Forum members discuss their discomfort with mass deportation efforts, debate how federal agents have interacted with civilians, and complain about their working conditions. Every day, people log in to an online forum for current and former Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) officers to share their thoughts on the news of the day and complain about their colleagues in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). "ERO is too busy dressing up as Black Ops Commandos with Tactical body armor, drop down thigh rigs, balaclavas, multiple M4 magazines, and Punisher patches, to do an Admin arrest of a non criminal, non-violent EWI that weighs 90 pounds and is 5 foot 2, inside a secure Federal building where everyone has been screened for weapons," wrote one user in July 2025. The forum describes itself as a space for current and prospective HSI agents, "designed for the seasoned HSI Special Agent as well as applicants for entry level Special Agent positions." HSI is the division within ICE whose agents are normally responsible for investigating crimes like drug smuggling, terrorism, and human trafficking.

Fears over a drug cartel drone over Texas sparked a recent airspace shutdown in El Paso and New Mexico, highlighting just how tricky it can be to deploy anti-drone weapons near cities. A shocking but ultimately brief airspace closure over El Paso, Texas, and parts of New Mexico last week is stoking unease among pilots and the broader public about the status of United States anti-drone defenses. As low-cost UAV equipment proliferates around the world, analysts have repeatedly warned that destructive attacks perpetrated using drones are inevitable . It is challenging to develop nimble and safe countermeasures, though, given that things like jamming or attempting to shoot down a drone are difficult--or even impossible--to carry out safely in populated areas, much less densely populated cities. In the case of the El Paso incident, the Federal Aviation Administration originally set the airspace closure to last 10 days, but ultimately lifted it after eight hours.

US Border Patrol intelligence units will gain access to a face recognition tool built on billions of images scraped from the internet. United States Customs and Border Protection plans to spend $225,000 for a year of access to Clearview AI, a face recognition tool that compares photos against billions of images scraped from the internet . The deal extends access to Clearview tools to Border Patrol's headquarters intelligence division (INTEL) and the National Targeting Center, units that collect and analyze data as part of what CBP calls a coordinated effort to "disrupt, degrade, and dismantle" people and networks viewed as security threats. The contract states that Clearview provides access to "over 60+ billion publicly available images" and will be used for "tactical targeting" and "strategic counter-network analysis," indicating the service is intended to be embedded in analysts' day-to-day intelligence work rather than reserved for isolated investigations. CBP says its intelligence units draw from a "variety of sources," including commercially available tools and publicly available data, to identify people and map their connections for national security and immigration operations.

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.

Why is Israel still in southern Lebanon? A war to shape Lebanon's future Lebanon is pushing to get more support from the United States after another deadly Israeli drone attack on southern Lebanon, which this time killed five people, including three children, the latest in a series of near-daily violations by Israel of the US-brokered November 2024 ceasefire. President Joseph Aoun and other officials met with a delegation led by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the Lebanese presidency said in a statement on Tuesday. The Lebanese president said he wants Israel to stop occupying parts of his country, is looking to gear its army with "equipment and supplies" from the US, and needs Washington's support to hold a conference dedicated to reconstruction in Lebanon. Amid ongoing efforts to disarm Hezbollah, Aoun emphasised that the Lebanese army's mandate includes "all Lebanese regions" as the country tries to seize an opportunity "to achieve just, comprehensive, and lasting peace in the Middle East region". He is also scheduled to address the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, where he is expected to denounce Israeli attacks across the region, including in Gaza and Lebanon.

The US 2nd Amendment right to keep and bear arms was added to the Constitution in 1791. In the two centuries since, firearm technology has changed significantly. In 1791, for example, US citizens were given the right to carry a single-shot firearm or sword in public. Because, well, that's all there was. In 2021, however, there exists a vast array of weaponry ranging from easily-concealed handguns to assault rifles capable of firing hundreds of rounds per minute with uncanny accuracy.

Nicolas Chaillan, the Pentagon's former Chief Software Officer, is on a whirlwind press tour to drum up as much fervor for his radical assertion that the US has already lost the AI race against China. We have no competing fighting chance against China in 15 to 20 years. Right now, it's already a done deal. Chaillan's departure from the Pentagon was preceded by a "blistering letter" where he signaled he was quitting out of frustration over the government's inability to properly implement cybersecurity and artificial intelligence technologies. Tickets to TNW Conference 2022 are available now! And, now, he's telling anyone who will listen that the US has already lost a war to China that hasn't even happened yet.

An AI-controlled fighter jet will battle a US Air Force pilot in a simulated dogfight next week -- and you can watch the action online. The clash is the culmination of DARPA's AlphaDogfight competition, which the Pentagon's "mad science" wing launched to increase trust in AI-assisted combat. DARPA hopes this will raise support for using algorithms in simpler aerial operations, so pilots can focus on more challenging tasks, such as organizing teams of unmanned aircraft across the battlespace. The three-day event was scheduled to take place in-person in Las Vegas from August 18-20, but the COVID-19 pandemic led DARPA to move the event online. Attend the tech festival of the year and get your super early bird ticket now!

This anti-detection starter pack came recommended for those looking to shield themselves from government surveillance while protesting in support of Black Lives Matter. In the future, the Federal Aviation Agency might be a resource added to the list. The gamut of surveillance tools used during protests runs wide. It's unlikely that your Twitter account was hacked, much like Donald Trump's was thought to be last month, to determine your location while protesting. But it may have been analyzed with a social media scanning tool.

An AI-controlled fighter jet will battle a US Air Force pilot in a simulated dogfight next week -- and you can watch the action online. The clash is the culmination of DARPA's AlphaDogfight competition, which the Pentagon's "mad science" wing launched to increase trust in AI-assisted combat. DARPA hopes this will raise support for using algorithms in simpler aerial operations, so pilots can focus on more challenging tasks, such as organizing teams of unmanned aircraft across the battlespace. The three-day event was scheduled to take place in-person in Las Vegas from August 18-20, but the COVID-19 pandemic led DARPA to move the event online. Before the teams take on the Air Force on August 20, the eight finalists will test their algorithms against five enemy AIs developed by Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory.