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It's Friday, it's weekly roundup time, so let's get into it. On the podcast this week: A tool ICE bought that can monitor phones in entire neighborhoods, and what’s new with Grok. In the section for subscribers at the Supporter level, how police inadvertently unmasked millions of their surveillance targets through a Flock redaction error. And in this week’s interview episode, Jason talked to YouTuber Benn Jordan, who’s reporting on Flock, the automated license plate reader surveillance company.
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Listen to the weekly podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. Check your subscriber status here, and become a Supporter to get podcast episodes early and access bonus content. 'TARGET RICH' NEIGHBORHOODSPalantir is working on a tool for ICE that populates a map with potential deportation targets, brings up a dossier on each person, and provides a “confidence score” on the person’s current address, 404 Media has learned. ICE is using it to find locations where lots of people it might detain could be based. The findings, based on internal ICE material obtained by 404 Media, public procurement records, and recent sworn testimony from an ICE official, show the clearest link yet between the technological infrastructure Palantir is building for ICE and the agency’s activities on the ground. The tool receives peoples’ addresses from the Department of Health and Human Services among a range of other sources, according to the material.  Image: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, via Flickr. AI generated influencers are sharing fake images on Instagram that appear to show them having sex with celebrities like LeBron James, iShowSpeed, and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. One AI influencer even shared an image of her in bed with Venezuela’s president Nicolás Maduro. The images are AI generated but are not disclosed as such, and funnel users to an adult content site where the AI generated influencers sell nude images. This recent trend is the latest strategy from the growing business of monetizing AI generated porn by harvesting attention on Instagram with shocking or salacious content.  Screenshots via Instagram NICE WORK GUYSA handful of police departments that use Flock have unwittingly leaked details of millions of surveillance targets and a large number of active police investigations around the country because they have failed to redact license plates information in public records releases. Flock responded to this revelation by threatening a site that exposed it and by limiting the information the public can get via public records requests. Completely unredacted Flock audit logs have been released to the public by numerous police departments and in some cases include details on millions of Flock license plate searches made by thousands of police departments from around the country.  Image: HaveIBeenFlocked & Flock DASHCAMS FOR THE PEOPLEWhen self-employed software engineer Nick Benson put out the call for dashcams online, he thought he’d get maybe 10 people to donate. More than 500 dashcams have shown up on his front porch in suburban Minneapolis. “The state apparatus, of course, has cameras everywhere,” Benson told 404 Media. “The citizens will also benefit from having the same cameras around to document what's going on and making sure that everything is on the up and up.” On January 7, two days after Benson put out his call for dashcams, ICE agent Jonathan Ross shot legal observer Renee Good in the face. In the wake of that killing, multiple people have filmed agents threatening the lives of other observers. Benson feels like he has to do something, so he gets dashcams into the hands of people who want them. “We need more documentation showing what these people are doing. Because I don't know—other than a compelling visual documentation of what's going on—I don't know what other tools we have until the legislative branch of our government can stand up and do its job and provide a check to all of this, because our state government can't,” he said.  Courtesy photo Nick Benson READ MORE Replying to “New Legislation Would Rein In ICE’s Facial Recognition App,” Katie Gray writes: “I used this article to call my reps about this bill this morning. (Those calls always begin, ‘Abolish ICE, it's only been around since 2003. We can do it! In the meantime...’) The one staff member I reached in person to had not heard of it yet. So thank you! This piece helped at least one staffer in one senator's office get informed.”
And in response to How One Guy Crowdsourced More Than 500 Dashcams for Minneapolis to Film ICE, Brian Tatosky writes: This is only going to end when the average person says ‘enough’, so kudos to this guy for a good idea on how to help.
This 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 the staying power of surveillance coverage, the jigsaw of reporting, and eyestrain. JASON: I’ve started this year in the same way I spent a lot of last year: Writing about the automated license plate reader company Flock. In my career it’s been sort of weird for me to focus on one company or one thing so much for so long. I tend to get a little restless about the topics I cover, and there can sometimes be a very real fatigue with specific types of stories. After a while, people “get it,” and so the bar for a new story on a topic keeps going up. I wish this weren’t the case, and we try to cover things we feel are important, but if you’re writing about a topic and no one is reading it, then the audience might be telling you they don’t find that thing interesting anymore. Read the rest of Jason's Behind the Blog, as well as Joseph and Sam's, by becoming a paid subscriber here.
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