Ireland Lesley

Screenshot of article, full text reads, "Senators passed the Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act on Thursday, clearing a bill that creates stronger data protections for teens. The bill, commonly referred to as COPPA 2.0, updates the original 1998 legislation to extend privacy protections from people under the age of 13 to people under 17. It creates restrictions on how companies use minors’ data and bans targeting ads to kids. It passed with unanimous consent Thursday following remarks from co-sponsor Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) “Passing COPPA 2.0 today would represent the single most significant update to children’s online privacy protections in a quarter of a century. It’s long overdue,” Markey said. The Senate bill passed as the House Energy and Commerce Committee marked up a package of children’s safety and privacy bills, including COPPA 2.0’s counterpart. Markey criticized the House version as a “weaker, partisan version” of the Senate version."

The Senate's unanimous and bipartisan passage of COPPA 2.0 is a major milestone in the fight to protect children and teens online. I'm ready to work with my colleagues in the House to pass COPPA 2.0 into law. Let's get this done.

BREAKING: COPPA 2.0 just passed the Senate by unanimous consent. This marks a tremendous victory in my decades long fight for children and teens’ online privacy. Now, the House must do the same.

How Big Tech Is Powering Trump’s Immigration Crackdown A WIRED analysis shows that ICE and CBP have collectively spent at least $515 million on products from Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and Palantir in the last few years alone.

NEW: Since Jan 2023, ICE + CBP together have spent at least $515 million on products from Palantir, Microsoft, Amazon, & Google.

But where is the money actually going, & what specifically is it powering? Here, I break down everything we know about both of these things:
www.wired.com/story/how-bi...

Ron Wyden Is Begging His Colleagues To Stop Trying To Hand Trump A Censorship Weapon

We've been writing about Section 230 for a very long time. We've written about why it matters, why the people attacking it are wrong, and why most of the proposed "reforms" would make the internet dramatically…

CBP Tapped Into the Online Advertising Ecosystem To Track Peoples’ Movements An internal DHS document obtained by 404 Media shows for the first time CBP used location data sourced from the online advertising industry to track phone locations. ICE has bought access to similar t...

SCOOP: An internal DHS document obtained by 404 Media shows for the first time CBP used location data sourced from the online advertising industry to track phone locations.

This surveillance can happen through all sorts of apps, such as video games, news apps, weather trackers, and dating apps.

By Tesla's own math, it reveals that its robotaxis are 4x worse at driving than humans, with redactions hiding even more details | Fortune By NHTSA standards, the Tesla Robotaxis are 8x worse than human drivers.

About every 57k miles driven by Musk’s robotaxis one gets into a wreck. That’s four times the rate of humans.

OpenAI strikes deal with Pentagon after Trump orders government to stop using Anthropic On X, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said he had moved to label Anthropic as a "supply chain risk" and cancel Defense business with the company.

One way to read the AI/Pentagon news from last night (I covered it but didn't skeet) is that the Department of Defense wants AI to automate weapons and/or spy on Americans and that Anthropic would have the best AI to do that, but OpenAI is at least the second-best so they'll just use that instead.

The irony is stark: a private AI company is holding the line on guardrails against mass surveillance and autonomous weapons—while the federal government pushes to remove them. After revoking Biden's AI safety policies, the Trump administration is now pressuring Anthropic to abandon its own.

Trump Administration Will Collect Social Media Handles from Legal Immigrants and U.S. Citizens The new requirement poses serious threats to free speech and privacy rights.

Your data will be used against you.

www.brennancenter.org/our-work/ana...

Local police aid ICE by tapping school cameras amid Trump’s immigration crackdown Local police assisted federal immigration agents by repeatedly searching school cameras that record license plate numbers, data show

Police departments across the U.S are tapping into school district security cameras & sharing the information with DHS.

Surveillance equipment in schools was never a project to keep children safe; this tech is used to regulate, control, seperate and intimidate immigrant families.

Leaked Email Suggests Ring Plans to Expand ‘Search Party’ Surveillance Beyond Dogs Ring's CEO told staff the feature is “first for finding dogs,” indicating a plan to expand.

Scoop: Ring's CEO told staff Search Party is not going to be just for dogs, according to a leaked email I obtained. Said it is "first for finding dogs" before suggesting it would be expanded to be used for crime:

www.404media.co/leaked-email...

Maryland bans partnerships with ICE, citing ‘unaccountable agents’ Gov. Wes Moore signed legislation ending 287(g) agreements between the state’s law enforcement agencies and the federal immigration enforcement agency.

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore signed legislation that bans local law enforcement agencies from formally facilitating immigration arrests. At least eight other states have banned or set restrictions on 287(g) partnerships involving ICE and local police offices.

It goes unsaid, but it seems likely that Meta partially feels so comfortable about this launch now is because they think the Federal Trade Commission won’t act against any violations of privacy or civil liberties. Other companies are likely making the same calculations. And they are probably right.

Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti-ICE Accounts

The ACLU (including my team) has filed multiple actions to block subpoenas sent by DHS to identify people speaking out against its abuses.

Today's NYT story shows that those cases are the tip of the iceberg: DHS has sent HUNDREDS of subpoenas to tech companies. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/13/t...

EPIC Urges FTC, States to Block Meta’s Facial Recognition Smart Glasses Plan <p>EPIC has sent a letter to the Federal Trade Commission and State Attorneys General urging them to quickly investigate and prevent Meta’s plan to add facial recognition and surveillance capabilities...

Today, we sent letters to the FTC and state attorneys general outlining Meta’s troubled history of privacy abuses and the serious risks associated with this plan. We urge enforcers to act immediately to block Meta’s latest rollout of facial recognition technology. epic.org/epic-urges-f...

Ed Markey Wants ICE Out of Your Face The Massachusetts senator tells Pressing Issues: “Surveillance without limits becomes power without accountability. And power without accountability becomes tyranny.”

“Surveillance without limits becomes power without accountability. And power without accountability becomes tyranny.” - Sen. Ed Markey

I interviewed @markey.senate.gov for the new Pressing Issues about his new bill to stop ICE and CPB from using face-scanning and other biometric surveillance tech.

ICE goons using their smartphones to photograph ICE watchers

Are we living in a surveillance state? Yes. Are we powerless to accept this as a 21st century fact of life? No. We can change the law to radically reshape our digital world. New blog post:

www.aclum.org/publications...

Inside ICE’s Only Contract with a Blue State - Bolts As part of a 287(g) contract between state officials and ICE, Massachusetts continues to release prisoners into deportation—even as state lawmakers look to ban other forms of ICE collaboration.

"The Massachusetts Department of Correction [] formally partners with ICE to transfer people who have finished their sentences: Since 2007, the state prison system has participated in the federal 287(g) program and [] regularly sends people exiting Massachusetts prisons directly into ICE custody."

What this ad doesn’t show: Ring also rolled out facial recognition for humans. I wrote to them months ago about this. Their answer? They won’t ask for your consent.

This definitely isn’t about dogs—it’s about mass surveillance.
x.com/Phil_Lewis_/...

Ok, you can stop texting me, I saw the Ring ad. Troubling things about it 🧵:

-The long awaited (much warned about) intro of “AI” recognition. It starts w/ searching for a “brown dog” but means the tech is there for lisence plate reading, face recognition, searching for suspects by description, etc

Screenshot of Boston Globe headline: ICE’s growing surveillance state ICE has constructed a digital dragnet that captures and retains massive amounts of data about all of us, citizens and noncitizens alike. By Edward J. Markey

Big Brother isn’t fiction anymore.

ICE is building a digital dragnet—facial recognition, plate readers, mass data—tracking all of us.

No oversight. No accountability.

We must stop ICE now. My op-ed in the Boston Globe.

Alarming new details about ICE facial recognition:
-DHS secretly rolled back its rules on the tech (which forbid current uses)
-No gallery of potential matches or confidence threshold ratings (standard practices for the tech)
-Agents told to prioritize it over fingerprint (which is more reliable)

Photo of Senators Markey, Merkley, and Rep. Jayapal behind a podium. Podium sign reads "end ICE and CBP facial recognition now."

Orwellian surveillance tools have no place in a democracy. That is why I introduced the ICE Out of Our Faces Act—to stop ICE and CBP from using dangerous and discriminatory facial recognition technologies. This must end now.

FBI Uses Facial Recognition To Identify ICE Protestors In Social Media Videos The FBI has charged multiple people with crimes like vandalism after determining their identities using the controversial technology, according to court records.

The FBI is using facial recognition to identify ICE protestors from YouTube and social media — a chilling escalation of surveillance against the constitutional right to protest.

@thomasbrewster.bsky.social reports on what’s at stake for protest and privacy rights:

Homeland Security is targeting Americans with this secretive legal weapon Under Trump, the Department of Homeland Security has weaponized administrative subpoenas to attack free speech, according to privacy and civil rights groups.

Two stories that should be read together on government surveillance of and pressure against dissenting speech. This one: wapo.st/4rtfCw8

Opinion | Democracy Dies by Database

"Whatever is happening with your data, it is important enough to the most egregiously lawless admin in Am. history that it be collected & consolidated. It is important enough that a federal cowboy kept one hand on his phone even as his other hand reached for his gun." www.nytimes.com/2026/02/03/o...

ICE’s Use of AI Will Lead to Big Mistakes. Maybe That’s the Point Cybersecurity experts say that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement seems to be indifferent to how their artificial intelligence tools work.

“Pointing out that AI is prone to giving ICE bad information is missing the entire point of ICE,” EFF’s @evacide.bsky.social told @RollingStone.com. “They don’t care if the information they have is good.”
www.rollingstone.com/culture/cul...

Opinion | ICE Took Their Classmate. They Started Writing Letters.

Well, that’ll wreck you. Gift link.

www.nytimes.com/2026/01/31/o...

How to Film ICE Filming federal agents in public is legal, but avoiding a dangerous—even deadly—confrontation isn’t guaranteed. Here’s how to record ICE and CBP agents as safely as possible and have an impact.

NEW: The @wired.com Security desk put together a comprehensive guide to filming ICE—with tips for reducing risk at the forefront. No paywall, but please consider subscribing to help find these kinds of resources. And stay safe out there. www.wired.com/story/how-to...

www.wired.com/v2/offers/wi...

How ICE Already Knows Who Minneapolis Protesters Are

A Minnesota woman observing ICE agents in her car was cornered on one-way streets. An agent approached, called her by name—citing facial recognition. Days later, her Global Entry and TSA privileges were revoked, with no explanation.