Senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine formally asked the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to investigate and provide details on many of the surveillance technologies being used by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), according to a copy of the letter shared with 404 Media.

The letter touches on many of the surveillance technologies and companies that 404 Media has been writing about in recent months, including Flock license plate readers, Penlink social media and location data monitoring, Clearview AI’s facial recognition tech, Paragon Solutions’ phone hacking technology, as well as other social media scanning and biometric collection databases used by DHS in Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.

“We are deeply concerned that ICE’s surge in brutality against American communities is being facilitated by the inappropriate and unsupervised use of surveillance technology,” the senators wrote. “As such, we formally request an investigation by your office into the methods that DHS uses to collect, retain, analyze, and use data about the communities where it operates in conjunction with the companies mentioned above, and any companies DHS is seeking to conduct business with–for similar purposes—in the future.”

The letter then demands that Joseph Cuffari, the Inspector General for DHS, provide information about how DHS obtains, processes, and stores people’s sensitive data, whether it keeps track of false positive and incorrect identities returned with its biometric surveillance tools, whether it keeps track of times its surveillance tools are used against U.S. citizens, how it shares information with private companies, and how it obtains information from other federal agencies. It also seeks information about DHS’s relationships with data brokers, whether it allows people to opt out of surveillance, and any privacy protections around some of the data it obtains.
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While the letter itself seems unlikely to change anything about how ICE is operating in the field, these types of information gathering exercises from lawmakers often result in new details about the inner workings of surveillance programs and tools and can eventually lead to reform.

“In addition to egregious practices we have seen in public reporting, it’s important that your office shine light on activities that undergird ICE’s enforcement actions including a muddled patchwork of technology procurements that have significantly expanded DHS’ ability to collect, retain, and analyze information about Americans,” they wrote. “Together, ICE’s new information collection tools potentially enable DHS to circumvent the constitutional protections provided by the Fourth Amendment—protections guaranteed to all Americans and all persons within our borders.”

The Trump administration has sought to undercut inspectors general across the federal government; soon after he was inaugurated, Trump fired at least 17 inspectors general. Cuffari, who was appointed during Trump’s first term and served under Joe Biden as well, was one of the few inspectors general who was left in his post. In 2024, an independent panel found that Cuffari had violated ethics rules during this confirmation process and recommended that he be replaced, but Biden left him in his role.

ICE Taps into Nationwide AI-Enabled Camera Network, Data Shows

Flock's automatic license plate reader (ALPR) cameras are in more than 5,000 communities around the U.S. Local police are doing lookups in the nationwide system for ICE.

^{Jason Koebler (404 Media)}

404 Media

2026-01-08 14:00:08

Inside ICE’s Tool to Monitor Phones in Entire Neighborhoods

A social media and phone surveillance system ICE bought access to is designed to monitor a city neighborhood or block for mobile phones, track the movements of those devices and their owners over time, and follow them from their places of work to home or other locations, according to material that describes how the system works obtained by 404 Media.

Commercial location data, in this case acquired from hundreds of millions of phones via a company called Penlink, can be queried without a warrant, according to an internal ICE legal analysis shared with 404 Media. The purchase comes squarely during ICE’s mass deportation effort and continued crackdown on protected speech, alarming civil liberties experts and raising questions on what exactly ICE will use the surveillance system for.

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Do you know anything else about this tool? Do you work for ICE, CBP, or another agency? I would love to hear from you. Using a non-work device, you can message me securely on Signal at joseph.404 or send me an email at joseph@404media.co.

“This is a very dangerous tool in the hands of an out-of-control agency. This granular location information paints a detailed picture of who we are, where we go, and who we spend time with,” Nathan Freed Wessler, deputy project director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s (ACLU) Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, told 404 Media.

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Inside ICE’s Tool to Monitor Phones in Entire Neighborhoods

404 Media has obtained material that explains how Tangles and Webloc, two surveillance systems ICE recently purchased, work. Webloc can track phones without a warrant and follow their owners home or to their employer.

^{Joseph Cox (404 Media)}