Tag: surveillance

The Israeli Government Installed and Maintained Security System at Epstein Apartment

The Israeli government installed security equipment and controlled access to a Manhattan apartment building managed by convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, according to a set of emails recently released by the Department of Justice. The equipment was installed starting in early 2016 at 301 E. 66th Street—the residence where former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak frequently stayed for stretches at a time.

The security operation at “Ehud’s apartment” was in place for at least two years, emails from the DOJ disclosure show, with officials from the Israeli permanent mission to the United Nations corresponding regularly with Epstein’s staff regarding security. The apartment was technically owned by a company connected to Epstein’s brother, Mark Epstein, but was effectively controlled by Jeffrey Epstein. Units in the building were frequently loaned out to Epstein’s contacts and used to house underage models.

Rafi Shlomo, then-director of protective service at the Israeli mission to the United Nations in New York and head of Barak’s security, corresponded with Epstein employees to arrange meetings to discuss security and coordinate installation of specialized surveillance equipment at the 66th Street residence. Shlomo personally controlled access to the apartment for guests and even conducted background checks on cleaners and Epstein’s employees.

Under Israeli law, former prime ministers and other high ranking officials typically receive security services after they leave office. According to the emails, Epstein personally approved the installation of the equipment and authorized meetings between his staff and Israeli security officials.

Ehud Barak and the Israeli mission to the United Nations did not respond to requests for comment.

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Nancy Mace Demands Pam Bondi Appear Before Congress for Monitoring Lawmakers’ Epstein Files Searches

Lawmakers are not yet finished with Attorney General Pam Bondi.

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) led a new charge on Friday morning, demanding Bondi testify before the House Oversight Committee while raising concern about Bondi’s appearance before the House Judiciary panel on Wednesday.

During the hearing, a photographer captured an image of Bondi with a document appearing to show Rep. Pramila Jayapal’s (D-WA) searches on the Epstein Files — which she and other members of Congress were given access to two days earlier.

“In the Judiciary Committee, she had a folder open, and you saw an image of a search history of a member of Congress in the software in the database,” Mace said in an interview making the rounds on Friday morning. “Why is the DOJ — why is the attorney general carrying around a folder of the search histories of members of Congress who only simply want the truth? She should answer for that, and I think she should come before the Oversight Committee, because I have a lot of tough questions.”

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Homeland Security Spying on Reddit Users

Homeland security field agents are scouring the social media site Reddit, monitoring the communications of law-abiding Americans critical of the agency.

The spying is revealed in a January intelligence bulletin produced by the Border Patrol and leaked to me. The subject of the report is Reddit user “Budget-Chicken-2425,” who is not a narco-trafficker, gang member, or terrorist. Just someone concerned about federal overreach.

The report centers on Budget-Chicken’s call for a protest near a Border Patrol facility in Edinburg, Texas. Though the report acknowledges that anti-ICE protests throughout Texas have been “generally lawful” and that there’s no evidence of any threat posed by Budget-Chicken’s call, any protest whatsoever near the border patrol facility is said to “warrant continued monitoring.”

To quote directly from the intelligence bulletin:

“At this time, there is no specific reporting of planned violence targeting DHS personnel or facilities linked to this protest call; however, any demonstration in proximity to USBP [United States Border Patrol] RGV [Rio Grande Valley] facilities may present operational, safety, and reputational risks that warrant continued monitoring.”

Budget-Chicken’s offending Reddit post was on the r/RioGrandeValley channel. Titled “Join me in protest against ICE,” the post is just a few sentences long, calling on “neighbors, family and community” to “be witnesses and to spread awareness” by protesting a Border Patrol station.

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ICE’s Secret Watchlists of Americans

“We have a nice little database and now you’re considered a domestic terrorist,” a masked federal agent taunted a protester filming him in Maine last week.

Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin’s response was firm: “There is NO database of ‘domestic terrorists’ run by DHS.”

There’s just one problem: She’s lying.

Two senior national security officials tell me that there are more than a dozen secret and obscure watchlists that homeland security and the FBI are using to track protesters (both anti-ICE and pro-Palestinian), “Antifa,” and others who are promiscuously labeled “domestic terrorists.”

I can reveal for the first time that some of the secret lists and applications go by codenames like Bluekey, Grapevine, Hummingbird, Reaper, Sandcastle, Sienna, Slipstream, and Sparta (including the ominous sounding HEL-A and HEL-C reports generated by Sparta).

Some of these, like Hummingbird, were created to vet and track immigrants, in this case Afghans seeking to settle in the United States. Slipstream is a classified social media repository. Others are tools used to link people on the streets together, including collecting on friends and families who have nothing to do with any purported lawbreaking.

There’s practically nothing available that further describes what these watchlists do, how large they are, or what they entail.

“We came out of 9/11 with the notion that we would have a single ‘terrorist’ watchlist to eliminate confusion, duplication and avoid bad communications, but ever since January 6, not only have we expanded exponentially into purely domestic watchlisting, but we have also created a highly secretive and compartmented superstructure that few even understand,” says a DHS attorney intimately familiar with the subject. The attorney spoke on the agreement that their identity not be disclosed.

Prior to 9/11, there were nine federal agencies that maintained 12 separate watchlists. Now, officially there are just three: a watchlist of 1.1 million international terrorists, a watchlist of more than 10,000 domestic terrorists maintained by the FBI, and a new watchlist of transnational criminals, built up to more than 85,000 over the past decade.

The new domestic-related watchlists—a set of databases and applications—exist inside and outside the FBI and are used by agencies like ICE and the Border Patrol to organize the Niagara of information in possession of the federal government. Collectively, they create ways to sort, analyze, and search information, a task that even artificial intelligence has failed to conquer (so far).

Among other functions, the new watchlists process tips, situation reports and collected photographs and video submitted by both the public and from agents in the field; they create a “common operating picture” in places like Minneapolis; they allow task forces to target individuals for surveillance and arrest; and they create the capacity for intelligence people to link individuals together through geographic proximity or what is labeled “call chaining” by processing telephone numbers, emails, and other contact information.

Administration officials have alluded to all of this, though contrary to the Hollywood idea of some all-seeing eye, actual government watchlists are more a patchwork system of lists and applications, each of which might have individual justification or even legitimate purpose to aid law enforcement but overall form the basis for massive violations of American civil rights.

“One thing I’m pushing for right now … we’re going to create a database where those people that are arrested for interference, impeding and assault, we’re going to make them famous,” Tom Homan, Trump’s border czar, told Fox News earlier this month.

Watchlists in general fly in the face of the spirit of the Constitution and the protections it’s supposed to embody against unreasonable search and seizure, and relating to the right of privacy.

“Fairness can rarely be obtained by secret, one-sided determination of facts decisive of rights,” Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter said of a Justice Department list of subversives during the Red Scare. “Secrecy is not congenial to truthseeking.”

Now, the national security community has developed an interlocking set of lists and applications that are secret not just to the public but opaque to most who toil in the federal agencies themselves. Asked about the watchlists, a Border Patrol agent recounted to me how they punch their data into their own proprietary application, not really knowing what happens after that.

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DHS Expands Surveillance Reach With New Drone Office

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), long seen as emblematic of unconstitutionally expanding state power and surveillance, is increasing its capabilities again with a new office focused on drone and counter-drone technologies. The move adds another layer to a surveillance apparatus that already includes biometric tracking, AI systems, wide-area cameras, and data-fusion tools used across federal agencies. The announcement comes as the nation prepares for multiple high-profile events later this year.

The New Office

DHS explained in its press release:

Drones are transforming industries nationwide, but they are also increasingly exploited by malicious actors. The new DHS Program Executive Office for Unmanned Aircraft Systems and Counter-Unmanned Aircraft Systems will oversee strategic investments in drone and counter-drone technologies that can outpace evolving threats and tactics.

The language emphasizes speed, adaptability, and scale. DHS confirmed that the office is already operational and focused on rapid procurement and deployment across its components.

The department said it is finalizing a $115-million investment in counter-drone technologies.

DHS Secretary Kristi Noem cast the initiative in geopolitical terms. “Drones represent the new frontier of American air superiority,” she said, adding that the new DHS entity will address both long- and short-term security needs of America:

[The new office] will help us continue to secure the border and cripple the cartels, protect our infrastructure, and keep Americans safe as they attend festivities and events during a historic year of America’s 250th birthday and FIFA [soccer’s World Cup venues in] 2026.

As reported by NextGov/FCW, the authority stems from the FY26 National Defense Authorization Act, which “extended DHS and the Justice Department’s counter-drone authorities until 2031.”

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US conducting surveillance flights over Nigeria after Trump intervention threat

The US has been conducting intelligence-gathering flights over large parts of Nigeria since late November, according to flight tracking data and current and former US officials, in a sign of increased security cooperation between the countries.

Reuters could not determine what information the flights are meant to obtain.

But the flights in West Africa follow US President Donald Trump’s threats in November to militarily intervene in Nigeria over what he says is its failure to stop violence targeting Christian communities.

The flights also are occurring just months after a US pilot working for a missionary agency was kidnapped in neighbouring Niger.

The US contractor-operated aircraft used for the surveillance operations typically takes off from Ghana and flies over Nigeria before returning to Accra, the Ghanaian capital, the tracking data for December shows.

Flight tracking data shows the operator is Mississippi-based Tenax Aerospace, which provides special mission aircraft and works closely with the US military, according to the company’s website.

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How new social media checks would change travel to US

The US is seeking to significantly expand its 

vetting of social media accounts for people who want to enter the country.

In 2019, during President Donald Trump’s first term, the US imposed a requirement that visa applicants disclose their social media accounts. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) now aims to apply a similar requirement to another group: travellers from countries such as the UK, Japan and Australia whose citizens can enter the US without a visa.

The Trump administration argues that the rule change is necessary to ensure travellers entering the country “do not bear hostile attitudes” to the US and its citizens. Civil-liberties groups warn that the approach marks a sweeping expansion of federal surveillance over routine travel. Here’s what to know.

What exactly is the US proposing?

The US is proposing that foreign visitors from countries whose citizens can travel to the US without a visa, but must still apply online for advance authorisation, provide their social media history from the last five years. 

DHS did not respond to a query about what information applicants from visa-waiver countries would need to supply for the social media screening. (Visa applicants are required to list all social media identifiers they have used in the past five years.)

Applicants would also be required to supply, when “feasible,” a broad set of additional personal information: telephone numbers used in the last five years; e-mail addresses used in the last ten years; IP addresses and metadata from electronically submitted photos; family members’ names, residences, places and dates of birth, and phone numbers used in the last five years; and personal biometrics – fingerprints, DNA samples, iris scans, and facial images. The proposal does not clarify how biometric information would be collected. 

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Texas AG sues five major TV companies for allegedly spying on state residents

exas Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton filed lawsuits Monday against five major television companies for allegedly spying on state residents by secretly recording what they watch in their own homes.

The lawsuits include two China-based television companies, Hisense and TCL Technology Group Corporation, which Paxton claimed pose serious concerns about consumer data harvesting. 

The three American companies are Sony, Samsung and LG. 

“Companies, especially those connected to the Chinese Communist Party, have no business illegally recording Americans’ devices inside their own homes,” Paxton said. “This conduct is invasive, deceptive, and unlawful. The fundamental right to privacy will be protected in Texas because owning a television does not mean surrendering your personal information to Big Tech or foreign adversaries.”

Paxton’s office said the companies have been illegally collecting personal information from users through Automated Content Recognition technology, which captures “screenshots of a user’s television display every 500 milliseconds, monitor viewing activity in real time, and transmit that information back to the company without the user’s knowledge or consent.”

The companies then sell the information to ad agencies so targeted advertisements can be shared on different platforms.

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Palantir Quietly Lands In Education Department Through Foreign Funding Portal

Palantir is expanding its reach into the Education Department, where the data analytics and software giant is helping develop the agency’s new portal for universities across the country to report foreign donations.

The quiet move marks the technology company’s latest expansion into federal government work, particularly in data management services.

An Education Department spokesperson confirmed Palantir was involved as a subcontractor for its revamped foreign funding portal, which is set to be rolled out early next month.

The agency announced the portal project this week, but did not name the vendors behind it. The portal will serve as a central place for schools to disclose to the department any foreign-source gifts and contracts worth $250,000 or more, the agency said.

Palantir is a subcontractor to Monkton, a northern Virginia-based computer and network security company, the spokesperson told FedScoop. According to federal spending records, the Education Department awarded a contract to Monkton in September that obligated $9.8 million for the design, development, and deployment of a “Section 117 Information Sharing Environment Capable of Providing Greater Transparency.” Palantir, however, is not publicly listed as a subcontractor on the project.

Section 117 of the Higher Education Act requires schools to disclose foreign gifts and contracts over $250,000.

The contract with Monkton could cost the agency up to $61.8 million, more than six times the cost of the modernization project for the ed.gov website, which was allocated $10 million in 2022.

Speculation over the portal began after the agency’s Office of the Chief Information Officer registered a new federal domain, foreignfundinghighered.gov, which was discovered by a bot tracking new government domains.

When FedScoop visited the link shortly before 10:30 a.m. ET on Thursday, the website showed a blocked network alert, which read, “The network connection you are using is not in your enrollment’s ingress allowlist. Please contact your enrollment administrator or Palantir representative.”

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Smith Prosecutors Admitted They Risked Lawsuits To Illegally Grab Senators’ Private Records

In a move that has raised eyebrows among conservatives, special counsel Jack Smith and his team have been revealed to have pursued the phone records of Republican congress members, despite being cautioned about the potential for “litigation risk,” according to internal emails.

As reported by Western Journal, the emails, which were made public on Tuesday by Senators Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, expose the deliberations of prosecutors as they decided which congress members to target with subpoenas. These actions were part of the “Arctic Frost” investigation, which later evolved into Smith’s 2020 election case against then-President Donald Trump.

John Keller, the former head of the Justice Department Public Integrity Section, had warned the prosecutors in a May 2023 email, stating, “As you are aware, there is some litigation risk regarding whether compelled disclosure of toll records of a Member’s legislative calls violates the Speech or Debate Clause in the D.C. Circuit.” Despite this caution, Keller gave the green light for the subpoenas.

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