Congress is pressing tech companies to reveal the total number of DHS administrative subpoenas they receive
(and how often companies are giving their users notice or challenging them)
robinkelly.house.gov/sites/evo-su...
Not the point, but taking notes on a call is not wiretapping
It's important that lawmakers are demanding answers here. Every user of social media (including our clients in the cases we've filed) deserves to know whether companies are stepping up to protect them or selling them out to a repressive government.
NEW: citing our reporting, a group of lawmakers are demanding answers from tech companies on how many administrative subpoenas they have received from the Homeland Security Department.
www.nytimes.com/2026/02/25/t...
NYT: its Super Bowl commercial was intense, Mr. Siminoff, who had appeard in the ad with his dog Biscuit, said the company would move forward building out the Search Party feature. It hopes to be able to help people find their lost cats, a harder problem to solve than dogs.
404: 404 Media obtained an email that Siminoff sent to all Ring employees in early October, soon after the feature's launch, which said the feature was introduced “first for finding dogs," but that it or features like it would be expanded to “zero out crime in neighborhoods”
The value of @404media.co:
On a crisis PR tour, Ring’s CEO tells a NYT business reporter that Ring will build out its cameras’ AI “Search Party” feature to next find cats
404 quotes the CEO’s leaked emails that suggest he eventually wants the feature to track people
In case it wasn't clear, we are the dogs. And we're not lost.
www.404media.co/leaked-email...
DHS is abusing administrative subpoenas to target and silence its critics. @repespaillat.bsky.social and I will be introducing legislation that would make this practice illegal and help end these authoritarian abuses.
ICE subpoenas can’t be trusted
Tech companies need to do more to protect their users
www.eff.org/deeplinks/20...
The stories weren’t played together on A1, but they probably should’ve been.
We’ve come a long way as a planet from the Arab spring days when tech bros touted themselves as harbingers of freedom.
The social media companies must do more to stand up to these demands, many of which are illegal. This week @eff.org and @aclu-norcal.bsky.social sent the companies a letter explaining what they should do to protect people’s privacy and free speech. www.eff.org/deeplinks/20...
Meta hoped to slip one past busy privacy watchdogs and quietly embed facial recognition in its Ray-Ban glasses.
Now they're the target of letters from @epic.org calling on the FTC and state enforcers to step in.
Kudos to my EPIC colleagues, and bravo @kashhill.bsky.social & team for the scoop!
Please read.
Our reporting uncovered that hundreds of administrative subpoenas have been sent by the Homeland Security Department to Meta, Google, Reddit, and other social media companies. Some of the accounts they have sought to unmask have flight back in court.
where are the "free speech" warriors now www.nytimes.com/2026/02/13/t...
Meta thinks now is a great time to launch facial recognition surveillance tech in their creepy glasses because EFF will be too distracted by fascism to notice.
We noticed.
www.eff.org/deeplinks/20...
Meta’s conclusion that it can avoid scrutiny by releasing a privacy invasive product during a time of political crisis is craven and morally bankrupt. It is also dead wrong. www.eff.org/deeplinks/20...
The FTC and state AGs need to act *now* to stop this. Last time Meta slipped facial rec into its products (face tagging), enforcers dawdled. Meta took 11 years to wind it back.
We can't afford a decade of roving FRT-enabled surveillance cameras in every bathroom, clinic, classroom, and protest.
This is another billion dollar lawsuit waiting to happen www.eff.org/deeplinks/20...
Corporate surveillance and government surveillance are often the same www.eff.org/deeplinks/20...
“The Constitution does not permit the government to arrest thousands of individuals and then disregard their constitutional rights because it would be too challenging to honor those rights.“
Google should answer the question: how many other times has the company complied with a government demand for data without giving the targeted user a chance to fight it?
JUST IN: #SCOTUS to hear arguments April 27 on whether geofence search warrants comply with the Fourth Amendment www.politico.com/news/2026/01...
Once again, DHS withdraws an illegal and unconstitutional subpoena after the ACLU challenges it in court. This is the third time in about as many months.
The ACLU will keep fighting these one by one. But it would be a lot more efficient if tech companies would simply stepped up to fight on their users' behalf www.eff.org/deeplinks/20...
Google promises to give users notice before turning their data over to law enforcement. This gives users an opportunity to challenge unlawful requests.
Sometimes, it breaks that promise to avoid delays.
ICE has sent subpoenas to Meta and Google to investigate people who document immigration activities, criticize the government, or attend protests.
Tech platforms should use their immense resources to push back to protect their users. www.eff.org/deeplinks/20...
Question: If law enforcement compelled Ring to identify every camera/location in which a person's face has been detected on a Ring camera (either in the past or in real-time), would Ring have the technical capability to do so? Has Amazon discussed this capability with law enforcement? This hypothetical seems very similar to your "Search Party" feature Amazon describes—except for humans, not dogs. Answer: No.
EFF asked Ring about the dystopian implications of its "search party" feature three months ago. This was its response. Reporters should continue asking www.eff.org/document/rin...
A good thread from a privacy hawk who's been raising awareness about Ring's surveillance and law enforcement connections for years.
With minor tweaks, Amazon Ring’s tool to search for lost dogs could be used to track people www.eff.org/deeplinks/20...
Fun fact: I learned today that DHS puts out a daily newsletter to employees with links to news stories about the agency. We found this out because my editor noticed referral traffic from it. So when we in the press write these stories, DHS tells its employees to read them...???
