ICE Bought Tech to Track Every Phone in Neighborhoods Without Warrants, Docs Show
ICE has purchased new surveillance technology that lets agents monitor entire city neighborhoods by tracking residents’ cellphone movements without a warrant, a development civil liberties groups say raises major privacy concerns.
The tools — Tangles and Webloc — were acquired through contracts that give Immigration and Customs Enforcement access to vast commercial cellphone location and social media data, according to materials obtained by 404 Media.
Internal legal analysis shared with 404 Media shows ICE believes it can query this commercially harvested location data without securing a warrant, even as it reveals where phones and by extension their owners live, work and travel.
Privacy experts say this creates a kind of warrantless neighborhood dragnet, capable of building detailed movement profiles on ordinary residents. ICE and the Department of Homeland Security have not publicly described how the surveillance will be deployed or what legal controls govern its use.
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“This granular location information paints a detailed picture of who we are, where we go, and who we spend time with,” said Nathan Freed Wessler of the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project.
Legal challenges and legislative proposals are already underway to curb government access to commercial location data without warrants, but the timing and outcome of those efforts remain uncertain.
Civil liberties advocates warn widespread use could chill free movement and association, especially in immigrant communities where ICE enforcement actions are most frequent.
What happens next…
Congress is considering laws to require judicial warrants for data like this, while privacy groups are preparing potential litigation.
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