What we got wrong, and what replaced it

Retracted as "On Feb. 24, 2026, the D.C. court initially allowsCircuit affirmed the denial of a preliminary injunction and held that federal tax law permits IRS sharing" (Febto disclose taxpayer addresses to ICE only in response to written requests that meet the statute's requirements. 25/26, 2026) because no matching ruling had been found.

DHS deleted its facialremoved Directive 026-recognition oversight11 from its website in February 2025. It called the removal routine website maintenance and denied a policy change, dated February 2026, without explaining what happened before orbut had not publicly replaced the directive a year later. DHS fast-tracked Mobile Fortify less than two months after the takedowndirective disappeared, and the Brennan Center still found no clear public governing policy as of July 2026 while biometric deployment and spending expanded.

The entry was dated July 29, 2026, remained partial becauseBrennan Center published the report had not been fetched directlySept. 16, and included a2026, using data current through July 26. Its current chart reports more than $2.9 billion total: $1.361 billion secondbiometrics, $793.2 million video surveillance, $622.8 million data analytics, $228.6 million data purchases, $130.4 million phone-term totalcontent access and $9544.8 million social-media figure that are not in the current reportlocation tracking.

Listed as unconfirmed. Unconfirmed. Related but distinct: the Javorsky complaint alleges California ALPR data reached over 300 out-of-state agencies includingICE hired Koniag Services to run its 287(g) participantsNational Coordination Center: task order signed July 28, 2026, $17. That is about Flock data sharing5 million obligated, not evidence for a dedicated "287(g) coordination centerup to $63."0 million with options through August 2030.

Orders under the agreement need no separate competition; WIRED named CBP, ICE, FEMA, and CISAICE as able to "essentially skip the competitive bidding process. The" Palantir's CTO pitched expansion to, Akash Jain, named the Secret Service and, FEMA, TSA internallyand CISA in an internal email as places to expand.

DHS never confirmed a breach; cybersecurity researchers toldand ICE did not respond to TechCrunch's request for comment, and we have found no independent authentication of the files look genuinedata.

DIA confirmedAsked the same question, DIA Director James Adams did not say whether DIA still buys location data; he said its purchases of commercially available information go through legal channels and follow the law.

Scale: 5Five licenses, aboutbought through the reseller Octaris Technologies: $339k78, analysts only750 for the first year, up to $339,415 with options through March 2030. The records do not say who uses them.

Dated Apr 1March 31, 2026, the signing date; work began April 1. Prism Reports wrote that PLX intercepts and aggregates calls, texts, and web activity for"could enable DHS to track people's movements in real time"; Penlink says PLX does not provide real-time communications or location trackingdata.

Documented misidentifications of US citizens (OregonA CBP official testified that the app returned two different, Oct 2025incorrect names for a woman detained in Oregon (404 Media). Separately, a US citizen in Chicago told Reveal agents scanned his face.

At least 138 California deaths from 2022 through 2025 within a tower's nominal range, at least 81 in directof them most likely within a camera's field of view. CBP has never audited tower effectiveness against deaths, and plans $1B for 1,497 moredone little to assess how its towers by 2034are working or how many people have died where they keep watch.

Dated Aug 2726, 2026. $16.7M no-bid award to Compliant Technologies (KY) for 6,000 pairs of electric-shock gloves the signing date in the federal award record. Sixteen senators urged cancellationAug 27 is the same day; DHS called critics "despicable it was reported and the day sixteen senators urged ICE to cancel it."

Three different searchThe reported counts measure three different things, not one contested numberare given beside the official ones: about 45,000 total Flock queries across all purposes(Yahoo/Newsweek; "more than 10haveibeenflocked.com 45,000";318), 22,813 queries in the audit logs Lufkin PD released to us, and more than 325,400 searches on a single plate over 10 months000 non-law-enforcement inquiries per the District Attorney.

Sourced to news reportsChecked against the order itself (CNNN.D. Cal. No. 26-cv-01996, TechCrunchDkt. 250): 59 pages, finding the broad measures "illegal and baseless."

Renée Good (ICE, Jan 7, a vehicle-involved street confrontationshot in her car as she backed up and then pulled forward steering away from the agent, moments after telling him "That's fine, dude. I'm not mad at you"; not a routine traffic stop).

Norfolk says a similar case is pending elsewhere, without naming it. Working hypothesis, not confirmed: Chatrienamed Porter v. United States, No. 26-5121, a pending Supreme Court petition on whether accessing plate-reader data is a Fourth Amendment search.

Plaintiffs-side amicus briefs listed without theThe Project for Privacy and Surveillance Accountability also filed for Plaintiffs-Appellants (Doc. 27).

The figure cites the report of Norfolk's more favorable capture figure rests on a sealed declarationexpert, quoted asValentin Estevez, refiled publicly with redactions (Doc. 180-1). The brief's full wording: "topeven the 5% of vehicles... that were most photographed were on average photographed no more than once a day."

Norfolk's 2023 order set 30 days in 2024,. A 2025 Virginia law (Va. Code § 2.2-5517) requires a 21 days by 2026; when-day purge, and why not foundNorfolk's General Order OPR-493 (June 30, 2025) adopted it.

IJ Flock cancellation count now 224227 local governments as of Sept 21. Not corroborable; last confirmed figure 163 as of Sept 322, 2026, confirmed by direct fetch of IJ.org's own live database.

The alleged searches ran100 individually dated counts run from July 07/31/2024 through December 2025to 05/19/2026.

The haveibeenflocked.com operator "K. Zac ZAC" (45,318 searches) is almost certainly NOT Officer Klein, because the site. USA TODAY's naming convention would render his name as "Zown database ties this exact operator, plate, and count to the agency investigation described in its article. Kle."

Five years is Carson, CA's own configured policy. Motorola ALPR system's platform has a fiveno vendor-yearside retention periodceiling at all. (v3.24 adds: LASD's written policy deletes at 5 years.)

Sixteen-state brief filedFiled June 2918, 2026, eleven days before the same day the Supreme Court decided Chatrie decision.

The article exists at footnote4a.org/blognews/schmidt-amici does not exist as cited. The domain was right; the path segment was wrong.

The court rejected [phrase is a verbatim quote from Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle v. Baltimore Police Dep't (4th Cir. 2021), invoked in the ankle-monitor] comparisonSchmidt appeal's briefing.

One on-point report: GAO-25-107302 (2xDec 3, 2024): DHS lacks internal controls, on bias risk and privacy enforcement, oversight of surveillance techprotections for DHS technologies used in public.

34:26-cv-02382-HSG

Gibbs MuraJavorsky v. Flock SafetyGroup, Inc., confirmed from the complaint itself.

The "side door" framing attributed tomechanism is real, but the Javorsky litigationphrase appears to come from 404 Media and NPR reporting. Attributed there.

ICE hiring 30 social media workersis seeking contractors for an RFI-stage plan with 28 planned personnel across two centers (12 in Williston, VT; 16 in Santa Ana, CA).

Rep. Shontel Brown's Feb 19 PenlinkThe letter is unverifiedreal, primary-sourced from shontelbrown.house.gov.

CBPThat statement is Anduril's Hilton Beckham said tower range varies with terrain and obstructions.

CBP issued a May 2026 alert about civilian smart glassesRetracted. It stays cut.

ICE Clearview $9.2M contractSigned September 5, June 20262025.

"invasive surveillance dragnet"

Fatal shootings of US citizens during traffic stopsMinneapolis immigration enforcement operations: a vehicle-involved street confrontation (Good) and a man shot on foot while filming (Pretti).

DRetracted as likely fabricated.C Do not cite. Circuit halted DHS nationwide FR database on Fourth Amendment grounds.

Section 702 lapse actually happenedChecked: the statute lapsed at midnight on June 15, not June 12, 2026.