ALPRs and Minneapolis’ Growing Discriminatory Surveillance Dragnet
Automatic License Plate Readers (ALPRs), an extremely invasive form of public surveillance, have been around for decades, but lately they have been becoming more prevalent.
Tag: Department of Homeland Security
ICE in Minnesota — Days 69-71: Hints of Fed Withdrawal Teased, Homeland Security Chiefs Grilled in Congress
Politicians are hinting Operation Metro Surge could wind down, but any change in the situation remains vaporous for now.
ICE in Minnesota – Days 57-62: Masses Protest ICE While Violence Continues and Feds Indict Journalists
Minneapolis, MN – In the week after the third shooting, and second killing, by federal law enforcement in the Twin Cities, the landscape has somewhat shifted while the federal occupation under Operation Metro Surge has continued its violent ways; tens of thousands of community members…
Atlanta Activist’s Arrest Underscores Search, Surveillance Powers of Border Agencies
Atlanta locals say that Tunick’s detainment at the border and subsequent arrest is part of an ongoing repression against political dissidents and activists of the Stop Cop City movement.
Chuds on Parade 2: Trump’s Homeland Security Advisory Council
Washington, DC – President Donald Trump has made his appointments to the Homeland Security Advisory Council (HSAC), so Unicorn Riot started looking into their backgrounds. The list is a who’s who of troublesome and generally bigoted individuals, not unlike Trump’s cabinet. A failed political candidate…
New Federal Task Forces Under 287(g) Could Form ‘ICE Army’ From National Guard, State, Local & College Police
The Trump Administration has dramatically ramped up arrests and sweeps of people residing in the U.S., with new highly visible incidents and court cases unfolding every week and reaching new heights by mid-May. A new development could spell much larger scales of activity on American…
Chuds on Parade: Meet Trump’s Cabinet
President Trump’s cabinet is riddled with Klan-like nationalists, conspiracy theorists and xenophobes.
ICE is Training Civilians to Conduct Violent Raids on Immigrants
New details about a program from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) are getting attention after the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) published a trove of internal documents about ICE’s ‘Citizens Academy’ programs. The academy trains civilians to operate multiple firearms,…
🦄 Investigative, Police, Tech
Cobwebs Spy Software Locks Onto Protesters: Israeli Social Media Mining Contract with Homeland Security Revealed
An Israeli spy software tech firm licenses web surveillance tools to law enforcement and intelligence agencies. The software contract shows new details about this sensitive technology DHS has used to spy on activists during the last several years.
🦄 Police
FBI Labels Anti-Fascists and Anti-Racists as Violent Extremists
A recently released Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) document titled “Domestic Terrorism Symbols Guide”* links common protest symbols to “terrorism” — another marker in a common theme of conflating militant protest for social justice with deadly terrorist violence within the United States. Groups like the…
🦄 Tech
Aimed at Protests, Surveillance Contractor’s New Owners Expand Spy Tech Portfolio
In 2020, while protests raged in nearly every city in the United States, a privately owned Israeli spyware firm helped the Department of Homeland Security monitor the online presences of Americans—including protesters and journalists. That company is now set to join forces with competitors, creating…
Tijuana Groups Protest Border Wall Construction at Friendship Park
Tijuana, Mexico — Eduardo seemed not to notice the soft midday rain slowly dampening his clothes and beading up on the sleeves of his jacket. Just a couple hundred feet from where the Pacific lapped the beach of both Mexico and the U.S., drawing no…
Target Supremacy: What You Should Know About the 2013 Security Breach
Since Target Corporation’s massive hack in 2013, some significant information has come to light, like the fact that Target was extracting extremely sensitive information from millions of its own customers before it was compromised. Additionally, Target has invested heavily in mass surveillance technologies and policing,…
Indigenous-Led Blockades Occupy Line 3 Pipeline Sites
Hubbard and Clearwater Counties, MN – On Monday, June 7, two different direct actions by Indigenous people and climate advocates took over two different work sites in traditional Anishinaabe territory for the Line 3 tar sands pipeline being built by Enbridge, a Canadian multi-national oil…
🦄 Eco
Earthquakes Rock Puerto Rico/Boriquén, The ‘World’s Oldest Colony’
Guánica, Puerto Rico – Federal disaster relief aid was requested by Puerto Rico and granted on January 7 in the wake of the area’s 6.4 magnitude earthquake, which had caused most of the main island to endure a power outage. Over two hundred quakes greater…
Immigrant Rights Advocates Rally in Response to Rotten Food Given to Detainees
Aurora, CO – Two days into the New Year, Jeanette Vizguerra received a distraught phone call from Dennis Hernández who is a detainee inside the GEO Group’s ICE detention facility in Aurora. Hernández told Vizguerra that he among other detainees had received rotten food two…
Icebreaker Pt 7 – ICE Case Management Handbook Based on Federal Law Enforcement “System of Systems”
United States – Unicorn Riot obtained confidential Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) policy manuals in 2017. Icebreaker Part 7 covers ICE’s “Case Management Handbook” which was in effect between 2008 and 2016. The handbook is closely based on a critical database structure called the Treasury…
The Price to Oversee ICE: 200+ Protesters March in Aurora Suburb Home to GEO Group ICE Warden
Aurora, CO – On September 19, 2019, as the sun set over the suburban home of Johnny Choate, CEO and warden of the GEO Group’s local ICE detention facility, more than two hundred community members gathered with signs, banners, and musical instruments to condemn the…
Minnesotans Escalate Calls to Divest from “Virtual Border Wall” Company Elbit
St. Paul, MN – Local organizers have accused the State of Minnesota of “funding the wall” between both the Mexico-USA border and further between Palestine and Israel. Anti-war and migrant justice activists turned up the pressure on Minnesota legislators to divest an estimated $1.25 million…
Icebreaker Pt 6 – Leaked ICE Special Response Team Handbook for Planning and Executing Armed Raids
United States – Unicorn Riot obtained confidential Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) special agent policy manuals, which were in effect during the agency’s earlier years under presidents Bush and Obama. Icebreaker Part 6 covers ICE’s “Special Response Team” (SRT) area of doctrine, the section of…
Passions Run High at ‘Close the Concentration Camps’ Protest
Aurora, CO – On Friday, July 12, 2019, more than 1,500 people participated in a protest outside the sole Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facility in the state, owned and operated by the private prison corporation GEO Group.
The protesters were expressing their opposition…
Hundreds in CO Plan Rally to ‘Close the Concentration Camps’
Aurora, CO – As part of an international call to action by multiple coalitions of social justice and human rights groups, a vigil and march is planned for Friday, June 12, outside the GEO Group’s ICE Detention facility in Aurora.
Watch our live coverage below:…
Faith Leaders March on U.S. Border in Solidarity With Migrants
U.S./Mexico border – Hundreds of faith leaders and allies marched to the United States border wall just south of San Diego in solidarity with the migrant caravan. They were met by Border Patrol agents and Department of Homeland Security police who arrested over thirty clergy…
#OccupyICE Movement Grows Momentum in Colorado
Centennial, CO – On the morning of Thursday, August 2, 2018, after sustaining an #OccupyICE encampment vigil for almost four days, eight advocates blockaded the two main driveway entrances to the ICE Denver Field Office. Using PVC pipes to connect their arms, the eight participants,…
ICE Occupation Emerges at Denver Field Office
Centennial, CO – In the evening of Sunday, July 29, 2018, a coalition of many local immigrant rights and social justice groups gathered outside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Denver Field Office to hold an encampment vigil.
Watch our live coverage below from Monday…
“Tech Won’t Build It: The New Tech Resistance” Discussion Panel
Cambridge, MA – Workers in the technology sector have organized in recent weeks to compel the companies they work for to drop controversial projects, part of a growing movement dubbed “The New Tech Resistance”. In June, Google engineers organized to close the Project Maven contract,…
Icebreaker Pt. 5 – Confidential Homeland Security Undercover Operations Handbook
Washington, DC – As the Trump administration’s immigration policies continue to generate escalating backlash, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has come under increasing scrutiny. Journalists, senators, and others attempting to learn more about the agency’s practices have been frequently turned away and/or had their requests…