A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
What's it like getting caught in the Department of Homeland Security's surveillance web? An NPR review out today has compiled dozens of accounts describing just that. Now, they paint a picture of the broad tools that DHS - and more specifically, ICE - is using to monitor people it wants to deport and to intimidate U.S. citizens critical of its policies. NPR's Kat Lonsdorf is reporting on this. Kat, how'd you go about this?
KAT LONSDORF, BYLINE: Yeah. So we interviewed people and dug through court records to gather these stories, which helped us better understand the extensive surveillance apparatus that has been growing at DHS under this administration. Here's one example. I talked to a woman named Emily in Minneapolis. We're only using her first name because she fears retribution from the federal government. And she described an evening in late January. She was following an ICE vehicle as a constitutional observer when it abruptly stopped. A masked federal agent leaned out the window, took a picture of her and her car, and then yelled her name and recited her home address.
EMILY: Their message was not subtle, right? They were, in effect, saying, we see you. We can get to you whenever we want to. And it did scare me.
LONSDORF: Emily says she has no idea how they pulled up her information so quickly. But we heard stories similar to this over and over again from around the country.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah. So Emily doesn't know that - or how they did find her information. Do you have any idea how they did that?
LONSDORF: I mean, it's hard to know exactly whether it's license plate data or facial recognition or both. ICE's budget has skyrocketed during President Trump's second term, and the agency has purchased an array of surveillance tools and tech contracts. And over the last year, the administration has undertaken an unprecedented project to aggregate Americans' personal data and make it more accessible to ICE. It's still unclear exactly how they're using that or what they're doing with the photographs they take. In one interaction in Maine recently, a federal agent told a protester that she was now part of a, quote, "nice little database." DHS has repeatedly denied that such a database exists.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah. And facial recognition is something that NPR's reported on before that DHS...
LONSDORF: Yeah.
MARTÍNEZ: ...Is using. But, I mean, this is a little bit different. It's about watching U.S. citizens who are critical of ICE.
LONSDORF: Yeah, exactly. And it's not just in person. That surveillance extends online to social media, too. I talked to two people with big followings on Instagram, who said they had their global entry status revoked after making posts critical of ICE, although that link is hard to prove. We do know that the administration is sending tech companies like Google or Meta administrative subpoenas, demanding personal information to unmask anonymous accounts that are protesting ICE. Steve Loney is a lawyer with ACLU in Pennsylvania and has represented several people who have fought those subpoenas in federal court. He says a pattern is starting to emerge.
STEVE LONEY: The pattern appears to be, as soon as people become vocal critics of what's happening in immigration enforcement, they get an email from their social media company that says the government has requested your data.
LONSDORF: DHS says it has the broad authority to issue such subpoenas, but legal experts like Loney worry that they violate the First Amendment, which includes the right to challenge the government anonymously. That anonymity is becoming increasingly difficult to protect.
MARTÍNEZ: That's NPR's Kat Lonsdorf. Kat, thanks a lot.
LONSDORF: Thank you.
MARTÍNEZ: And you can hear more about the web of surveillance tools DHS is using this afternoon on All Things Considered.
(SOUNDBITE OF FELIX ROSCH'S "DRIVEN") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
