From threat modeling to encrypted collaboration apps, we've collected experts' tips and tools for safely and effectively building a group--even while being targeted and tracked by the powerful. Rarely in modern US history have so many Americans opposed the actions of the federal government with so little hope for a top-down political solution. That's left millions of people seeking a bottom-up approach to resistance: grassroots organizing. Yet as Americans assemble their own movements to protect and support immigrants, push back against the Department of Homeland Security's dangerous incursions into cities, and protest for civil rights and policy changes, they face a federal government that possesses vast surveillance powers and sweeping cooperation from the Silicon Valley companies that hold Americans' data. That means political, social, and economic organizing presents a risky dilemma. How do you bring people of all ages, backgrounds, and technical abilities into a mass movement without exposing them to monitoring and targeting by a government--and in particular Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, agencies with paramilitary ambitions, a tendency to break the law, and more funding than some countries' militaries. Organizing safely in an age of surveillance increasingly requires not only technical security know-how, but also a tricky balance between secrecy and openness, says Eva Galperin, the director of cybersecurity at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit focused on digital civil liberties.

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ICE and CBP's Face-Recognition App Can't Actually Verify Who People Are ICE has used Mobile Fortify to identify immigrants and citizens alike over 100,000 times, by one estimate. It wasn't built to work like that--and only got approved after DHS abandoned its own privacy rules. The face-recognition app Mobile Fortify, now used by United States immigration agents in towns and cities across the US, is not designed to reliably identify people in the streets and was deployed without the scrutiny that has historically governed the rollout of technologies that impact people's privacy, according to records reviewed by WIRED. The Department of Homeland Security launched Mobile Fortify in the spring of 2025 to "determine or verify" the identities of individuals stopped or detained by DHS officers during federal operations, records show. DHS explicitly linked the rollout to an executive order, signed by President Donald Trump on his first day in office, which called for a "total and efficient" crackdown on undocumented immigrants through the use of expedited removals, expanded detention, and funding pressure on states, among other tactics. Despite DHS repeatedly framing Mobile Fortify as a tool for identifying people through facial recognition, however, the app does not actually "verify" the identities of people stopped by federal immigration agents--a well-known limitation of the technology and a function of how Mobile Fortify is designed and used.

Right-Wing Gun Enthusiasts and Extremists Are Working Overtime to Justify Alex Pretti's Killing Donald Trump has appeared to undermine Second Amendment rights in statements about Alex Pretti's killing. Many in the firearms community are going along with it. In the hours after Border Patrol agents shot and killed Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, President Donald Trump and his administration appeared to directly undermine the rights granted to gun owners in the Second Amendment. Department of Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem inaccurately said Pretti was a " domestic terrorist " who was "brandishing" his legally held gun. FBI director Kash Patel wrongly told Fox News it's illegal to bring a gun to a protest.

May the 4th be with you The White House celebrates Star Wars Day. May the 4th be with you The White House celebrates Star Wars Day. Under Donald Trump, the White House has filled its social media with memes, wishcasting, nostalgia and deepfakes. Here's what you need to know to navigate the trolling I t started with an image of Trump as a king mocked up on a fake Time magazine cover. Since then it's developed into a full-blown phenomenon, one academics are calling "slopaganda" - an unholy alliance of easily available AI tools and political messaging.

ICE Is Using Palantir's AI Tools to Sort Through Tips ICE has been using an AI-powered Palantir system to summarize tips sent to its tip line since last spring, according to a newly released Homeland Security document. United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement is leveraging Palantir's generative artificial intelligence tools to sort and summarize immigration enforcement tips from its public submission form, according to an inventory released Wednesday of all use cases the Department of Homeland Security had for AI in 2025. The AI Enhanced ICE Tip Processing service is intended to help ICE investigators "to more quickly identify and action tips" for urgent cases, as well as translate submissions not made in English, according to the inventory. It also provides a "BLUF," defined as a "high-level summary of the tip," produced using at least one large language model. BLUF, or "bottom line up front," is a military term that's also used internally by some Palantir employees.

Within minutes of the shooting, the Trump administration and right-wing influencers began disparaging the man shot by a federal immigration officer on Saturday in Minneapolis. Within minutes of Alex Pretti being shot and killed by a federal immigration officer in Minneapolis on Saturday, the Trump administration, backed by right-wing influencers, launched a smear campaign against the victim, labeling him a "terrorist" and a "lunatic." Pretti, 37, was killed during a confrontation with multiple federal immigration agents. Pretti was an American citizen and a registered nurse who worked in the Department of Veterans Affairs, according to a colleague who spoke to the Guardian . Video from a bystander shows Pretti was attempting to help a woman who had been pepper sprayed by an immigration agent when officers tackled him.

A new EPIC report says data brokers, ad-tech surveillance, and ICE enforcement are among the factors leading to a "health privacy crisis" that is eroding trust and deterring people from seeking care. When immigration agents enter hospitals and private companies are allowed to buy and sell data that reveals who seeks medical care, patients retreat, treatment is delayed, and health outcomes worsen, according to a new report that describes a growing "health privacy crisis" in the United States driven by surveillance and weak law enforcement limits. The report, published by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), attributes the problem to outdated privacy laws and rapidly expanding digital systems that allow health-related information to be tracked, analyzed, breached, and accessed by both private companies and government agencies. EPIC, a Washington-based nonprofit focused on privacy and civil liberties, based its findings on a review of federal and state laws, court rulings, agency policies, technical research, and documented case studies examining how health data is collected, shared, and used across government and commercial systems. "Unregulated digital technologies, mass surveillance, and weak privacy laws have created a health privacy crisis," the report says.

Federal records show CBP is moving from testing small drones to making them standard surveillance tools, expanding a network that can follow activity in real time and extend well beyond the border. US Customs and Border Protection is quietly doubling down on a surveillance strategy built around human-portable drones, according to federal contracting records reviewed by WIRED. The shift is pushing border enforcement toward a distributed system that can track activity in real time and, critics warn, may extend well beyond the border. New market research conducted this month shows that, rather than relying on larger, centralized drone platforms, CBP is concentrating on lightweight uncrewed aircraft that can be launched quickly by small teams, remain operational under environmental stress, and relay surveillance data directly to frontline units. The documents emphasize portability, fast setup, and integration with equipment already used by border patrol.

Dutch company employees work on a semiconductor lithography tool in Veldhoven, Netherlands, April 2019. Dutch company employees work on a semiconductor lithography tool in Veldhoven, Netherlands, April 2019. This is Europe's secret weapon against Trump: it could burst his AI bubble T he unthinkable has happened. The US is Europe's adversary. The stark, profound betrayal contained in the Trump administration's national security strategy should stop any further denial and dithering in Europe's capitals.