Federal officials told faith leaders gathered outside the Broadview ICE detention center in Illinois that ’there is no more prayer in front of building or inside the building because this is the state and it’s not [of a] religious background.’ The directive marked the third time …
In November 2025, the Department of Homeland Security released the “Mobile Identify” facial recognition app on Google’s app store, making it available to state and local law enforcement agencies deputized to work with ICE. The Trump Tyranny Tracker reported on November 4 that the …
In September 2025 alone, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) awarded $1.4 billion in new surveillance technology contracts, representing the highest monthly total in at least 18 years. These contracts provide ICE with extensive surveillance capabilities including facial recognition algorithms, …
ICE lifted the stop work order on its $2 million contract with Israeli spyware maker Paragon, granting the agency access to ‘Graphite’ spyware capable of bypassing encryption on WhatsApp, Signal, and Facebook Messenger. The software uses ‘zero-click exploits’ that force …
Over 2,300 National Guard troops from West Virginia, South Carolina, Mississippi, Ohio, Louisiana, and Tennessee began patrolling Washington DC streets carrying M17 handguns and M4 semiautomatic rifles, marking an unprecedented militarization of the nation’s capital during peacetime. The armed …
Electronic Frontier Foundation reveals that a Johnson County, Texas sheriff’s officer searched data from more than 83,000 automated license plate reader cameras across 6,809 different Flock Safety camera networks to track down a woman suspected of self-managing an abortion. The search spanned …
Legal resistance networks, including Lawyers for Good Government (L4GG) and Democracy Forward, establish a comprehensive rapid response protocol for challenging unconstitutional administrative actions. The protocol includes 24-hour emergency legal review, pre-prepared litigation templates, and a …
CIVICUS Monitor’s comprehensive report documents systematic decline in U.S. civic freedoms including freedom of association, peaceful assembly, and expression, warning that democratic institutions are under severe threat.
A comprehensive strategic litigation framework is developed by the Constitutional Litigation Consortium, Electronic Frontier Foundation, and American Civil Liberties Union, focusing on coordinated legal challenges to administrative overreach. The strategy prioritizes state-level constitutional …
Legal resistance network holds first major strategy summit, developing coordinated approach to challenging administrative overreach. Key focus on unified litigation strategies, shared legal resources, and rapid response mechanisms for constitutional violations. Multiple civil liberties …
In response to increasing institutional challenges, a network of pro bono legal organizations begins systematic coordination to challenge unconstitutional policies and administrative overreach. Key civil rights and constitutional law organizations form a unified strategic litigation approach, …
The Institute for Justice files a federal lawsuit on behalf of Norfolk residents Lee Schmidt and Crystal Arrington, challenging the city’s deployment of 172 Flock Safety automated license plate recognition (ALPR) cameras as an unconstitutional violation of the Fourth Amendment’s …
Flock Safety’s automated license plate recognition network reaches unprecedented scale, with more than 5,000 law enforcement departments across the United States using interconnected cameras that perform over 20 billion scans of vehicles every month. The company now operates in more than 5,000 …
Three privacy rights advocates filed a class action lawsuit against Oracle Corporation on August 19, 2022, in the Northern District of California, alleging that the company operates a “worldwide surveillance machine” that has compiled detailed digital dossiers on approximately 5 billion …
On May 18, 2021, Amazon extended its global ban on police use of Rekognition facial recognition software indefinitely “until further notice,” prolonging what was originally announced as a one-year moratorium in June 2020. The extension came just weeks before the original moratorium was …
On Wednesday, June 10, 2020, Amazon announced a one-year moratorium on police use of its Rekognition facial recognition software, shocking civil rights activists and researchers who had spent two years fighting to stop the company from selling surveillance technology to law enforcement. The …
On July 26, 2018, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) released results of an independently verified test demonstrating that Amazon’s Rekognition facial recognition software incorrectly matched 28 members of Congress with mugshots from a database of arrest photos. The test, which cost …
Human Rights Watch released a comprehensive 214-page report documenting that many high-profile FBI terrorism prosecutions were “an illusion” based on aggressive sting operations that entrapped vulnerable individuals who posed no genuine threat. The report analyzed decades of terrorism …
The United States Supreme Court unanimously rules in Riley v. California that police generally may not, without a warrant, search digital information on a cell phone seized from an individual who has been arrested. Chief Justice John Roberts writes the landmark opinion, declaring that “cell …
Four men from Newburgh, New York—James Cromitie, David Williams, Onta Williams, and Laguerre Payen—were arrested in an FBI sting operation in which a paid government informant conceived the plot, provided all the means, and coerced economically desperate men into participating. A federal judge …
A Department of Justice Inspector General audit revealed that the FBI’s terrorist watchlist contained approximately 35% errors, with large portions of the list governed by no formal processes for updating or removing records. The report exposed systematic failures in a watchlist system that …
The FBI ordered informant Craig Monteilh to infiltrate multiple large mosques in Orange County, California, in a dragnet surveillance operation that targeted entire Muslim communities rather than specific suspects. The operation exemplified the FBI’s post-9/11 practice of religious profiling …
James Risen and Eric Lichtblau published a groundbreaking front-page New York Times article revealing the NSA had been conducting warrantless surveillance of Americans since 2001 under President Bush’s secret authorization. The story exposed that the NSA, traditionally focused on foreign …
Congress passes the Department of Defense Appropriations Act for 2004 (H.R. 2658), containing language that permanently terminates funding for the Total Information Awareness (TIA) program and orders the immediate closure of DARPA’s Information Awareness Office. The Senate had voted …
The New York Times publishes an investigative piece by John Markoff exposing the full scope of the Pentagon’s Total Information Awareness (TIA) program, a $240 million initiative that aims to create unprecedented mass surveillance capabilities by mining personal data from financial …
President Bush signed the USA PATRIOT Act just 45 days after 9/11, following an unprecedented rushed legislative process that bypassed normal democratic deliberation. The 342-page bill was introduced October 23, passed the House 357-66 on October 24, and the Senate 98-1 on October 25, with only …
In September 2001, AT&T established a secret partnership with the NSA to provide direct access to its internet backbone infrastructure, creating unprecedented mass surveillance capabilities that bypass traditional legal protections. This infrastructure enabled the systematic collection and …
The Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, led by Senator Frank Church, comprehensively investigated illegal activities by US intelligence agencies. The committee exposed widespread constitutional violations including NSA’s Project …