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Another Friday here, another week behind us. It's time to round it up. On the podcast this week: a CBP official wearing Meta Ray-Bans smart glasses to an immigration raid, and the bargain that voice actors are making with AI. In the bonus section for subscribers at the Supporter level: how a DEA official used a cop’s password to AI cameras to then do immigration surveillance.
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NYC: Are you coming to our party next week? We’re hanging out at farm.one in Brooklyn on August 21 from 6-9 p.m. and want to see you there! Tickets are rapidly approaching sold-out status so get yours here. Open bar, free for supporters, live podcast recording, GOOD TIMES.  Screenshots via 404 Media “WTAF?”Members of a law enforcement group chat including ICE and other agencies inadvertently added a random person to the group called “Mass Text” where they exposed highly sensitive information about an active search for a convicted attempted murderer seemingly marked for deportation. The texts included an unredacted ICE “Field Operations Worksheet” that includes detailed information about the target they were looking for, and the texts showed ICE pulling data from a DMV and license plate readers, according to screenshots of the chat obtained and verified by 404 Media. The person accidentally added to the group chat is not a law enforcement official or associated with the investigation in any way, and said they were added to it weeks ago and initially thought it was a series of spam messages. LAND OF THE FREELast month, age verification laws went into effect in Wyoming and South Dakota, requiring sites hosting “material that is harmful to minors” to verify visitors are over 18 years old. These would normally just be two more states joining the nearly 30 that have so far ceded ground to a years-long campaign for enforcing invasive, ineffective methods of keeping kids away from porn online. But these two states’ laws leave out an important condition: Unlike the laws passed in other states, they don’t state that this applies only to sites with “33.3 percent” or one-third “harmful” material. That could mean Wyoming and South Dakota would require a huge number of sites to use age verification because they host any material they deem harmful to minors, not just porn sites.  Image obtained by Unraveled SADCHANDLER.GIFA Drug Enforcement Administration agent used a local police officer’s password to the Flock automated license plate reader system to search for someone suspected of an “immigration violation.” That DEA agent did this “without [the local police officer’s] knowledge,” and the password to the Flock account, which belonged to the Palos Heights PD, has since been changed. Using license plate readers for immigration enforcement is illegal in Illinois, and casual password sharing between local police and federal law enforcement for access to surveillance systems is, at the very least, against Flock’s terms of service. The details of the search were first reported by the investigative news outlet Unraveled, which obtained group chats about the search using a public records request. More details about the search were obtained and shared with 404 Media by Shawn, a 404 Media reader who filed a public records request with Palos Heights after attending one of our FOIA Forums.  Photo by João Paulo Carnevalli de Oliveira / Unsplash THIRSTY DATACENTERSIn the UK, the water shortage is so bad that the government is urging citizens to help save water by deleting old emails. The suggestion came in a press release posted on the British government’s website Tuesday after a meeting of its National Drought Group. The release gave an update on the status of the drought, which is bad. The Wye and Ely Ouse rivers are at their lowest ever recorded height and “five areas are officially in drought, with six more experiencing prolonged dry weather following the driest six months to July since 1976,” according to the release. It also listed a few tips to help people save on water. MORE GOOD POSTSResponding to the podcast, Why Are DHS Agents Wearing Meta Ray-Bans?, Chloe wrote: “I literally read, listen to and pay for 404 content *because* you cover AI, ICE/law enforcement, and porn with more nuance and transparency than other outlets. Those topics in particular have so much two-siderism shoehorned into their mainstream coverage, it drives me crazy. (Also, you guys even explained this strategy at some point, which I found really useful as a journalist: you start with a small(er) story on a topic in order to position yourself as a reliable reporter, then sources bring you bigger and bigger scoops. Makes sense that you'd develop some really solid niches as a result.)”
And Richard replied: “I totally agree with this! And also wanna add: people complain all the time about the tendency of the media to all cover hot-button issues for a week or two and then move on to the next shiny object, and how that tends to be a pressure-release valve on actual change following the spotlight. And here is 404 demonstrating that, indeed, staying on a story(s) can make a difference. I could not be happier to continue supporting the site.”
BEHIND THE BLOGThis is Behind the Blog, where we share our behind-the-scenes thoughts about how a few of our top stories of the week came together. This week, we discuss OSINT for chat groups, Russell Crowe films, and storage problems. JOSEPH: On Wednesday we recorded a subscribers podcast about the second anniversary of 404 Media. That should hit your feeds next week or so. Towards the end of recording, I went silent for a bit. I said on air sorry about that, a source just sent me an insane tip, or something like that. That tip led to ICE Adds Random Person to Group Chat, Exposes Details of Manhunt in Real-Time. Definitely read the piece if you haven’t already. It presented an interesting verification challenge. Essentially I was given these screenshots which included phone numbers but I didn’t know exactly who was behind each one. I didn’t know their names, nor their agencies. It sure looked like a conversation involving ICE though, because it included a “Field Operations Worksheet” covered in ICE branding. But I needed to know who was involved. I didn’t think DHS or ICE would help because they are taking multiple days to reply to media requests if they do at all at the moment. So I had to do something else.
Read the rest of Joseph's Behind the Blog, as well as Sam, Joseph, and Jason's, by becoming a paid subscriber.
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