a picture taken by agents and “contactless” fingerprints with existing records. 404 Media reported that the app has misidentified at least one person—perhaps because, as WIRED has reported, it wasn’t designed to be used for what ICE is using it for.

Though ICE’s surge in Minnesota appears to be entering a drawdown, the agency is continuing to expand its footprint across the US, and investing in a network of detention centers and large warehouses for holding immigrants, all indicating that detentions and deportations are not expected to slow down.

“Put yourself in the shoes of the guys in the street strung out on crazy op tempo, being threatened and antagonized all day, having inept leadership, low morale, and then having to fight every formerly low risk non-crim (or barely crim) because they are all hyped up on victim status and liberal energy. Plus hyper partisan radicalization on both sides,” the user who joined the forum in June 2025 wrote. “If you think the news is enraging you now, wait till this spring/summer when we need to fill the mega detention centers.”

This story originally appeared on wired.com.

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Platforms bend over backward to help DHS censor ICE critics, advocates say

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Pam Bondi and Kristi Noem sued for coercing platforms into censoring ICE posts.

Credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images

Credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images

Pressure is mounting on tech companies to shield users from unlawful government requests that advocates say are making it harder to reliably share information about Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) online.

Alleging that ICE officers are being doxed or otherwise endangered, Trump officials have spent the last year targeting an unknown number of users and platforms with demands to censor content. Early lawsuits show that platforms have caved, even though experts say they could refuse these demands without a court order.

In a lawsuit filed on Wednesday, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) accused Attorney General Pam Bondi and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem of coercing tech companies into removing a wide range of content “to control what the public can see, hear, or say about ICE operations.”

It’s the second lawsuit alleging that Bondi and DHS officials are using regulatory power to pressure private platforms to suppress speech protected by the First Amendment. It follows a complaint from the developer of an app called ICEBlock, which Apple removed from the App Store in October. Officials aren’t rushing to resolve that case—last month, they requested more time to respond—so it may remain unclear until March what defense they plan to offer for the takedown demands.

That leaves community members who monitor ICE in a precarious situation, as critical resources could disappear at the department’s request with no warning.

FIRE says people have legitimate reasons to share information about ICE. Some communities focus on helping people avoid dangerous ICE activity, while others aim to hold the government accountable and raise public awareness of how ICE operates. Unless there’s proof of incitement to violence or a true threat, such expression is protected.

Despite the high bar for censoring online speech, lawsuits trace an escalating pattern of DHS increasingly targeting websites, app stores, and platforms—many that have been willing to remove content the government dislikes.

Officials have ordered ICE-monitoring apps to be removed from app stores and even threatened to sanction CNN for simply reporting on the existence of one such app. Officials have also demanded that Meta delete at least one Chicago-based Facebook group with 100,000 members and made multiple unsuccessful attempts to unmask anonymous users behind other Facebook groups. Even encrypted apps like Signal don’t feel safe from officials’ seeming overreach. FBI Director Kash Patel recently said he has opened an investigation into Signal chats used by Minnesota residents to track ICE activity, NBC News reported.

As DHS censorship threats increase, platforms have done little to shield users, advocates say. Not only have they sometimes failed to reject unlawful orders that simply provided a “a bare mention of ‘officer safety/doxing’” as justification, but in one case, Google complied with a subpoena that left a critical section blank, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) reported.

For users, it’s increasingly difficult to trust that platforms won’t betray their own policies when faced with government intimidation, advocates say. Sometimes platforms notify users before complying with government requests, giving users a chance to challenge potentially unconstitutional demands. But in other cases, users learn about the requests only as platforms comply with them—even when those platforms have promised that would never happen.

Government emails with platforms may be exposed

Platforms could face backlash from users if lawsuits expose their communications to the government, a possibility in the coming months. Last fall, the EFF sued after DOJ, DHS, ICE, and Customs and Border Patrol failed to respond to Freedom of Information Act requests seeking emails between the government and platforms about takedown demands. Other lawsuits may surface emails in discovery. In the coming weeks, a judge will set a schedule for EFF’s litigation.

“The nature and content of the Defendants’ communications with these technology companies” is “critical for determining whether they crossed the line from governmental cajoling to unconstitutional coercion,” EFF’s complaint said.

EFF Senior Staff Attorney Mario Trujillo told Ars that the EFF is confident it can win the fight to expose government demands, but like most FOIA lawsuits, the case is expected to move slowly. That’s unfortunate, he said, because ICE activity is escalating, and delays in addressing these concerns could irreparably harm speech at a pivotal moment.

Like users, platforms are seemingly victims, too, FIRE senior attorney Colin McDonnell told Ars.

They’ve been forced to override their own editorial judgment while navigating implicit threats from the government, he said.

“If Attorney General Bondi demands that they remove speech, the platform is going to feel like they have to comply; they don’t have a choice,” McDonnell said.

But platforms do have a choice and could be doing more to protect users, the EFF has said. Platforms could even serve as a first line of defense, requiring officials to get a court order before complying with any requests.

Platforms may now have good reason to push back against government requests—and to give users the tools to do the same. Trujillo noted that while courts have been slow to address the ICEBlock removal and FOIA lawsuits, the government has quickly withdrawn requests to unmask Facebook users soon after litigation began.

“That’s like an acknowledgement that the Trump administration, when actually challenged in court, wasn’t even willing to defend itself,” Trujillo said.

Platforms could view that as evidence that government pressure only works when platforms fail to put up a bare-minimum fight, Trujillo said.

Platforms “bend over backward” to appease DHS

An open letter from the EFF and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) documented two instances of tech companies complying with government demands without first notifying users.

The letter called out Meta for unmasking at least one user without prior notice, which groups noted “potentially” occured due to a “technical glitch.”

More troubling than buggy notifications, however, is the possibility that platforms may be routinely delaying notice until it’s too late.

After Google “received an ICE subpoena for user data and fulfilled it on the same day that it notified the user,” the company admitted that “sometimes when Google misses its response deadline, it complies with the subpoena and provides notice to a user at the same time to minimize the delay for an overdue production,” the letter said.

“This is a worrying admission that violates [Google’s] clear promise to users, especially because there is no legal consequence to missing the government’s response deadline,” the letter said.

Platforms face no sanctions for refusing to comply with government demands that have not been court-ordered, the letter noted. That’s why the EFF and ACLU have urged companies to use their “immense resources” to shield users who may not be able to drop everything and fight unconstitutional data requests.

In their letter, the groups asked companies to insist on court intervention before complying with a DHS subpoena. They should also resist DHS “gag orders” that ask platforms to hand over data without notifying users.

Instead, they should commit to giving users “as much notice as possible when they are the target of a subpoena,” as well as a copy of the subpoena. Ideally, platforms would also link users to legal aid resources and take up legal fights on behalf of vulnerable users, advocates suggested.

That’s not what’s happening so far. Trujillo told Ars that it feels like “companies have bent over backward to appease the Trump administration.”

The tide could turn this year if courts side with app makers behind crowdsourcing apps like ICEBlock and Eyes Up, who are suing to end the alleged government coercion. FIRE’s McDonnell, who represents the creator of Eyes Up, told Ars that platforms may feel more comfortable exercising their own editorial judgment moving forward if a court declares they were coerced into removing content.

DHS can’t use doxing to dodge First Amendment

FIRE’s lawsuit accuses Bondi and Noem of coercing Meta to disable a Facebook group with 100,000 members called “ICE Sightings–Chicagoland.”

The popularity of that group surged during “Operation Midway Blitz,” when hundreds of agents arrested more than 4,500 people over weeks of raids that used tear gas in neighborhoods and caused car crashes and other violence. Arrests included US citizens and immigrants of lawful status, which “gave Chicagoans reason to fear being injured or arrested due to their proximity to ICE raids, no matter their immigration status,” FIRE’s complaint said.

Kassandra Rosado, a lifelong Chicagoan and US citizen of Mexican descent, started the Facebook group and served as admin, moderating content with other volunteers. She prohibited “hate speech or bullying” and “instructed group members not to post anything threatening, hateful, or that promoted violence or illegal conduct.”

Facebook only ever flagged five posts that supposedly violated community guidelines, but in warnings, the company reassured Rosado that “groups aren’t penalized when members or visitors break the rules without admin approval.”

Rosado had no reason to suspect that her group was in danger of removal. When Facebook disabled her group, it told Rosado the group violated community standards “multiple times.” But her complaint noted that, confusingly, “Facebook policies don’t provide for disabling groups if a few members post ostensibly prohibited content; they call for removing groups when the group moderator repeatedly either creates prohibited content or affirmatively ‘approves’ such content.”

Facebook’s decision came after a right-wing influencer, Laura Loomer, tagged Noem and Bondi in a social media post alleging that the group was “getting people killed.” Within two days, Bondi bragged that she had gotten the group disabled while claiming that it “was being used to dox and target [ICE] agents in Chicago.”

McDonnell told Ars it seems clear that Bondi selectively uses the term “doxing” when people post images from ICE arrests. He pointed to “ICE’s own social media accounts,” which share favorable opinions of ICE alongside videos and photos of ICE arrests that Bondi doesn’t consider doxing.

“Rosado’s creation of Facebook groups to send and receive information about where and how ICE carries out its duties in public, to share photographs and videos of ICE carrying out its duties in public, and to exchange opinions about and criticism of ICE’s tactics in carrying out its duties, is speech protected by the First Amendment,” FIRE argued.

The same goes for speech managed by Mark Hodges, a US citizen who resides in Indiana. He created an app called Eyes Up to serve as an archive of ICE videos. Apple removed Eyes Up from the App Store around the same time that it removed ICEBlock.

“It is just videos of what government employees did in public carrying out their duties,” McDonnell said. “It’s nothing even close to threatening or doxing or any of these other theories that the government has used to justify suppressing speech.”

Bondi bragged that she had gotten ICEBlock banned, and FIRE’s complaint confirmed that Hodges’ company received the same notification that ICEBlock’s developer got after Bondi’s victory lap. The notice said that Apple received “information” from “law enforcement” claiming that the apps had violated Apple guidelines against “defamatory, discriminatory, or mean-spirited content.”

Apple did not reach the same conclusion when it independently reviewed Eyes Up prior to government meddling, FIRE’s complaint said. Notably, the app remains available in Google Play, and Rosado now manages a new Facebook group with similar content but somewhat tighter restrictions on who can join. Neither activity has required urgent intervention from either tech giants or the government.

McDonnell told Ars that it’s harmful for DHS to water down the meaning of doxing when pushing platforms to remove content critical of ICE.

“When most of us hear the word ‘doxing,’ we think of something that’s threatening, posting private information along with home addresses or places of work,” McDonnell said. “And it seems like the government is expanding that definition to encompass just sharing, even if there’s no threats, nothing violent. Just sharing information about what our government is doing.”

Expanding the definition and then using that term to justify suppressing speech is concerning, he said, especially since the First Amendment includes no exception for “doxing,” even if DHS ever were to provide evidence of it.

To suppress speech, officials must show that groups are inciting violence or making true threats. FIRE has alleged that the government has not met “the extraordinary justifications required for a prior restraint” on speech and is instead using vague doxing threats to discriminate against speech based on viewpoint. They’re seeking a permanent injunction barring officials from coercing tech companies into censoring ICE posts.

If plaintiffs win, the censorship threats could subside, and tech companies may feel safe reinstating apps and Facebook groups, advocates told Ars. That could potentially revive archives documenting thousands of ICE incidents and reconnect webs of ICE watchers who lost access to valued feeds.

Until courts possibly end threats of censorship, the most cautious community members are moving local ICE-watch efforts to group chats and listservs that are harder for the government to disrupt, Trujillo told Ars.

Photo of Ashley Belanger

Ashley is a senior policy reporter for Ars Technica, dedicated to tracking social impacts of emerging policies and new technologies. She is a Chicago-based journalist with 20 years of experience.

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“ICE Out of Our Faces Act” would ban ICE and CBP use of facial recognition

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A few Senate Democrats introduced a bill called the ‘‘ICE Out of Our Faces Act,” which would ban Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) from using facial recognition technology.

The bill would make it “unlawful for any covered immigration officer to acquire, possess, access, or use in the United States—(1) any biometric surveillance system; or (2) information derived from a biometric surveillance system operated by another entity.” All data collected from such systems in the past would have to be deleted. The proposed ban extends beyond facial recognition to cover other biometric surveillance technologies, such as voice recognition.

The proposed ban would prohibit the federal government from using data from biometric surveillance systems in court cases or investigations. Individuals would have a right to sue the federal government for financial damages after violations, and state attorneys general would be able to bring suits on behalf of residents.

The bill was submitted yesterday by Sen. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), who held a press conference about the proposal with Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), and US Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.). The Senate bill is also cosponsored by Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.), and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

“This is a dangerous moment for America,” Markey said at the press conference, saying that ICE and CBP “have built an arsenal of surveillance technologies that are designed to track and to monitor and to target individual people, both citizens and non-citizens alike. Facial recognition technology sits at the center of a digital dragnet that has been created in our nation.”

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“Capture it all”: ICE urged to explain memo about collecting info on protesters

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Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) demanded that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) confirm or deny the existence of a “domestic terrorists” database that lists US citizens who protest ICE’s immigration crackdown.

ICE “officers and senior Trump administration officials have repeatedly suggested that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is building a ‘domestic terrorists’ database comprising information on US citizens protesting ICE’s actions in recent weeks,” Markey wrote in a letter yesterday to Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons. “If such a database exists, it would constitute a grave and unacceptable constitutional violation. I urge you to immediately confirm or deny the existence of such a database, and if it exists, immediately shut it down and delete it.”

Creating a database of peaceful protesters “would constitute a shocking violation of the First Amendment and abuse of power,” and amount to “the kinds of tactics the United States rightly condemns in authoritarian governments such as China and Russia,” Markey said.

Markey’s letter said DHS officials “have repeatedly stated that the agency is engaged in efforts to monitor, catalog, and intimidate individuals engaged in peaceful protests,” and gave several examples. Trump border czar Tom Homan recently told Laura Ingraham on Fox News, “One thing I’m pushing for right now, Laura, we’re going to create a database where those people that are arrested for interference, impeding, and assault, we’re going to make them famous. We’re going to put their face on TV. We’re going to let their employers, and their neighborhoods, and their schools know who these people are.”

Markey’s letter called Homan’s comment “especially alarming given the numerous incidents in which DHS appears to have concluded that protesting ICE itself constitutes grounds for arrest.” Markey pointed to another recent incident in Portland, Maine, in which a masked ICE agent told an observer who was taking video that “we have a nice little database and now you’re considered a domestic terrorist.”

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ICE protester says her Global Entry was revoked after agent scanned her face

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“I am concerned that border patrol and other federal enforcement agencies now have my license plate and personal information, and that I may be detained or arrested again in the future,” she wrote. “I am concerned about further actions that could be taken against me or my family. I have instructed my family to be cautious and return inside if they see unfamiliar vehicles outside of our home.”

Cleland said she hasn’t performed any observation of federal agents since January 10, but has “continued to engage in peaceful protests” and is “assessing when I will return to active observations.”

We contacted the Department of Homeland Security about Cleland’s declaration and will update this article if we get a response.

Extensive use of facial recognition

Federal agents have made extensive use of facial recognition during President Trump’s immigration crackdown with technology from Clearview AI and a face-scanning app called Mobile Fortify. They use facial recognition technology both to verify citizenship and identify protesters.

“Ms. Cleland was one of at least seven American citizens told by ICE agents this month that they were being recorded with facial recognition technology in and around Minneapolis, according to local activists and videos posted to social media,” The New York Times reported today, adding that none of the people had given consent to be recorded.

ICE also uses a variety of other technologies, including cell-site simulators (or Stingrays) to track phone locations, and Palantir software to help identify potential deportation targets.

Although Cleland vowed to continue protesting and eventually get back to observing ICE and CBP agents, her declaration said she felt intimidated after the recent incident.

“The interaction with the agents on January 10th made me feel angry and intimidated,” she wrote. “I have been through Legal Observer Training and know my rights. I believe that I did not do anything that warranted being stopped in the way that I was on January 10th.”

ICE protester says her Global Entry was revoked after agent scanned her face Read More »

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US cyber defense chief accidentally uploaded secret government info to ChatGPT

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Cybersecurity “nightmare”

Congress recently grilled the acting chief on mass layoffs and a failed polygraph.

Alarming critics, the acting director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), Madhu Gottumukkala, accidentally uploaded sensitive information to a public version of ChatGPT last summer, Politico reported.

According to “four Department of Homeland Security officials with knowledge of the incident,” Gottumukkala’s uploads of sensitive CISA contracting documents triggered multiple internal cybersecurity warnings designed to “stop the theft or unintentional disclosure of government material from federal networks.”

Gottumukkala’s uploads happened soon after he joined the agency and sought special permission to use OpenAI’s popular chatbot, which most DHS staffers are blocked from accessing, DHS confirmed to Ars. Instead, DHS staffers use approved AI-powered tools, like the agency’s DHSChat, which “are configured to prevent queries or documents input into them from leaving federal networks,” Politico reported.

It remains unclear why Gottumukkala needed to use ChatGPT. One official told Politico that, to staffers, it seemed like Gottumukkala “forced CISA’s hand into making them give him ChatGPT, and then he abused it.”

The information Gottumukkala reportedly leaked was not confidential but marked “for official use only.” That designation, a DHS document explained, is “used within DHS to identify unclassified information of a sensitive nature” that, if shared without authorization, “could adversely impact a person’s privacy or welfare” or impede how federal and other programs “essential to the national interest” operate.

There’s now a concern that the sensitive information could be used to answer prompts from any of ChatGPT’s 700 million active users.

OpenAI did not respond to Ars’ request to comment, but Cyber News reported that experts have warned “that using public AI tools poses real risks because uploaded data can be retained, breached, or used to inform responses to other users.”

Sources told Politico that DHS investigated the incident for potentially harming government security—which could result in administrative or disciplinary actions, DHS officials told Politico. Possible consequences could range from a formal warning or mandatory retraining to “suspension or revocation of a security clearance,” officials said.

However, CISA’s director of public affairs, Marci McCarthy, declined Ars’ request to confirm if that probe, launched in August, has concluded or remains ongoing. Instead, she seemed to emphasize that Gottumukkala’s access to ChatGPT was only temporary, while suggesting that the ChatGPT use aligned with Donald Trump’s order to deploy AI across government.

“Acting Director Dr. Madhu Gottumukkala was granted permission to use ChatGPT with DHS controls in place,” McCarthy said. “This use was short-term and limited. CISA is unwavering in its commitment to harnessing AI and other cutting-edge technologies to drive government modernization and deliver” on Trump’s order.

Scrutiny of cyber defense chief remains

Gottumukkala has not had a smooth run as acting director of the top US cyber defense agency after Trump’s pick to helm the agency, Sean Plankey, was blocked by Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) “over a Coast Guard shipbuilding contract,” Politico noted.

DHS Secretary Kristi Noem chose Gottumukkala to fill in after he previously served as her chief information officer, overseeing statewide cybersecurity initiatives in South Dakota. CISA celebrated his appointment with a press release boasting that he had more than 24 years of experience in information technology and a “deep understanding of both the complexities and practical realities of infrastructure security.”

However, critics “on both sides of the aisle” have questioned whether Gottumukkala knows what he’s doing at CISA, Cyberscoop reported. That includes staffers who stayed on and staffers who prematurely left the agency due to uncertainty over its future, Politico reported.

At least 65 staffers have been curiously reassigned to other parts of DHS, Cyberscoop reported, inciting Democrats’ fears that CISA staffers are possibly being pushed over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The same fate almost befell Robert Costello, CISA’s chief information officer, who was reportedly involved with meetings last August probing Gottumukkala’s improper ChatGPT use and “the proper handling of for official use only material,” Politico reported.

Earlier this month, staffers alleged that Gottumukkala took steps to remove Costello from his CIO position, which he has held for the past four years. But that plan was blocked after “other political appointees at the department objected,” Politico reported. Until others intervened to permanently thwart the reassignment, Costello was supposedly given “roughly one week” to decide if he would take another position within DHS or resign, sources told Politico.

Gottumukkala has denied that he sought to reassign Costello over a personal spat that Politico’s sources said sprang from “friction because Costello frequently pushed back against Gottumukkala on policy matters.” He insisted that “senior personnel decisions are made at the highest levels at the Department of Homeland Security’s Headquarters and are not made in a vacuum, independently by one individual, or on a whim.”

The reported move looked particularly shady, though, because Costello “is seen as one of the agency’s top remaining technical talents,” Politico reported.

Congress questioned ongoing cybersecurity threats

This month, Congress grilled Gottumukkala about mass layoffs last year that shrank CISA from about 3,400 staffers to 2,400. The steep cuts seemed to threaten national security and election integrity, lawmakers warned, and potentially have left the agency unprepared for any potential conflicts with China.

At a hearing held by the House Homeland Security Committee, Gottumukkala said that CISA was “getting back on mission” and plans to reverse much of the damage done last year to the agency.

However, some of his responses did not inspire confidence, including a failure to forecast “how many cyber intrusions CISA expects from foreign adversaries as part of the 2026 midterm elections,” the Federal News Network reported. In particular, Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) criticized Gottumukkala for not having “a specific number in mind.”

“Well, we should have that number,” Gonzales said. “It should first start by how many intrusions that we had last midterm and the midterm before that. I don’t want to wait. I don’t want us waiting until after the fact to be able to go, ‘Yeah, we got it wrong, and it turns out our adversaries influenced our election to that point.’”

Perhaps notably, Gottumukkala also dodged questions about reports that he failed a polygraph when attempting to seek access to other “highly sensitive cyber intelligence,” Politico reported.

The acting director apparently blamed six career CISA staffers for requesting that he agree to the polygraph test, which the staffers said was typical protocol but Gottumukkala later claimed was misleading.

Failing the test isn’t necessarily damning, since anxiety or technical errors could trigger a negative result. However, Gottumukkala appears touchy about the test that he now regrets sitting for, calling the test “unsanctioned” and refusing to discuss the results.

It seems that Gottumukkala felt misled after learning that he could have requested a waiver to skip the polygraph. In a letter suspending those staffers’ security clearances, CISA accused staff of showing “deliberate or negligent failure to follow policies that protect government information.” However, staffers may not have known that he had that option, which is considered a “highly unusual loophole that may not have been readily apparent to career staff,” Politico noted.

Staffers told Politico that Gottumukkala’s tenure has been a “nightmare”—potentially ruining the careers of longtime CISA staffers. It troubles some that it seems that Gottumukkala will remain in his post “for the foreseeable future,” while seeming to politicize the agency and bungle protocols for accessing sensitive information.

According to Nextgov, Gottumukkala plans to right the ship with “a hiring spree in 2026 because its recent reductions have hampered some of the Trump administration’s national security goals.”

In November, the trade publication Cybersecurity Dive reported that Gottumukkala sent a memo confirming the hiring spree was coming that month, while warning that CISA remains “hampered by an approximately 40 percent vacancy rate across key mission areas.” All those cuts were “spurred by the administration’s animus toward CISA over its election security work,” Cybersecurity Dive noted.

“CISA must immediately accelerate recruitment, workforce development, and retention initiatives to ensure mission readiness and operational continuity,” Gottumukkala told staffers at that time, then later went on to reassure Congress this month that the agency has “the required staff” to protect election integrity and national security, Cyberscoop reported.

Photo of Ashley Belanger

Ashley is a senior policy reporter for Ars Technica, dedicated to tracking social impacts of emerging policies and new technologies. She is a Chicago-based journalist with 20 years of experience.

US cyber defense chief accidentally uploaded secret government info to ChatGPT Read More »

dhs-keeps-trying-and-failing-to-unmask-anonymous-ice-critics-online

DHS keeps trying and failing to unmask anonymous ICE critics online

censorship, DHS, First Amendment, ice, immigration and customs enforcement, Policy / /

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has backed down from a fight to unmask the owners of Instagram and Facebook accounts monitoring Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activity in Pennsylvania.

One of the anonymous account holders, John Doe, sued to block ICE from identifying him and other critics online through summonses to Meta that he claimed infringed on core First Amendment-protected activity.

DHS initially fought Doe’s motion to quash the summonses, arguing that the community watch groups endangered ICE agents by posting “pictures and videos of agents’ faces, license plates, and weapons, among other things.” This was akin to “threatening ICE agents to impede the performance of their duties,” DHS alleged. DHS’s arguments echoed DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, who has claimed that identifying ICE agents is a crime, even though Wired noted that ICE employees often post easily discoverable LinkedIn profiles.

To Doe, the agency seemed intent on testing the waters to see if it could seize authority to unmask all critics online by invoking a customs statute that allows agents to subpoena information on goods entering or leaving the US.

But then, on January 16, DHS abruptly reversed course, withdrawing its summonses from Meta.

A court filing confirmed that DHS dropped its requests for subscriber information last week, after initially demanding Doe’s “postal code, country, all email address(es) on file, date of account creation, registered telephone numbers, IP address at account signup, and logs showing IP address and date stamps for account accesses.”

The filing does not explain why DHS decided to withdraw its requests.

However, previously, DHS requested similar information from Meta about six Instagram community watch groups that shared information about ICE activity in Los Angeles and other locations. DHS withdrew those requests, too, after account holders defended their First Amendment rights and filed motions to quash their summonses, Doe’s court filing said.

DHS keeps trying and failing to unmask anonymous ICE critics online Read More »

white-house-alters-arrest-photo-of-ice-protester,-says-“the-memes-will-continue”

White House alters arrest photo of ICE protester, says “the memes will continue”

ice, immigration and customs enforcement, Policy / /

Protesters disrupted services on Sunday at the Cities Church in St. Paul, chanting “ICE OUT” and “Justice for Renee Good.” The St. Paul Pioneer Press quoted Levy Armstrong as saying, “When you think about the federal government unleashing barbaric ICE agents upon our community and all the harm that they have caused, to have someone serving as a pastor who oversees these ICE agents is almost unfathomable to me.”

The church website lists David Easterwood as one of its pastors. Protesters said this is the same David Easterwood who is listed as a defendant in a lawsuit that Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison filed against Noem and other federal officials. The lawsuit lists Easterwood as a defendant “in his official capacity as Acting Director, Saint Paul Field Office, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.”

Levy Armstrong, who is also a former president of the NAACP’s Minneapolis branch, was arrested yesterday morning. Announcing the arrest, Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote, “WE DO NOT TOLERATE ATTACKS ON PLACES OF WORSHIP.” Bondi alleged that Levy Armstrong “played a key role in organizing the coordinated attack on Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota.”

Multiple arrests

Noem said Levy Armstrong “is being charged with a federal crime under 18 USC 241,” which prohibits “conspir[ing] to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States.”

“Religious freedom is the bedrock of the United States—there is no first amendment right to obstruct someone from practicing their religion,” Noem wrote.

St. Paul School Board member Chauntyll Allen was also arrested. Attorneys for the Cities Church issued statements supporting the arrests and saying they “are exploring all legal options to protect the church and prevent further invasions.”

A federal magistrate judge initially ruled that Levy Armstrong and Allen could be released, but they were still being held last night after the government “made a motion to stay the release for further review, claiming they might be flight risks,” the Pioneer Press wrote.

White House alters arrest photo of ICE protester, says “the memes will continue” Read More »

lawsuit:-dhs-wants-“unlimited-subpoena-authority”-to-unmask-ice-critics

Lawsuit: DHS wants “unlimited subpoena authority” to unmask ICE critics

censorship, Department of Homeland Security, DHS, First Amendment, ice, Policy / /

Defending online anonymity

DHS is weirdly using import/export rules to expand its authority to identify online critics.

A Border Patrol Tactical Unit agent sprays pepper spray into the face of a protestor attempting to block an immigration officer vehicle from leaving the scene where a woman was shot and killed by a federal agent earlier, in Minneapolis on January 7, 2026. Credit: Star Tribune via Getty Images / Contributor | Star Tribune

The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is fighting to unmask the owner of Facebook and Instagram accounts of a community watch group monitoring Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activity in Pennsylvania.

Defending the right to post about ICE sightings anonymously is a Meta account holder for MontCo Community Watch, John Doe.

Doe has alleged that when the DHS sent a “summons” to Meta asking for subscriber information, it infringed on core First Amendment-protected activity, i.e., the right to publish content critical of government agencies and officials without fear of government retaliation. He also accused DHS of ignoring federal rules and seeking to vastly expand its authority to subpoena information to unmask ICE’s biggest critics online.

“I believe that my anonymity is the only thing standing between me and unfair and unjust persecution by the government of the United States,” Doe said in his complaint.

In response, DHS alleged that the community watch group that posted “pictures and videos of agents’ faces, license plates, and weapons, among other things,” was akin to “threatening ICE agents to impede the performance of their duties.” Claiming that the subpoena had nothing to do with silencing government critics, they argued that a statute regulating imports and exports empowered DHS to investigate the group’s alleged threats to “assault, kidnap, or murder” ICE agents.

DHS claims that Meta must comply with the subpoena because the government needs to investigate a “serious” threat “to the safety of its agents and the performance of their duties.”

On Wednesday, a US district judge will hear arguments to decide if Doe is right or if DHS can broadly unmask critics online by claiming it’s investigating supposed threats to ICE agents. With more power, DHS officials have confirmed they plan to criminally prosecute critics posting ICE videos online, Doe alleged in a lawsuit filed last October.

DHS seeking “unlimited subpoena authority”

DHS alleged that the community watch group posting “pictures and videos of agents’ faces, license plates, and weapons, among other things,” was akin to “threatening ICE agents to impede the performance of their duties.” Claiming that the subpoena had nothing to do with silencing government critics, they argued that DHS is authorized to investigate the group and that compelling interest supersedes Doe’s First Amendment rights.

According to Doe’s most recent court filing, DHS is pushing a broad reading of a statute that empowers DHS to subpoena information about the “importation/exportation of merchandise”—like records to determine duties owed or information to unmask a drug smuggler or child sex trafficker. DHS claims the statute isn’t just about imports and exports but also authorizes DHS to seize information about anyone they can tie to an investigation of potential crimes that violate US customs laws.

However, it seems to make no sense, Doe argued, that Congress would “silently embed unlimited subpoena authority in a provision keyed to the importation of goods.” Doe hopes the US district judge will agree that DHS’s summons was unconstitutional.

“The subscriber information for social media accounts publishing speech critical of ICE that DHS seeks is completely unrelated to the importation/exportation of merchandise; the records are outside the scope of DHS’s summons power,” Doe alleged.

And even if the court agrees on DHS’s reading of the statute, DHS has not established that unmasking the owner of the community watch accounts would be relevant to any legitimate criminal investigation, Doe alleged.

Doe’s posts were “pretty innocuous,” lawyer says

To convince the court that the case was really about chilling speech, Doe attached every post made on the group’s Facebook and Instagram feeds. None show threats or arguably implicit threats to “assault, kidnap, or murder any federal official,” as DHS claimed. Instead, the users shared “information and resources about immigrant rights, due process rights, fundraising, and vigils,” Doe said.

Ariel Shapell, an attorney representing Doe at the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, told Ars that “if you go and look at the content on the Facebook and Instagram profiles at issue here, it’s pretty innocuous.”

DHS claimed to have received information about the group supposedly “stalking and gathering of intelligence on federal agents involved in ICE operations.” However, Doe argued that “unsurprisingly, neither DHS nor its declarant cites any post even allegedly constituting any such threat. To the contrary, all posts on these social media accounts constitute speech addressing important public issues fully protected under the First Amendment,” Doe argued.

“Reporting on, or even livestreaming, publicly occurring immigration operations is fully protected First Amendment activity,” Doe argued. “DHS does not, and cannot, show how such conduct constitutes an assault, kidnapping, or murder of a federal law enforcement officer, or a threat to do any of those things.”

Anti-ICE backlash mounting amid ongoing protests

Doe’s motion to quash the subpoena arrives at a time when recent YouGov polling suggests that Americans have reached a tipping point in ending support for ICE. YouGov’s poll found more people disapprove of how ICE is handling its job than approve, following the aftermath of nationwide anti-ICE protests over Renee Good’s killing. ICE critics have used footage of tragic events—like Good’s death and eight other ICE shootings since September—to support calls to remove ICE from embattled communities and abolish ICE.

As sharing ICE footage has swayed public debate, DHS has seemingly sought to subpoena Meta and possibly other platforms for subscriber information.

In October, Meta refused to provide names of users associated with Doe’s accounts—as well as “postal code, country, all email address(es) on file, date of account creation, registered telephone numbers, IP address at account signup, and logs showing IP address and date stamps for account accesses”—without further information from DHS. Meta then gave Doe the opportunity to move to quash the subpoena to stop the company from sharing information.

That request came about a week after DHS requested similar information from Meta about six Instagram community watch groups that shared information about ICE activity in Los Angeles and other locations. DHS withdrew those requests after account holders defended First Amendment rights and filed motions to quash the subpoena, Doe’s court filing said.

It’s unclear why DHS withdrew those subpoenas but maintained Doe’s. DHS has alleged that the government’s compelling interest in Doe’s identity outweighs First Amendment rights to post anonymously online. The agency also claimed it has met its burden to unmask Doe as “someone who is allegedly involved in threatening ICE agents and impeding the performance of their duties,” which supposedly “touches DHS’s investigation into threats to ICE agents and impediments to the performance of their duties.”

Whether Doe will prevail is hard to say, but Politico reported that DHS’s “defense will rest on whether DHS’s argument that posting videos and images of ICE officers and warnings about arrests is considered criminal activity.” It may weaken DHS’s case that Border Patrol Tactical Commander Greg Bovino recently circulated a “legal refresher” for agents in the field, reminding them that protestors are allowed to take photos and videos of “an officer or operation in public,” independent journalist Ken Klippenstein reported.

Shapell told Ars that there seems to be “a lot of distance” between the content posted on Doe’s accounts and relevant evidence that could be used in DHS’s alleged investigation into criminal activity. And meanwhile, “there are just very clear First Amendment rights here to associate with other people anonymously online and to discuss political opinions online anonymously,” Shapell said, which the judge may strongly uphold as core protected activity as threats of government retaliation mount.

“These summonses chill people’s desire to communicate about these sorts of incredibly important developments on the Internet, even anonymously, when there’s a threat that they could be unmasked and investigated for this really core First Amendment protected activity,” Shapell said.

A win could reassure Meta users that they can continue posting about ICE online without fear of retaliation should Meta be pressed to share their information.

Ars could not immediately reach DHS for comment. Meta declined to comment, only linking Ars to an FAQ to help users understand how the platform processes government requests.

Photo of Ashley Belanger

Ashley is a senior policy reporter for Ars Technica, dedicated to tracking social impacts of emerging policies and new technologies. She is a Chicago-based journalist with 20 years of experience.

Lawsuit: DHS wants “unlimited subpoena authority” to unmask ICE critics Read More »

iceblock-lawsuit:-trump-admin-bragged-about-demanding-app-store-removal

ICEBlock lawsuit: Trump admin bragged about demanding App Store removal

App Store, Apple, First Amendment, free speech, ice, iceblock, immigration and customs enforcement, Policy / /

ICEBlock creator sues to protect apps that are crowd-sourcing ICE sightings.

In a lawsuit filed against top Trump administration officials on Monday, Apple was accused of caving to unconstitutional government demands by removing an Immigration and Customs Enforcement-spotting app from the App Store with more than a million users.

In his complaint, Joshua Aaron, creator of ICEBlock, cited a Fox News interview in which Attorney General Pam Bondi “made plain that the United States government used its regulatory power to coerce a private platform to suppress First Amendment-protected expression.”

Suing Bondi—along with Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Acting Director of ICE Todd Lyons, White House “Border Czar” Thomas D. Homan, and unnamed others—Aaron further alleged that US officials made false statements and “unlawful threats” to criminally investigate and prosecute him for developing ICEBlock.

Currently, ICEBlock is still available to anyone who downloaded the app prior to the October removal from the App Store, but updates have been disrupted, and Aaron wants the app restored. Seeking an injunction to block any attempted criminal investigations from chilling his free speech, as well as ICEBlock users’ speech, Aaron vowed in a statement provided to Ars to fight to get ICEBlock restored.

“I created ICEBlock to keep communities safe,” Aaron said. “Growing up in a Jewish household, I learned from history about the consequences of staying silent in the face of tyranny. I will never back down from resisting the Trump Administration’s targeting of immigrants and conscripting corporations into its unconstitutional agenda.”

Expert calls out Apple for “capitulation”

Apple is not a defendant in the lawsuit and did not respond to Ars’ request to comment.

Aaron’s complaint called out Apple, though, for alleged capitulation to the Trump administration that appeared to be “the first time in Apple’s nearly fifty-year history” that “Apple removed a US-based app in response to the US government’s demands.” One of his lawyers, Deirdre von Dornum, told Ars that the lawsuit is about more than just one app being targeted by the government.

“If we allow community sharing of information to be silenced, our democracy will fail,” von Dornum said. “The United States will be no different than China or Russia. We cannot stand by and allow that to happen. Every person has a right to share information under the First Amendment.”

Mario Trujillo, a staff attorney from a nonprofit digital rights group called the Electronic Frontier Foundation that’s not involved in the litigation, agreed that Apple’s ban appeared to be prompted by an unlawful government demand.

He told Ars that “there is a long history that shows documenting law enforcement performing their duties in public is protected First Amendment activity.” Aaron’s complaint pointed to a feature on one of Apple’s own products—Apple Maps—that lets users crowd-source sightings of police speed traps as one notable example. Other similar apps that Apple hosts in its App Store include other Big Tech offerings, like Google Maps and Waze, as well as apps with explicit names like Police Scanner.

Additionally, Trujillo noted that Aaron’s arguments are “backed by recent Supreme Court precedent.”

“The government acted unlawfully when it demanded Apple remove ICEBlock, while threatening others with prosecution,” Trujillo said. “While this case is rightfully only against the government, Apple should also take a hard look at its own capitulation.”

ICEBlock maker sues to stop app crackdown

ICEBlock is not the only app crowd-sourcing information on public ICE sightings to face an app store ban. Others, including an app simply collecting footage of ICE activities, have been removed by Apple and Google, 404 Media reported, as part of a broader crackdown.

Aaron’s suit is intended to end that crackdown by seeking a declaration that government demands to remove ICE-spotting apps violate the First Amendment.

“A lawsuit is the only mechanism that can bring transparency, accountability, and a binding judicial remedy when government officials cross constitutional lines,” Aaron told 404 Media. “If we don’t challenge this conduct in court, it will become a playbook for future censorship.”

In his complaint, Aaron explained that he created ICE in January to help communities hold the Trump administration accountable after Trump campaigned on a mass deportation scheme that boasted numbers far beyond the number of undocumented immigrants in the country.

“His campaign team often referenced plans to deport ’15 to 20 million’ undocumented immigrants, when in fact the number of undocumented persons in the United States is far lower,” his complaint said.

The app was not immediately approved by Apple, Aaron said. But after a thorough vetting process, Apple approved the app in April.

ICEBlock wasn’t an overnight hit but suddenly garnered hundreds of thousands of users after CNN profiled the app in June.

Trump officials attack ICEBlock with false claims

Within hours of that report, US officials began blasting the app, claiming that it was used to incite violence against ICE officers and amplifying pressure to get the app yanked from the App Store.

But Bondi may have slipped up by making comments that seemed to make it clear her intentions were to restrict disfavored speech. On Fox, Bondi claimed that CNN’s report supposedly promoting the app was dangerous, whereas the Fox News report was warning people not to use the app and was perfectly OK.

“Bondi’s statements make clear that her threats of adverse action constitute viewpoint discrimination, where speech ‘promoting’ the app is unlawful but speech ‘warning’ about the app is lawful,” the lawsuit said.

Other Trump officials were accused of making false statements and using unlawful threats to silence Aaron and ICEBlock users.

“What they’re doing is actively encouraging people to avoid law enforcement activities, operations, and we’re going to actually go after them,” Noem told reporters in July. In a statement, Lyons claimed that ICEBlock “basically paints a target on federal law enforcement officers’ backs” and that “officers and agents are already facing a 500 percent increase in assaults.” Echoing Lyons and Noem, Homan called for an investigation into CNN for reporting on the app, which “falsely implied that Plaintiffs’ protected speech was illegally endangering law enforcement officers,” Aaron alleged.

Not named in the lawsuit, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt also allegedly made misleading statements. That included falsely claiming “that ICEBlock and similar apps are responsible for violent attacks on law enforcement officers, such as the tragic shooting of immigrants at an ICE detention facility in Dallas, Texas, on September 24, 2025,” where “no actual evidence has ever been cited to support these claims,” the lawsuit said.

Despite an apparent lack of evidence, Apple confirmed that ICEBlock was removed in October, “based on information we’ve received from law enforcement about the safety risks associated with ICEBlock,” a public statement said. In a notice to Aaron, Apple further explained that the app was banned “because its purpose is to provide location information about law enforcement officers that can be used to harm such officers individually or as a group.”

Apple never shared any more information with Aaron to distinguish his app from other apps allowed in the App Store that help people detect and avoid nearby law enforcement activities. The iPhone maker also didn’t confirm the source of its information, Aaron said.

However, on Fox, Bondi boasted about reaching “out to Apple today demanding they remove the ICEBlock app from their App Store—and Apple did so.”

Then, later during sworn testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, she reiterated those comments, while also oddly commenting that Google received the same demand, despite ICEBlock intentionally being designed for iPhone only.

She also falsely claimed that ICEBlock “was reckless and criminal in that people were posting where ICE officers lived” but “subsequently walked back that statement,” Aaron’s complaint said.

Aaron is hoping the US District Court in the District of Columbia will agree that “Bondi’s demand to Apple to remove ICEBlock from the App store, as well as her viewpoint-based criticism of CNN for publicizing the app, constitute a ‘scheme of state censorship’ designed to ‘suppress’” Aaron’s “publication and distribution of the App.”

His lawyer, Noam Biale, told Ars that “Attorney General Bondi’s self-congratulatory claim that she succeeded in pushing Apple to remove ICEBlock is an admission that she violated our client’s constitutional rights. In America, government officials cannot suppress free speech by pressuring private companies to do it for them.”

Similarly, statements from Noem, Lyons, and Homan constituted “excessive pressure on Apple to remove the App and others like it from the App Store,” Aaron’s complaint alleged, as well as unconstitutional suppression of Aaron’s and ICEBlock users’ speech.

ICEBlock creator was one of the first Mac Geniuses

Aaron maintains that ICEBlock prominently features a disclaimer asking all users to “please note that the use of this app is for information and notification purposes only. It is not to be used for the purposes of inciting violence or interfering with law enforcement.”

In his complaint, he explained how the app worked to automatically delete ICE sightings after four hours—information that he said could not be recovered. That functionality ensures that “ICEBlock cannot be used to track ICE agents’ historical presence or movements,” Aaron’s lawsuit noted.

Rather than endangering ICE officers, Aaron argued that ICEBlock helps protect communities from dangerous ICE activity, like tear gassing and pepper spraying, or alleged racial profiling triggering arrests of US citizens and immigrants. Kids have been harmed, his complaint noted, with ICE agents documented “arresting parents and leaving young children unaccompanied” and even once “driving an arrestee’s car away from the scene of arrest with the arrestee’s young toddler still strapped into a car seat.”

Aaron’s top fear driving his development of the app was his concern that escalations in ICE enforcement—including arbitrary orders to hit 75 arrests a day—exposed “immigrants and citizens alike to violence and rampant violations of their civil liberties” that ICEBlock could shield them from.

“These operations have led to widespread and well-documented civil rights violations against citizens, lawful residents, and undocumented immigrants alike, causing serious concern among members of the public, elected officials, and federal courts,” Aaron’s complaint said.

They also “have led some people—regardless of immigration or citizenship status—to want to avoid areas of federal immigration enforcement activities altogether” and “resulted in situations where members of the public may wish, when enforcement activity becomes visible in public spaces, to observe, record, or lawfully protest against such activity.”

In 2001, Aaron worked for Apple as one of the first Mac Geniuses in its Apple Stores. These days, he flexes his self-taught developer skills by creating apps intended to do social good and help communities.

Emphasizing that he was raised in a Jewish household where he heard stories from Holocaust survivors that left a lasting mark, Aaron said that the ICEBlock app represented his “commitment to use his abilities to advocate for the protection of civil liberties.” Without an injunction, he’s concerned that he and other like-minded app makers will remain in the Trump administration’s crosshairs, as the mass deportation scheme rages on through ongoing ICE raids across the US, Aaron told 404 Media.

“More broadly, the purpose [of the lawsuit] is to hold government officials accountable for using their authority to silence lawful expression and intimidate creators of technology they disfavor,” Aaron said. “This case is about ensuring that public officials cannot circumvent the Constitution by coercing private companies or threatening individuals simply because they disagree with the message or the tool being created.”

Photo of Ashley Belanger

Ashley is a senior policy reporter for Ars Technica, dedicated to tracking social impacts of emerging policies and new technologies. She is a Chicago-based journalist with 20 years of experience.

ICEBlock lawsuit: Trump admin bragged about demanding App Store removal Read More »

formation-of-oceans-within-icy-moons-could-cause-the-waters-to-boil

Formation of oceans within icy moons could cause the waters to boil

astronomy, freezing, ice, moons, oceans, planetary science, Science / /

That can have significant consequences on the stresses experienced by the icy shells of these moons. Water is considerably more dense than ice. So, as a moon’s ocean freezes up, its interior will expand, creating outward forces that press against the gravity holding the moon together. The potential of this transition to shape the surface geology of a number of moons, including Europa and Enceladus, has already been explored. So, the researchers behind the new work decided to look at the opposite issue: what happens when the interior starts to melt?

Rather than focus on a specific moon, the team did a general model of an ice-covered ocean. This model treated the ice shell as an elastic surface, meaning it wouldn’t just snap, and placed viscous ice below that. Further down, there was a liquid ocean and eventually a rocky core. As the ice melted and the ocean expanded, the researchers tracked the stresses on the ice shell and the changes in pressure that occurred at the ice-ocean interface. They also tracked the spread of thermal energy through the ice shell.

Pressure drop

Obviously, there are limits to how much the outer shell can flex to accommodate the shrinking of the inner portions of the moon that are melting. This creates a low-pressure area under the shell. The consequences of this depend on the moon’s size. For larger moons—and this includes most of the moons the team looked at, including Europa—there were two options. For some, gravity is sufficiently strong to keep the pressure at a point where the water at the interface remains liquid. In others, the gravity was enough to cause even an elastic surface to fail, leading to surface collapse.

For smaller moons, however, this doesn’t work out; the pressure gets low enough that water will boil even at the ambient temperatures (just above the freezing point of water). In addition, the low pressure will likely cause any gases dissolved in the water to be released. The result is that gas bubbles should form at the ice-water interface. “Boiling is possible on these bodies—and not others—because they are small and have a relatively low gravitational acceleration,” the researchers conclude. “Consequently, less ocean underpressure is needed to counterbalance the [crustal] pressure.”

Formation of oceans within icy moons could cause the waters to boil Read More »

dhs-offers-“disturbing-new-excuses”-to-seize-kids’-biometric-data,-expert-says

DHS offers “disturbing new excuses” to seize kids’ biometric data, expert says

biometric data, cbp, customs and border protection, Department of Homeland Security, DHS, DNA testing, face scans, ice, iris scans, Policy, voice prints / /

Sweeping DHS power grab would collect face, iris, voice scans of all immigrants.

Civil and digital rights experts are horrified by a proposed rule change that would allow the Department of Homeland Security to collect a wide range of sensitive biometric data on all immigrants, without age restrictions, and store that data throughout each person’s “lifecycle” in the immigration system.

If adopted, the rule change would allow DHS agencies, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), to broadly collect facial imagery, finger and palm prints, iris scans, and voice prints. They may also request DNA, which DHS claimed “would only be collected in limited circumstances,” like to verify family relations. These updates would cost taxpayers $288.7 million annually, DHS estimated, including $57.1 million for DNA collection alone. Annual individual charges to immigrants submitting data will likely be similarly high, estimated at around $231.5 million.

Costs could be higher, DHS admitted, especially if DNA testing is conducted more widely than projected.

“DHS does not know the full costs to the government of expanding biometrics collection in terms of assets, process, storage, labor, and equipment,” DHS’s proposal said, while noting that from 2020 to 2024, the US only processed such data from about 21 percent of immigrants on average.

Alarming critics, the update would allow DHS for the first time to collect biometric data of children under 14, which DHS claimed would help reduce human trafficking and other harms by making it easier to identify kids crossing the border unaccompanied or with a stranger.

Jennifer Lynch, general counsel for a digital rights nonprofit called the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told Ars that EFF joined Democratic senators in opposing a prior attempt by DHS to expand biometric data collection in 2020.

There was so much opposition to that rule change that DHS ultimately withdrew it, Lynch noted, but DHS confirmed in its proposal that the agency expects more support for the much broader initiative under the current Trump administration. Quoting one of Trump’s earliest executive orders in this term, directing DHS to “secure the border,” DHS suggested it was the agency’s duty to use “any available technologies and procedures to determine the validity of any claimed familial relationship between aliens encountered or apprehended by the Department of Homeland Security.”

Lynch warned that DHS’s plan to track immigrants over time, starting as young as possible, would allow DHS “to track people without their knowledge as they go about their lives” and “map families and connections in whole communities over time.”

“This expansion poses grave threats to the privacy, security, and liberty of US citizens and non-citizens,” Lynch told Ars, noting that “the federal government, including DHS, has failed to protect biometric data in the past.”

“Risks from security breaches to children’s biometrics are especially acute,” she said. “Large numbers of children are already victims of identity theft.”

By maintaining a database, the US also risks chilling speech, as immigrants weigh risks of social media comments—which DHS already monitors—possibly triggering removals or arrests.

“People will be less likely to speak out on any issue for fear of being tracked and facing severe reprisals, like detention and deportation, that we’ve already seen from this administration,” Lynch told Ars.

DHS also wants to collect more biometric data on US citizens and permanent residents who sponsor immigrants or have familial ties. Esha Bhandari, director of the ACLU’s speech, privacy, and technology project, told Ars that “we should all be concerned that the Trump administration is potentially building a vast database of people’s sensitive, unchangeable information, as this will have serious privacy consequences for citizens and noncitizens alike.”

“DHS continues to explore disturbing new excuses to collect more DNA and other sensitive biometric information, from the sound of our voice to the unique identifiers in our irises,” Bhandari said.

EFF previously noted that DHS’s biometric database was already the second largest in the world. By expanding it, DHS estimated that the agency would collect “about 1.12 million more biometrics submissions” annually, increasing the current baseline to about 3.19 million.

As the data pool expands, DHS plans to hold onto the data until an immigrant who has requested benefits or otherwise engaged with DHS agencies is either granted citizenship or removed.

Lynch suggested that “DHS cites questionable authority for this massive change to its practices,” which would “exponentially expand the federal government’s ability to collect biometrics from anyone associated with any immigration benefit or request—including US citizens and children of any age.”

“Biometrics are unique to each of us and can’t be changed, so these threats exists as long as the government holds onto our data,” Lynch said.

DHS will collect more data on kids than adults

Not all agencies will require all forms of biometric data to be submitted “instantly” if the rule change goes through, DHS said. Instead, agencies will assess their individual needs, while supposedly avoiding repetitive data collection, so that data won’t be collected every time someone is required to fill out a form.

DHS said it “recognizes” that its sweeping data collection plans that remove age restrictions don’t conform with Department of Justice policies. But the agency claimed there was no conflict since “DHS regulatory provisions control all DHS biometrics collections” and “DHS is not authorized to operate or collect biometrics under DOJ authorities.”

“Using biometrics for identity verification and management” is necessary, DHS claimed, because it “will assist DHS’s efforts to combat trafficking, confirm the results of biographical criminal history checks, and deter fraud.”

Currently, DHS is seeking public comments on the rule change, which can be submitted over the next 60 days ahead of a deadline on January 2, 2026. The agency suggests it “welcomes” comments, particularly on the types of biometric data DHS wants to collect, including concerns about the “reliability of technology.”

If approved, DHS said that kids will likely be subjected to more biometric data collection than adults. Additionally, younger kids will be subjected to processes that DHS formerly limited to only children age 14 and over.

For example, DHS noted that previously, “policies, procedures, and practices in place at that time” restricted DHS from running criminal background checks on children.

However, DHS claims that’s now appropriate, including in cases where children were trafficked or are seeking benefits under the Violence Against Women Act and, therefore, are expected to prove “good moral character.”

“Generally, DHS plans to use the biometric information collected from children for identity management in the immigration lifecycle only, but will retain the authority for other uses in its discretion, such as background checks and for law enforcement purposes,” DHS’s proposal said.

The changes will also help protect kids from removals, DHS claimed, by making it easier for an ICE attorney to complete required “identity, law enforcement, or security investigations or examinations.” As DHS explained:

DHS proposes to collect biometrics at any age to ensure the immigration records created for children can be related to their adult records later, and to help combat child trafficking, smuggling, and labor exploitation by facilitating identity verification, while also confirming the absence of criminal history or associations with terrorist organizations or gang membership.

A top priority appears to be tracking kids’ family relationships.

“DHS’s ability to collect biometrics, including DNA, regardless of a minor’s age, will allow DHS to accurately prove or disprove claimed genetic relationships among apprehended aliens and ensure that unaccompanied alien children (UAC) are properly identified and cared for,” the proposal said.

But DHS acknowledges that biometrics won’t help in some situations, like where kids are adopted. In those cases, DHS will still rely on documentation like birth certificates, medical records, and “affidavits to support claims based on familial relationships.”

It’s possible that some DHS agencies may establish an age threshold for some data collection, the rule change noted.

A day after the rule change was proposed, 42 comments have been submitted. Most were critical, but as Lynch warned, speaking out seemed risky, with many choosing to anonymously criticize the initiative as violating people’s civil rights and making the US appear more authoritarian.

One anonymous user cited guidance from the ACLU and the Electronic Privacy Information Center, while warning that “what starts as a ‘biometrics update’ could turn into widespread privacy erosion for immigrants and citizens alike.”

The commenter called out DHS for seriously “talking about harvesting deeply personal data that could track someone forever” and subjecting “infants and toddlers” to “iris scans or DNA swabs.”

“You pitch it as a tool against child trafficking, which is a real issue, but does swabbing a newborn really help, or does it just create a lifelong digital profile starting at day one?” the commenter asked. “Accuracy for growing kids is questionable, and the [ACLU] has pointed out how this disproportionately burdens families. Imagine the hassle for parents—it’s not protection; it’s preemptively treating every child like a data point in a government file.”

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Ashley is a senior policy reporter for Ars Technica, dedicated to tracking social impacts of emerging policies and new technologies. She is a Chicago-based journalist with 20 years of experience.

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