ICE wants to build a 24/7 social media surveillance team

According to WIRED[.]com, United States immigration authorities are planning a 24/7 social media surveillance programme funded by private contractors, with nearly 30 analysts to sift through posts, photos, and messages for potential enforcement actions. The plan centres on two ICE targeting facilities: the National Criminal Analysis and Targeting Center in Williston, Vermont, and the Pacific Enforcement Response Center in Santa Ana, California, with staffing to run around the clock.

Vermont would field a team of a dozen contractors, including a programme manager and 10 analysts, while California would host 16 staff, ensuring at least one senior analyst and three researchers are on duty at all times in Santa Ana. Open-source intelligence would cover posts, photos, and messages across platforms from Facebook to TikTok, and could extend to more obscure sites such as Russia’s VKontakte, aided by commercial databases like LexisNexis Accurint and Thomson Reuters CLEAR.

The initiative envisions rapid turnaround times, with urgent cases researched within 30 minutes and high-priority cases within one hour, and aims to feed directly into ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations division and its Palantir-backed systems.