Federal Agents Deploy High Tech to Track Protesters

KQED's Forum

KQED

News, News Commentary, Politics

4.2 • 726 Ratings

🗓️ 4 February 2026

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

As protests against federal immigration agents’ use of deadly force in Minneapolis spread nationwide, privacy experts are raising alarms. Immigration agencies are using facial-recognition and other tools to identify immigrants – and to track American citizens who observe or protest ICE operations. The surveillance technology allows agents to scan people’s faces and link them to government databases. It’s a practice that those targeted say amounts to intimidation and retaliation. We talk about how the technologies work and what they mean for enforcement and civil liberties. Guests: Rachel Levinson-Waldman, director of Liberty and National Security Program, Brennan Center for Justice Sheera Frenkel, technology reporter, The New York Times; co-author, "An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook's Battle for Domination" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:51.6	The ice raids and protests rattling cities, including Chicago and Minneapolis, have given federal immigration agents the opportunity to use a myriad of new surveillance tools at their disposal.
1:02.9	Ice agents are attempting to identify protesters and observers by scanning their faces and license plates with smartphones, using cell phone data and social media postings,
1:12.5	scouring them to monitor online activity, and personal data is being used to identify
1:17.4	people's real-time locations and potentially even hack into their phones. In several cases,
1:22.7	protesters have reported ICE agents filming their faces with phone cameras and informing them
1:27.1	they are being
	...

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