A Drug Enforcement Administration agent used a local police officer’s password to the Flock automated license plate reader system to search for someone suspected of an “immigration violation.” That DEA agent did this “without [the local police officer’s] knowledge,” and the password to the Flock account, which belonged to the Palos Heights PD, has since been changed. Using license plate readers for immigration enforcement is illegal in Illinois, and casual password sharing between local police and federal law enforcement for access to surveillance systems is, at the very least, against Flock’s terms of service.

The details of the search were first reported by the investigative news outlet Unraveled, which obtained group chats about the search using a public records request. More details about the search were obtained and shared with 404 Media by Shawn, a 404 Media reader who filed a public records request with Palos Heights after attending one of our FOIA Forums. 

DEA agent used Illinois cop’s Flock license plate reader password for immigration enforcement searches

A federal Drug Enforcement Administration agent on a Chicago area task force used Palos Heights Detective Todd Hutchinson’s login credentials to perform unauthorized searches this past January. Group chat screenshots obtained via public records request show the detective and the feds discussing the incident.

Unraveled Press

Flock makes automated license plate reader (ALPR) cameras, which passively collect the time, plates, and model of cars that drive past them and enter them into a network that can then be searched by police. Our investigation in May showed that federal agents were gaining side-door access into this system by asking local police to perform immigration enforcement searches for them; the new documents show that in some cases, local police have simply given federal agents their passwords.

The documents obtained by Unraveled show details of an internal investigation done by the Palos Heights, Illinois police department in response to a series of questions that I asked them for an article we published in May that appeared to show a Todd Hutchinson, a police officer in Palos Heights, performing a series of Flock searches in January as part of their research into an “immigration violation.” 

At the time, Palos Heights police chief Mike Yott told me that Hutchinson was a member of a DEA task force “that does not work immigration cases.”

“None of our officers that work with federal agencies have cross designation as immigration officers, and therefore have no immigration authority, and we and our partner agencies are very sensitive to the fact that we and the State of Illinois do not pursue immigration issues,” Yott said. “Based on the limited information on the report, the coding/wording may be poor and the use of Flock may be part of a narcotics investigation or a fugitive status warrant, which does on occasion involve people with various immigration statuses.”

Our reporting set off an internal investigation into what these searches were for, and who did them, according to the documents obtained by Unraveled. According to a July 9 investigation report written by the Palos Heights Police Department, Hutchinson was the only task force member who had access to Flock. Information about what the search was actually for is redacted in the internal investigation, and neither the Palos Heights Police Department nor the DEA has said what it was for.

“Hutchinson advised that it was common that he allowed others to use his login to Flock during the course of their drug investigations. TFO Hutchinson spoke to his group and learned that one of the DEA agents completed these searches and used his login information,” the report says. The DEA agent (whose name is redacted in the report) “did in fact use Hutchinson’s login for federal investigations in late January 2025 without Hutchinson’s knowledge of said use.”

“When I had shared my account with the Special Agent, I believed it would only be used for DEA/narcotics related investigations,” Hutchinson wrote in an email to his bosses explaining why he shared his password. Hutchinson said in a series of text messages to task force officers, which were also obtained by Unraveled, that he had to change the password to lock other members of the task force out of the system.

“What’s the new password?,” a task force member wrote to Hutchinson.

“Sorry man. Keys had to be taken away,” he responded.

The task force member replied with a gif of a sad Chandler Bing from friends sitting in the rain.

“Hey guys I no longer have access to Flock cause Hutch took my access away,” another group text reads. “Apparently someone who has access to his account may have been running plates and may have placed the search bar ‘immigration’.. which maybe have brought undue attention to his account. Effective immediately Defer all flock inquiries to Toss Hutchinstein[sic].”

“Dear Todd, I hope you don’t get in trouble cause of my mistake,” the DEA agent joked in the group chat. “U were so helpful in giving the group access but now that is gone, gone like dust,…..in the wind … Trust is broken / I don’t know if bridges can be mended … one day we might be back to normal but until then I will just have to sit by this window and pray things will return … Best Regards. Ps, can u flock a plate for me”

“Only time will tell my fate, I suppose,” Hutchinson responded. “What’s the plate? And confirming it is NOT for immigration purposes…”

“It was a test …… and u passed ….,” the DEA agent responds. 

In response to a separate public records request filed by Shawn, the 404 Media reader, and shared with us, the Palos Heights Police Department said “Our investigation into this matter has revealed that while these inquiries appear to have been run as part of a taskforce assignment, no member of the Palos Heights Police Department ‘ran’ those queries. They were, apparently, run by another, non-Palos Heights, task force member who used a Palos Height's member's sign in and password information without his knowledge.”

The Palos Heights Police Department said in its investigation files that “this incident has brought to light the need to review our own protocols of LPR use.” The police department said that it had decided to limit searches of its Flock system only to agencies within the state of Illinois, rather than to police departments around the country. The department also turned on two-factor authentication, which had not been previously enabled. 

“Lastly, I believe there is a need to start a monthly review of our own flock searches to ensure our officers are working within standards and compliant with all policies and laws,” the report says. 

Palos Heights’ casual sharing of passwords to a powerful surveillance system is a violation of Flock’s terms of service, which states “Authorized End Users shall not share their account username or password information and must protect the security of the username and password.” 

More concerningly, it shows, as we have been reporting, that there are very few practical guardrails on how Flock is being used. The DEA does not have a contract with Flock, and police generally do not obtain a warrant to use Flock. We have repeatedly reported on police officers around the country who have offered to either run plates for their colleagues or to give them access to their logins, even when those agencies have not gone through proper acquisition channels. 

The Palos Heights police department did not respond to a request for comment from 404 Media. The DEA told 404 Media “we respectfully refer you to the Palos Heights Police Department.” Flock also did not respond to a request for comment. The House Oversight Committee announced last week that it had launched an investigation into how Flock is being used to search for immigration violations.

A Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agent wore Meta’s AI smart glasses to a June 30 immigration raid outside a Home Depot in Cypress Park, Los Angeles, according to photos and videos of the agent verified by 404 Media. 

Meta does not have a contract with CBP, and 404 Media was unable to confirm whether or not the agent recorded any video using the smart glasses at the raid. Based on what we know so far, this appears to be a one-off case of an agent either wearing his personal device to an immigration raid, or CBP trying technology on an ad-hoc basis without a formal procurement process. Civil liberties and privacy experts told 404 Media, however, that even on a one-off basis, it signals that law enforcement agents are interested in smart glasses technology and that the wearing of smart glasses in an immigration raid context is highly concerning.

Hundreds of AI-powered automated license plate reading cameras paid for by Lowe’s and Home Depot and stationed in the hardware stores’ parking lots are being fed into a massive surveillance system that law enforcement can access, according to records obtained using a public records request. 

The records, obtained from the Johnson County, Texas Sheriff’s Office by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and shared with 404 Media, show the sheriff’s office is able to tap into Flock license plate reading cameras at 173 different Lowe’s locations around the U.S. and that it can tap into cameras and gunshot-detecting microphones at dozens of Home Depot stores within Texas. The records are the latest to shed light on how expansive Flock’s surveillance network has become, and highlights that it includes cameras that are operated by both police and private businesses.  

“What we're learning is that two of the country's most popular home improvement stores are contributing to the massive surveillance dragnet coordinated by Flock Safety,” Dave Maass, director of investigations at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told 404 Media. “Do customers know that these stores are collecting their data and sharing indiscriminately? Probably not. Have these companies given thought about how this data might put their customers in danger, whether it's cops stalking their exes or aggressive ICE agents targeting yard workers? Probably not. If these companies want customers to feel safe in their homes, then they should make sure they're also safe where they buy their supplies."

Flock’s automated license plate reader (ALPR) cameras are stationed along roads or at entrances to parking lots around the United States, and constantly scan the license plates of cars that drive by. Because there are Flock cameras around the country, Flock often has a snapshot of people’s movements which police can search, typically without a warrant. 

Government agencies that have Flock cameras can choose to contribute their data to either a statewide or nationwide network, meaning cops around the state or country can access them. Flock told 404 Media that Flock cameras operated by private companies have more restrictive sharing options. 

In late May, Apple announced what seemed on its face to be a big, positive development for iPad owners: It was going to begin selling repair parts for iPads to the general public, which is a requirement of a series of new right-to-repair laws. “With today’s announcement, we’re excited to expand our repair services to more customers, enabling them to further extend the life of their products—all without compromising safety, security, or privacy,” Brian Naumann, Apple’s vice president of AppleCare, said in a press release announcing the move.

The announcement was generally covered positively by the press: “Save Money, Make Your iPad Last Longer,” a Forbes headline read, for example. But independent repair professionals who have used the program told 404 Media that the prices Apple is charging for some repair parts are absurdly high, and that this functionally means that the iPad is as unrepairable as it has always been.

“As is typical for Apple, they’ve been pushing and testing the limits as time has gone on, and now they pushed too far. There are plenty of other examples of absurdly priced parts from Self Service, but these iPad parts are by far the worst,” Brian Clark, the owner of the iGuys Tech Shop, told 404 Media. 

This article was produced with support from WIRED.

Meta told employees that it is going to allow some coding job candidates to use an AI assistant during the interview process, according to internal Meta communications seen by 404 Media. The company has also asked existing employees to volunteer for a “mock AI-enabled interview,” the messages say. 

It’s the latest indication that  Silicon Valley giants are pushing software engineers to use AI in their jobs, and signals a broader move toward hiring employees who can vibe code as part of their jobs.

The creators of an AI tool and Discord community that allowed people to create AI videos of NBA stars says that it got a cease-and-desist letter from lawyers representing LeBron James. This marks one of the first known times that a high-profile celebrity has threatened legal action against an AI company for enabling the creation of nonconsensual AI imagery of their likeness. It is also one of the first times we’ve seen a celebrity take legal action against a type of nonconsensual but not strictly sexual type of AI-generated content, which is rampant on Instagram and other social media. 

In March, I wrote about ‘Brainrot’ AI that was regularly going viral on Instagram. A lot of the most popular brainrot AI videos featured LeBron James and were created using a tool called Interlink AI, which runs on a larger AI generation platform called FlickUp. On the Interlink AI Discord channel, people were learning how to make the videos with detailed guides that in some cases explained exactly how to make videos of James. High profile creators there were racking up millions of views on Instagram making AI generated videos of James and Steph Curry. These included videos where an AI-generated James stood by as an AI-generated Diddy sexually assaulted Steph Curry in prison, videos of James imagined as a homeless person, videos of James on his knees with his tongue out, and videos of James pregnant.  

In late June, the mods of the Interlink AI Discord community told members that they decided to remove all “realistic people models” from the Interlink AI platform. 

“This change comes after we ran into legal issues involving a highly valued basketball player, and to avoid any further complications, we’ve chosen to take a proactive approach and fully remove all realistic likenesses from the site,” the mods wrote on Discord. “We know this may be disappointing for some of you who were enjoying the realism in your content, but this move protects the future of the platform and allows us to focus on building something even bigger.”

Pete Hegseth’s Department of Defense sent the White House an 11-page memo about the steps it has taken to comply with Donald Trump’s anti-trans executive order, according to a copy of the memo obtained by 404 Media using the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Among dozens of other actions, the Pentagon said that it not only changed the signs on bathroom doors to “reflect biological sex” but that it will continue to “monitor intimate spaces to ensure ongoing compliance” and that it will “continuously evaluate and update intimate spaces as necessary.” 

The military also ordered a “review hold on questionable content” at Stars and Stripes, the military’s newspaper, which is supposed to be editorially independent from the Pentagon and which is not supposed to be censored by the Department of Defense.  

Trump’s “Defending Women” executive order, which was an across-the-board war on trans and nonbinary people inside the federal government, required federal agencies to delete websites and resources referencing trans and nonbinary people, eliminate diversity and inclusion programs, kill grants and funding for gender inclusivity programs and research, eliminate gender inclusive bathrooms, and take on a host of other anti-trans policies. As part of the executive order, agencies were required to file a memo with the White House outlining the steps they had taken to comply with the order. So far, 404 Media has seen the memos for 11 different agencies. The vast majority of these memos are one or two pages long, and are very generic; Hegseth’s memo is 11 pages long and includes three different exhibits that takes the entire document to 19 pages long. 

The Pentagon’s memo is far more extensive than any other that we’ve seen so far, and includes details about employees that the Pentagon put on administrative leave because it believed that their jobs were “promoting or inculcating gender ideology.” The Pentagon said it identified 69 people who it believed had jobs that fit this description and put them on leave, but then determined that, actually, their jobs were not primarily about “promoting or inculcating gender ideology” and returned 67 of them to their jobs. 

The Pentagon said it also stopped all social media posts from all of its accounts for 10 days “at all levels of the department” in order to “prepare for reorientation of content on platforms.” It also says “Stars and Stripes put a review hold on questionable content.” Stars and Stripes was founded during the Civil War in 1861. It has long been largely editorially independent and, in 2020, when the Trump administration threatened to shut it down, its top editor said it is “part of a free press—free of censorship, free of command interference, free of prior restraint or prior review.” A “review hold” to ensure that content complies with an executive order from the President is a form of prior restraint and review. It is unclear what the results of that review hold were or whether Stars and Stripes was working on anything that the Pentagon would have wanted held.

Stars and Stripes did not respond to a request for comment. 

When asked by 404 Media, the Pentagon did not deny it put a review hold on Stars and Stripes.  

“We support the First Amendment, and we encourage all media outlets to be fair and honest in their reporting on this administration and the Department,” Department of Defense press secretary Kinglsey Wilson told 404 Media. 

The memo also has an extensive section about steps it took to change bathroom, locker room, and “intimate spaces” policies, which included changing signage and reviewing bathrooms to “ensure designation by biological sex.” The memo notes that it will “monitor intimate spaces to ensure ongoing compliance” and that it will “implement periodic reporting to continuously evaluate and update intimate spaces as necessary.”

“In line with President Trump's Executive Order Defending Women, the Department of Defense is taking appropriate action to ensure that intimate spaces designated for women, girls, or females (or for men, boys, or males) are designated by sex and not identity,” Wilson said.

The Pentagon also noted that Hegseth issued his own, separate order to the Department of Defense about Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Most notable, of course, is that Trump and Hegseth have banned trans people from serving in the military, which is affecting at least 15,000 service members and has been the subject of numerous lawsuits. 

Datos revisados por 404 Media revelan que el ICE está usando una herramienta diseñada principalmente para pequeños municipios con el objetivo declarado de combatir robos de autos o encontrar personas desaparecidas. Policías locales de todo el país están realizando búsquedas en el sistema de cámaras lectoras de patentes con inteligencia artificial de Flock con motivos relacionados a “inmigración” y en apoyo a investigaciones federales. Esto otorga a ICE una vía indirecta para acceder a una tecnología a la que oficialmente no tiene acceso mediante contrato.

Este compendio masivo de datos de búsquedas fue obtenido por investigadores que pidieron anonimato para evitar represalias y compartido con 404 Media. Los registros muestran más de 4000 búsquedas realizadas por policías estatales y locales a pedido del gobierno federal, como “favor informal” a agencias federales o directamente con fines de control migratorio, según lo que los mismos departamentos de policía y comisarías informaron. Aunque Flock no tiene contrato directo con el ICE, la agencia logra obtener información de las cámaras mediante solicitudes a las policías locales. Los datos fueron obtenidos a través de una solicitud de registros públicos al Departamento de Policía de Danville, Illinois, y muestran registros de búsqueda en el sistema Flock por parte de departamentos de policía de todo el país.

Cada vez que la policía realiza una búsqueda en el sistema Flock, debe ingresar una “razón”. En los registros de búsqueda de las cámaras de Danville, agentes de distintos estados escribieron motivos como “inmigración”, “ICE”, “ICE+ERO” (la división de Ejecución y Deportación del ICE), “inmigración ilegal”, “ORDEN DE ICE”, entre otros. Aunque hay registros de búsquedas que mencionan a ICE durante las administraciones de Biden y Trump, todos los casos en que se indicó explícitamente “inmigración” como motivo ocurrieron tras la llegada de Trump al poder.

El Departamento de Seguridad Nacional (DHS) ya utiliza cámaras lectoras de patentes (en inglés) en las fronteras y ha mostrado gran interés en esta tecnología (en inglés). Organizaciones defensoras de migrantes venían alertando sobre el posible uso de redes locales de lectores automáticos de placas por parte del ICE (en inglés), pero esta es la primera vez que se confirma su uso concreto durante las políticas de deportación masiva impulsadas por Trump.

“Distintos sistemas policiales tienen distintos propósitos y deberían existir discusiones públicas sobre qué funciones queremos permitir a cada agencia,” dijo a 404 Media Jay Stanley, analista sénior de políticas en el Proyecto de Privacidad, Tecnología y Libertad de Expresión de la ACLU. “Imagino que hay muchas personas que aceptan que su policía local use lectores de patentes para atrapar a un ladrón de bancos, pero que se horrorizarían al saber que las cámaras de su comunidad están alimentando una infraestructura de vigilancia nacional para el ICE. Si permitimos este tipo de accesos informales, entonces se puede decir que el ICE tiene autorización para conectarse a cualquier sistema sin límites ni supervisión pública.”

Flock afirma que “más de 5000 comunidades de EE.UU confían en sus cámaras con lectores de patentes automatizados” (en inglés). Estas cámaras graban constantemente las placas, el color y la marca de los vehículos que pasan por delante. La policía puede buscar dónde estuvo un auto (y por ende una persona) en un momento determinado o trazar sus movimientos a lo largo del tiempo. Flock también está desarrollando una nueva herramienta llamada Nova que combina los datos de patentes con buscadores de personas, bases de datos comerciales y filtraciones de datos para “pasar de una patente a una identidad”, según reveló anteriormente 404 Media (en inglés). Por lo general, estas búsquedas se realizan sin orden judicial, algo que una demanda en curso considera inconstitucional (en inglés).

Los departamentos de policía no solo pueden buscar en sus propias cámaras Flock, sino también en redes de otros estados o a nivel nacional. Según una guía de uso de Flock, las búsquedas a nivel nacional permiten que “todas las agencias policiales del país” que hayan activado esa opción puedan acceder a las cámaras de otros usuarios.

Esa misma guía indica que se puede “ejecutar una auditoría de red para ver quién ha buscado en las cámaras de tu sistema desde cualquier agencia que use Flock”. Los investigadores obtuvieron esta auditoría del sistema Flock del Departamento de Policía de Danville a través de una solicitud de registros públicos. Debido a que Flock permite compartir registros entre departamentos del país, la auditoría muestra todas las veces que otras agencias buscaron en el sistema de Danville.

Los datos revelan lo masiva que se ha vuelto la red nacional de cámaras de Flock. Por ejemplo, cuando el Departamento de Policía de Dallas hizo varias búsquedas bajo el término “ICE+ERO” el 6 de marzo, no solo consultaba sus propias cámaras: según los datos, tenía acceso a 6674 redes distintas de cámaras, que en conjunto sumaban 77 771 dispositivos. (La policía de Dallas se negó a emitir comentarios al respecto).

Otras agencias que buscaron en las cámaras de Danville incluyen a la Policía de Chicago y departamentos de Florida, Arkansas, Luisiana, Carolina del Sur, Virginia, Arizona y Texas. También figuran entre los datos la Patrulla de Caminos de Florida y de Missouri. La auditoría cubre desde el 1 de junio del 2024 hasta el 5 de mayo del 2025 y contiene millones de búsquedas totales. Los investigadores filtraron aquellas que incluían palabras clave relacionadas con la inmigración en el campo etiquetado “razón” de las búsquedas y obtuvieron más de 4000 registros.

“No puedo hablar por toda la empresa, pero yo no sabía que los departamentos de policía locales estaban usando las herramientas de Flock para colaborar con el ICE. Me decepciona, aunque no me sorprende,” dijo a 404 Media una fuente interna de Flock que pidió el anonimato por no tener autorización para hablar con la prensa. “Es muy importante que la gente entienda cómo se usa esta tecnología, porque la pagan con sus impuestos, y al final son los gobiernos estatales y locales quienes deben definir los límites de su uso justo.”

Dicho todo esto, los datos tienen ciertas limitaciones. Muchas entradas indican al HSI como razón de búsqueda, y este tiene un mandato más amplio que solo el control de la inmigración. Esto significa que las policías están cooperando con una división del ICE, pero no necesariamente están usando el sistema Flock para deportaciones. Algunas agencias afirmaron que, a pesar del motivo ingresado, las búsquedas no se realizaron con fines migratorios, incluso si la razón ingresada para la búsqueda en Flock indicaba directamente “inmigración”.

En uno de los casos, un portavoz de la Patrulla de Caminos de Missouri dijo que, aunque se registró “inmigración” como motivo, la búsqueda estaba relacionada con una parada de tráfico que presentaba indicios de un posible caso de trata de personas. Añadió: “Estamos en proceso de recibir capacitación y crear políticas aplicables” para temas migratorios. Otras agencias que ingresaron “inmigración” como motivo no respondieron a las consultas de 404 Media.

La administración Trump ha invitado a las policías locales, que normalmente no tienen atribuciones migratorias, a unirse al programa 287(g) (en inglés), el cual permite al ICE “delegar” sus funciones de control migratorio. Una orden ejecutiva de enero (en inglés) instruyó al DHS y al ICE autorizar a agentes estatales y locales “para que desempeñen funciones de oficiales migratorios en la investigación, aprehensión o detención de extranjeros en EE.UU.”.

Es especialmente significativo que estos datos provengan de un departamento de policía en Illinois, uno de los pocos estados que prohíbe explícitamente el uso de datos de cámaras lectoras con fines migratorios (en inglés). Las policías de Illinois implicadas aseguraron que sus búsquedas estaban relacionadas con investigaciones criminales o que no estaban destinadas específicamente a la aplicación de leyes migratorias.

“Los datos provistos no indican que el Departamento de Policía de Danville esté buscando información en Flock ni actuando en nombre de otras agencias policiales municipales, locales o del condado, ni en nombre del ICE, en temas migratorios,” dijo el jefe Chris Yates a 404 Media. “Como lo exige el Estado de Illinois, garantizamos que no usamos datos de cámaras lectoras de patentes para perseguir a infractores de leyes relacionadas con el estatus migratorio.” Sin embargo, Yates no respondió por qué la auditoría muestra búsquedas con motivos migratorios hechas por agencias de todo el país.

“En resumen, lo que se está alegando no está ocurriendo en realidad,” agregó el alcalde de Danville, Rickey Williams Jr.

Pero los datos de Danville muestran claramente que esas búsquedas realizadas por otros departamentos de policía sí están ocurriendo, y 404 Media verificó varios registros con los propios departamentos que las realizaron. Algunas agencias explicaron que actuaron como parte de investigaciones específicas, otras dijeron que eran colaboraciones informales con el gobierno federal. Lo que queda claro es que el ICE y el HSI están accediendo indirectamente a una herramienta a la que no deberían tener acceso.

Andrew Perley, subjefe de policía del pueblo de Glencoe, Illinois, dijo que una búsqueda específica “no estaba relacionada con una investigación sobre estatus migratorio: era una solicitud informal del HSI sobre un delito no migratorio”. Ryan Glew, de la policía de Evanston, explicó que su búsqueda se hizo para “asistir al HSI en la captura de un sujeto buscado, quien formaba parte de una banda de robos a tiendas a nivel nacional por millones de dólares” y que “las consultas no estaban relacionadas con inmigración.”

Otras policías de Illinois afirmaron que las búsquedas eran para “asistir” a agencias federales, o que las hizo uno de sus “oficiales de fuerzas especiales”, es decir, policías locales integrados en unidades federales. Mike Yott, jefe de policía de Palos Heights, dijo que su departamento no aplica leyes migratorias debido a las leyes estatales, pero que no sabe con certeza por qué un oficial de su equipo que colaboraba con la DEA hizo una búsqueda catalogada con la razón de “violación migratoria”.

“Con la información limitada del informe, es posible que la redacción sea imprecisa y el uso de Flock esté vinculado con una investigación sobre narcóticos o una orden de arresto de un fugitivo, que a veces involucra personas con estatus migratorios diversos,” dijo Yott.

El hecho de que la policía casi nunca necesite una orden judicial para realizar búsquedas en Flock implica escasa supervisión, lo que facilita que colaboren con el gobierno federal sin dejar huella formal.

“A las policías les encantan los lectores de patentes porque hay muy pocas restricciones. No sienten que necesiten una orden judicial. A menudo no hay ninguna regulación sobre lo que pueden buscar,” le comentó a 404 Media Dave Maass, investigador de tecnología fronteriza en la Electronic Frontier Foundation. “Tal vez sea cierto que algunas búsquedas eran sobre personas con órdenes de arresto o implicadas en crímenes, o podrían estar buscando a un terrorista. Pero ese es el punto: no lo sabemos.”

En un comunicado, Flock dijo: “Estamos comprometidos con que cada comunidad pueda usar esta tecnología de forma alineada con sus valores, y permitimos que los gobiernos democráticamente electos definan qué significa eso para su localidad. Cada cliente de Flock es dueño y controlador total de los datos recolectados y decide con quién compartirlos. Las herramientas son totalmente auditables y guardan los registros de uso de forma indefinida para que haya total transparencia para mandos y autoridades municipales.” La empresa agrega que sus herramientas han permitido que los cuerpos policiales ubiquen a más de 1000 personas extraviadas.

“Trabajamos con gobiernos locales para promover buenas prácticas sobre el uso de lectores de patentes, incluyendo auditorías regulares y políticas claras. Para que dos agencias puedan compartir datos, Flock requiere que ambas partes estén de acuerdo con ello. Siempre les recomendamos a las agencias que tengan una política sólida de uso de cámaras lectoras de patentes, que realicen auditorías de forma continua y sean cuidadosos al elegir compartir datos con otra agencia”, concluyó el comunicado.

Edwin Yohnka, director de comunicaciones de ACLU Illinois, fue contundente en un correo electrónico enviado a 404 Media: “Lo más frustrante de esto es que Flock se presentó en muchas comunidades de Illinois como una herramienta clave contra el crimen violento y el uso de armas. Pero lo que realmente están creando es un sistema nacional de datos. Da igual si estás en Bloomington, Springfield o Danville: cuando conectas estas redes, terminas alimentando un sistema de vigilancia a nivel país. Ver esta lista de agencias de todo el país buscando en cámaras de Illinois es realmente preocupante.”

El DHS no respondió a las múltiples solicitudes de comentarios enviadas por 404 Media.

Los manifiestos de vuelo de tres deportaciones judicialmente controvertidas desde Texas hacia El Salvador contienen decenas de nombres que no aparecen en la lista previamente publicada por el Departamento de Seguridad Nacional (DHS, por sus siglas en inglés) de personas deportadas en esos vuelos, según ha podido constatar 404 Media. Estos nombres adicionales nunca han sido reconocidos públicamente por el gobierno estadounidense, y expertos en inmigración que siguen de cerca la campaña de deportaciones de Trump aseguran que no tienen idea de dónde pueden estar estas personas ni qué ha sido de ellas. Ahora, 404 Media publica sus nombres.

El 15 de marzo, la administración Trump deportó a más de 200 personas en tres aviones con destino a una megacárcel en El Salvador. Aunque un juez bloqueó las deportaciones, los vuelos aterrizaron de todos modos ese mismo día en el país. Este hecho marcó un punto de inflexión en la política de deportaciones masivas de la administración y fue un anticipo de lo que vendría a nivel nacional: ausencia de debido proceso, desobediencia a fallos judiciales y deportaciones basadas en los pretextos más débiles. Poco después de estos vuelos, CBS News publicó una “lista interna del gobierno” con los nombres de algunas personas que fueron trasladadas al CECOT, la infame megacárcel salvadoreña.

Pero en mayo, un hacker atacó a GlobalX, la aerolínea encargada de esos vuelos, y compartió los datos con 404 Media. Además de los nombres incluidos en la lista publicada por CBS News, los manifiestos de vuelo de GlobalX contienen decenas de nombres de personas que, supuestamente, iban a bordo de los vuelos pero cuya existencia o paradero no han sido reconocidos oficialmente ni reportados anteriormente en la prensa.

“Tenemos esta lista de personas que el gobierno estadounidense no ha reconocido de ninguna manera oficial, y no tenemos forma de saber si están en el CECOT o en otro lugar o si recibieron algún tipo de debido proceso”, comentó a 404 Media Michelle Brané, directora ejecutiva de Together and Free, una organización que trabaja con familias de personas deportadas. “Creo que esto demuestra aún más la falta de humanidad y la ausencia de debido proceso, y es otra evidencia de que el gobierno estadounidense está desapareciendo gente. Estas personas fueron detenidas y nadie sabe dónde están, ni bajo qué circunstancias… En casi todos los casos, no hay registro alguno. No existen expedientes judiciales, nada”.

“[El gobierno de los Estados Unidos] no ha revelado información alguna, pero supuestamente han sido enviados a una cárcel o algún lugar en un avión… y desde entonces no se ha sabido nada de ellos”, agregó. “No hemos oído nada de sus familias, y es posible que ni ellos lo sepan”.

Brané también señaló que no está claro si todas estas personas realmente estaban en los vuelos o por qué aparecen en los manifiestos. Si efectivamente abordaron, se desconoce dónde se encuentran actualmente. Esa incertidumbre, sumada a la negativa del gobierno de proporcionar información, representa un problema grave, afirmó.

Aunque las historias de algunas personas deportadas en esos vuelos han recibido gran atención —como la de Kilmar Abrego García—, las autoridades estadounidenses se han negado a revelar la lista completa de pasajeros.

Mientras el paradero y las circunstancias de la mayoría de estas personas siguen siendo desconocidos, la organización de Brané utilizó datos de fuentes públicas para tratar de averiguar quiénes son. En algunos casos, Together and Free logró identificar ciertos detalles sobre personas específicas de los manifiestos. Por ejemplo, una de ellas, arrestada por la policía local en Texas a fines de diciembre por posesión de drogas, figura como “extranjero ilegal” en los registros de detención. Otra persona fue detenida en Nashville en febrero por conducir sin licencia. Sin embargo, respecto a muchas otras no hay datos públicos de fácil acceso que expliquen quiénes son o por qué figuran en los manifiestos.

Algunas de las personas que aparecen en los manifiestos y no figuran en la lista de CBS News ya habían sido identificadas porque sus familias iniciaron demandas o los buscaban activamente en redes sociales. Entre ellas se encuentran Abrego García y Ricardo Prada Vásquez, cuya familia denunció que había “desaparecido” porque no aparecía en ningún listado oficial publicado. Tras un reportaje del New York Times sobre su desaparición, la administración Trump afirmó que estaba en el CECOT, y 404 Media encontró su nombre en los manifiestos del 15 de marzo.

En Venezuela, la familia de otro hombre identificado en los manifiestos pero no en la lista de CBS News, Keider Alexander Flores Navas, ha estado protestando por su desaparición y exigiendo respuestas. En un video de TikTok publicado en marzo, su madre, Ana Navas, cuenta que dejaron de tener noticias de Keider poco antes del 15 de marzo. Posteriormente, supo que estaba detenido por el gobierno federal. Luego vio una foto suya en el CECOT, entre otros prisioneros: “Lo que más me preocupó fue que no estaba en ninguna lista. Pero esta foto es de El Salvador. Muchas madres aquí han reconocido a sus hijos [en las fotos oficiales del CECOT]. Sé que ese es mi hijo”, dice, mientras la cámara enfoca la imagen de Keider en la foto.

En otro video de TikTok, publicado en junio, la madre de Brandon Sigaran-Cruz, de 21 años, explica que su hijo estuvo “desaparecido por tres meses” sin que tuvieran noticias sobre su paradero. Sigaran-Cruz aparece en el manifiesto de vuelo, pero no en la lista de CBS News.

El gobierno de Estados Unidos ya había reconocido que, junto con más de 200 ciudadanos venezolanos, deportó a 23 salvadoreños a El Salvador en esos tres vuelos del 15 de marzo. No existe una lista formal con los nombres de esos salvadoreños y ninguno figura en el listado de CBS News, que solo incluía venezolanos.

La Oficina de Derechos Humanos de las Naciones Unidas también presentó peticiones judiciales afirmando que está investigando las “desapariciones involuntarias” de al menos cuatro venezolanos deportados a El Salvador en esos vuelos. “Ni el gobierno de El Salvador ni el de Estados Unidos han publicado información oficial sobre la lista de personas deportadas ni su lugar actual de detención”, dijo la ONU en un “Informe sobre Desapariciones Forzadas o Involuntarias” presentado ante la corte.

“Todavía hay muy poca claridad sobre el destino y el paradero de los venezolanos enviados a El Salvador, pues, hasta la fecha, no se han publicado listas oficiales de los detenidos deportados. Es fundamental que las autoridades proporcionen más información, incluido la entrega de datos a los familiares y sus abogados sobre la situación específica y el paradero de sus seres queridos”, señaló Elizabeth Throssell, portavoz de la Oficina de Derechos Humanos de la ONU, en un correo electrónico enviado a 404 Media. “La oficina de derechos humanos de la ONU ha estado en contacto con familiares de más de 100 venezolanos que se cree fueron deportados a El Salvador”.

Durante varias semanas, 404 Media solicitó al Departamento de Seguridad Nacional (DHS) que informara si tenía alguna preocupación legítima de seguridad respecto a la publicación de estos nombres, o si podía aportar algún dato sobre estas personas. La agencia nunca respondió, a pesar de haber atendido solicitudes de otros artículos de 404 Media. GlobalX tampoco respondió a la solicitud de comentarios.

“Es fundamental saber quiénes iban en esos vuelos del 15 de marzo”, dijo Lee Gelernt, abogado de la Unión Estadounidense por las Libertades Civiles (ACLU) y principal representante del caso. “Estas personas fueron enviadas a una prisión tipo gulag sin ningún debido proceso, posiblemente por el resto de sus vidas, y el gobierno no ha proporcionado información significativa sobre ellas, mucho menos pruebas. En un momento como este, la transparencia es esencial”.

En los últimos meses, el gobierno de Estados Unidos ha afirmado que es el gobierno salvadoreño quien tiene jurisdicción sobre las personas detenidas en el CECOT, mientras que El Salvador respondió ante la ONU que “la jurisdicción y la responsabilidad legal sobre estas personas recae exclusivamente en las autoridades competentes extranjeras [de Estados Unidos]”. Esto ha creado una situación en que las personas están detenidas en una prisión extranjera y ninguno de los gobiernos asume su responsabilidad legal. Algo similar ocurre en Florida, en el campamento “Alligator Alcatraz” (“Alcatraz con caimanes”), donde personas detenidas por el gobierno federal están siendo retenidas en una instalación administrada por el estado, y los expertos aseguran que no está claro quién está a cargo. Brané señaló que, con el enorme aumento de fondos para ICE que contempla la nueva ley de Trump, es probable que veamos más centros de detención, más deportaciones, más vuelos como estos y más personas desaparecidas de forma no oficial.

“Si consideramos que el ICE está tratando a las personas de esta forma con el poco de autonomía adicional que les dieron, da terror pensar lo que implicará este aumento presupuestario”, dijo Brané. “Esto es solo una muestra de lo que veremos a una escala mucho mayor”.

Se puede leer la lista completa a continuación. 404 Media quitó los nombres de las personas que figuran en los manifiestos como “guardias” (el medio confirmó que al menos uno de esos nombres coincide con alguien que se presenta en redes sociales como agente de transporte de detenidos). Según informes, ocho mujeres deportadas a El Salvador fueron posteriormente retornadas a Estados Unidos. 404 Media no publica los nombres de mujeres que se sabe han sido regresadas. El manifiesto también incluye los nombres de varios salvadoreños cuyas deportaciones fueron mencionadas en un comunicado de prensa de la Casa Blanca, en procesos judiciales y en reportes de prensa. No se han incluido esos nombres de personas que la administración ya reconoció oficialmente como deportadas.

Una base de datos del Servicio de Inmigración y Control de Aduanas (ICE), cuya estructura ha sido parcialmente revisada por 404 Media, permite al gobierno federal buscar y filtrar personas mediante cientos de categorías sumamente específicas. Para expertos en vigilancia, esta herramienta podría estar ayudando al ICE a identificar, detener y deportar a personas que han cometido infracciones menores o que simplemente coinciden con ciertos perfiles. Pero advierten que el gran problema es que ni siquiera sabemos con claridad cómo están siendo seleccionadas o marcadas estas personas.

La base de datos es llamada Investigative Case Management (ICM) y, según una evaluación de impacto en privacidad publicada en 2021 (en inglés), “funciona como la herramienta principal de gestión de casos para las investigaciones del Departamento de Seguridad Nacional (HSI) del ICE”.

404 Media tuvo acceso a una versión reciente de la base de datos, que permite realizar filtros según cientos de parámetros, incluidos estatus migratorio y tipo de ingreso (“refugiado”, “tarjeta de cruce fronterizo”, “extranjero no inmigrante no admitido”, “estatus de protección temporal”, “extranjero en tránsito sin visa”, “extranjero indocumentado”); características físicas (incluidos cicatrices, marcas, tatuajes); afiliación criminal; ubicación; datos de lectores de patentes; país de origen; color de pelo y ojos; etnicidad; número de seguro social; lugar de nacimiento; empleo; estado de la licencia de conducir; historial de bancarrota, y cientos de otras categorías.

Una fuente con conocimiento del sistema dijo a 404 Media que el ICM “es básicamente una infinidad de tablas” de información y puede generar informes detallados, por ejemplo, sobre personas “con cierto tipo de visa, que ingresaron por un puerto específico, provenientes de un país determinado y tienen un color de cabello específico”, o cualquier combinación de estos cientos de variables.

ICM fue desarrollado por Palantir (en inglés), un poderoso y polémico gigante de la tecnología de vigilancia. En 2022, Palantir firmó un contrato por 95,9 millones de dólares (en inglés) por cinco años para continuar desarrollando la plataforma.

Los agentes de ICE pueden configurar una búsqueda llamada Person Lookout Query (“Consulta activa de personas”) que les envía una alerta por correo si más tarde una persona coincide con ciertos parámetros definidos anteriormente. 404 Media revisó partes de la infraestructura del sistema, incluidos los criterios de búsqueda y ejemplos de informes generados.

Una evaluación de privacidad presentada en el 2016 (en inglés) por el Departamento de Seguridad Nacional indica que el sistema ICM se conecta con otras bases de datos del DHS y federales, como SEVIS (que contiene registros de personas que ingresaron al país con visas estudiantiles), la herramienta de búsqueda FALCON (en inglés), mapas en tiempo real asociados a herramientas de rastreo del ICE, “datos limitados de lectores de patentes operados por la agencia” y datos provenientes de otros organismos como la DEA, el FBI, la ATF y la CIA (como ya reportó The Intercept en un artículo en inglés).

El documento también aclara que distintas divisiones de ICE usan el sistema ICM, incluidos el HSI y el equipo legal del ICE. Pero señala algo clave: que la división de Ejecución y Deportación (ERO) “utiliza el sistema ICM de manera más limitada que el HSI en su misión de identificar, arrestar y deportar a extranjeros infractores para hacer cumplir las leyes migratorias de EE.UU., conforme a las prioridades de cumplimiento vigentes”.

Comprender cómo funciona el sistema ICM se ha vuelto un tema de urgencia en las últimas semanas, ya que el ICE ha detenido, arrestado y deportado a estudiantes universitarios, turistas y residentes legales con permisos de residencia permanente, muchos sin antecedentes penales o con infracciones menores. Al menos 238 personas fueron deportadas sin debido proceso a una megacárcel en El Salvador, y una investigación de 60 Minutes (en inglés) reveló que la mayoría no tenía antecedentes ni condenas criminales previas. El ICE ha deportado a personas por criterios como “llevar ciertos tatuajes”, y en un caso específico, la administración Trump admitió haber deportado por error a alguien, pese a que se niega a traerlo de vuelta al país.

A estudiantes universitarios con visa se les ha revocado el documento por infracciones como exceso de velocidad o por protestar contra la guerra de Israel en Gaza. Esta semana, el Servicio de Impuestos Internos (IRS) anunció que comenzará a compartir su información tributaria con el ICE (artículo en inglés) para fines migratorios, lo que representa una peligrosa escalada en el intercambio de datos entre agencias del gobierno y podría significar una recarga de poder para herramientas como ICM.

Jeramie Scott, asesor sénior y director del Proyecto de Supervisión de Vigilancia del Centro de Información sobre Privacidad Electrónica (EPIC), advirtió a 404 Media: “Con la administración actual, existe la posibilidad de que traten a todos los que aparecen en esta base de datos como objetivos de detención y deportación. Esta administración no se caracteriza por la sutileza o el análisis detallado; prefiere pintar todo con la misma brocha y basarse en estereotipos.” Scott señala que la evaluación de impacto de privacidad del ICM (en inglés) admite que, al incluir tanta información, cualquier persona podría ser objeto de una investigación o marcada para ser detenida o deportada.

“Como el ICE puede crear registros sobre personas que no son objetivo de investigaciones, existe el riesgo de que esas personas sean erróneamente catalogadas o malinterpretadas como objetivos”, se menciona en el informe redactado en el 2016. “Esto puede causar problemas en los puntos de entrada al país, donde la CBP utiliza estos registros en su sistema de control. También existe el riesgo de que la información no sea precisa o completa o esté desactualizada.”

Y esto no solo afecta a inmigrantes. Según documentos obtenidos por The Intercept (en inglés), el sistema también incluye ciudadanos estadounidenses: “Los ciudadanos de EE.UU. también pueden estar sujetos a procesos penales, por lo tanto, son parte del ICM.”

Adam Schwartz, director de litigios sobre privacidad de la Electronic Frontier Foundation, comentó a 404 Media: “Se están combinando dos elementos realmente alarmantes. Por un lado, está la vigilancia tecnológica avanzada, que incluye bases de datos que rastrean todo tipo de cosas sobre las personas. Por otro, tenemos un gobierno motivado a deportar inmigrantes incluso si no representan ninguna amenaza. Parece ciertamente posible que algunas de las detenciones recientes de personas que no representan ningún peligro se hayan producido porque el ICE está utilizando este tipo de bases de datos para identificarlas.”

404 Media conversó con tres expertos, incluido Schwartz, y estos enfatizaron que es fundamental que la ciudadanía entienda cómo se está usando esta tecnología para identificar y detener personas. También es vital para quienes ya han sido detenidos o deportados, porque necesitan esa información para poder defenderse.

“Durante más de medio siglo, uno de los principios básicos de la privacidad de datos ha sido que si el gobierno recolecta información para un propósito, no debe usarla para otro sin el consentimiento de la persona”, dijo Schwartz. “Esto no es solo un capricho de los defensores de privacidad. Si no se respeta esta norma, pueden pasar cosas muy graves. En 1942, la Oficina del Censo entregó al Departamento de Defensa los domicilios de ciudadanos japoneses-estadounidenses, y con esa información se les detuvo injustamente. Si el gobierno recoge datos con un propósito, no debe compartirlos para otro distinto.”

Scott, de EPIC, fue enfático: “Importa muchísimo qué herramientas está usando ICE para detener y deportar personas. Es posible que se esté deteniendo a personas que solo ejercen actividades protegidas constitucionalmente. También es posible que se esté compartiendo información de formas que no son reguladas ni transparentes. Mucha de esta información se recolectó para un fin y ahora el ICE la está usando para arrestar o deportar personas, y el pueblo estadounidense necesita saberlo. Necesita saber si su gobierno está respetando los valores constitucionales.”

Elizabeth Laird, directora de equidad en tecnología cívica del Centro para la Democracia y la Tecnología, advirtió sobre los errores que pueden surgir cuando se cruzan datos entre agencias: “Cuando se intenta vincular registros y se comete un error —por ejemplo, que el nombre esté mal escrito o la fecha de nacimiento sea la de otra persona— puede parecer que los sistemas están hablando de la misma persona cuando en realidad no es así.”

“Y cuando manejas listas de millones de personas, es difícil imaginar que no haya una gran cantidad de ellas que están siendo marcadas erróneamente como infractores de leyes de inmigración. Ya hemos visto casos de personas deportadas por error a El Salvador, y el gobierno luego dice que no puede traerlas de vuelta.”

Laird agregó que la decisión del IRS de compartir información con el ICE es especialmente grave. Durante años, el gobierno federal les aseguró a los inmigrantes que pagar sus impuestos, sacar una licencia de conducir o acceder a la salud pública no se usaría en su contra. “Esto desincentiva a los inmigrantes indocumentados a interactuar con el gobierno, incluido el pago de impuestos. Por eso no solo hay que preguntarse si esto es legal o ético, sino también si estamos dispuestos a aceptar las consecuencias sociales de este tipo de medidas.”

Anteriormente, 404 Media ha informado de forma independiente sobre otros métodos que usan el ICE y el grueso del DHS para recolectar datos, como el trabajo en conjunto con la contratista de vigilancia ShadowDragon, que extrae información de redes sociales, o empresas que analizan publicaciones para detectar si contienen “mensajes despectivos” sobre Estados Unidos, y luego usar esa información en procesos migratorios. También se ha confirmado que el ICE usa datos de ubicación recolectados de teléfonos celulares para seguir a sus objetivos.

El ICE no respondió a las solicitudes de comentarios ni a las preguntas específicas de 404 Media sobre cómo está usando la base de datos ICM.

Hello 404 Media readers! We're excited to announce that we're having our first ever party in Los Angeles. We have partnered with the amazing DIY hackerspace RIP.SPACE in the Arts District.

We'll start the night with a live podcast about the surveillance technologies powering ICE, with a specific focus on tools that are being used in Los Angeles. We'll then change gears and do some Q&A about 404 Media and independent journalism. I'm considering doxing my Instagram algorithm as well. After that, we'll have a reception and party with music from our friend DJ Avey.

We'll have free beer and wine, good vibes, and hopefully a good conversation. Tickets are free for subscribers, $10 for the general public (you can also subscribe for free entry here). If you're a subscriber, scroll to the end of this post for your free ticket code.

GET TICKETS HERE

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The CEO seemingly having an affair with the head of HR at his company at the Coldplay concert is a viral video for the ages, but it is also, unfortunately, emblematic of our current private surveillance and social media hellscape.

The video, which is now viral on every platform that we can possibly think of, has been covered by various news outlets, and is Pop Crave official, shows Andy Byron, the CEO of a company called Astronomer, with his arms around Astronomer’s head of HR, Kristen Cabot. The jumbotron cuts from one fan to this seemingly happy couple. They both simultaneously die inside; “Oh look at this happy couple,” Coldplay lead singer Chris Martin says. The woman covers her face and spins away. The man ducks out of frame. “Either they’re having an affair or they’re very shy,” Martin said. The camera pans to another company executive standing next to them, who is seemingly shaking out of discomfort.

It is hard to describe how viral this is at the moment, in a world in which so many awful things are occurring and in which nothing holds anyone’s attention for any length of time and in a world in which we are all living in our own siloed realities. “Andy Byron” is currently the most popular trending Google term in the United States, with more than double the searches of the next closest term. 

There are so many levels to this embarrassment—the Coldplay of it all, the HR violation occurring on jumbotron, etc—that one could likely write a doctoral dissertation on this 15 second video.

The flight manifests for three legally contested deportation flights from Texas to El Salvador contain dozens of additional, unaccounted for passengers than a previously published Department of Homeland Security (DHS) list of people deported from the United States on those flights, 404 Media has learned. The additional people on the flight manifest have not been publicly acknowledged by the U.S. government in any way, and immigration experts who have been closely monitoring Trump’s deportation campaign say they have no idea where these people are or what happened to them. 404 Media is now publishing the names of these people. 

On March 15, the Trump administration deported more than 200 people on three aircraft to a megaprison in El Salvador. A judge blocked the deportations, but hours later the flights still landed in the country. It marked one of the major turning points of the administration’s mass deportation efforts, and signaled what was to come around the country—a lack of due process, authorities ignoring judge’s rulings, and deporting people on the flimsiest of pretenses. Soon after these flights, CBS News published an “internal government list” of people it said were deported to CECOT, the notorious El Salvadorian megaprison.

But in May, a hacker targeted GlobalX, the airline that operated these flights and shared the data with 404 Media. In addition to the names of people who were on the list CBS News published, the GlobalX flight manifests contain the names of dozens of people who were supposedly on the flights but whose status and existence has not been acknowledged by the U.S. government or previously reported in the press. 

“We have this list of people that the U.S. government has not formally acknowledged in any real way and we pretty much have no idea if they are in CECOT or someplace else, or whether they received due process,” Michelle Brané, executive director of Together and Free, a group that has been working with families of deported people, told 404 Media. “I think this further demonstrates the callousness and lack of due process involved and is further evidence that the US government is disappearing people. These people were detained and no one knows where they are, and we don't know the circumstances […] For almost all of these people, there’s no records whatsoever. No court records, nothing.” 

“[The government is] not disclosing it and they’ve presumably been sent to a prison or sent somewhere by the U.S. government on a plane and have never been heard from since,” she added. “We have not heard from these people’s families, so I think perhaps even they don’t know.”

Brané added that it remains entirely unclear whether all of these people were actually on the flights or why they were on the manifests. If they were indeed on the flights, it is unknown where they currently are. That uncertainty, and the unwillingness of the U.S. government to provide any clarity about these people, is a major problem, she said.

While the stories of some of the people deported on these flights have garnered a lot of attention, such as Kilmar Abrego Garcia, U.S. authorities have refused to reveal the names of everyone on board. 

While the whereabouts and circumstances of most of these people remain unknown, Brané’s organization used publicly available data to try to better understand who they are. In some cases, Together and Free was able to identify a few details about specific people on the manifest. For example, one person on the manifest appears to have been arrested by local police in Texas in late December on drug possession charges and is listed in arrest records as being an “illegal alien.” Another person was arrested in Nashville in February on charges of driving without a license. For many other people listed, there is no easily discernible public data about who they are or why they appeared on the flight manifest.

Several other people are on the flight manifests and do not appear on the CBS News list, but their identities had already become public because their families have filed lawsuits or have been looking for them on social media. These include Abrego Garcia and Ricardo Prada Vásquez, a man whose family said he was “disappeared” because he did not appear on any official, publicly published lists. After the New York Times published an article about his disappearance, the Trump administration said he was at CECOT, and 404 Media was able to find his name on the March 15 flight manifests. 

In Venezuela, the family of another man who appears on the flight manifests but not on the CBS News list, Keider Alexander Flores Navas, has been protesting his disappearance and demanding answers. In a TikTok video posted in March, his mother Ana Navas explains that they suddenly stopped hearing from Keider before the March 15 flights. She said she eventually heard he was in federal detention. Then, she saw a photo of him in CECOT amongst a group of other prisoners: “The thing that worried me the most was he was not on any list. But this photo is from El Salvador. Lots of family members here recognize their sons [in official CECOT photos]. That’s my son,” she says, the camera panning to a circled image of Keider in CECOT.

In another TikTok video posted in June, the mother of 21-year-old Brandon Sigaran-Cruz explains that he had been “disappeared for three months” with no news of his whereabouts. Sigaran-Cruz also appears on the flight manifest but not the CBS News list. 

 The U.S. government previously acknowledged that, along with more than 200 Venezuelan citizens, it deported 23 Salvadorans to El Salvador on the three March 15 flights. There is no formal list of the Salvadorans who were on the flight, and none of them appeared on the CBS News list, which included only Venezuelan citizens. 

The United Nations’ Human Rights Office has also filed court petitions saying that it is investigating the “involuntary disappearances” of at least four Venezuelans who were sent to El Salvador on these flights. “Neither the Government of El Salvador nor the Government of the United States has published official information on the list of deported persons or their current place of detention,” the United Nations said in a “Report on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances” it filed in court.

“There continues to be very little clarity as to the fate and whereabouts of the Venezuelans removed to El Salvador. To date, no official lists of the deported detainees have been published. Provision of further information by authorities is key, including providing families and their counsel with available information on the specific situation and whereabouts of their loved ones,” Elizabeth Throssell, a spokesperson for the UN Human Rights Office, told 404 Media in an email. “The UN Human Rights Office has been in contact with family members of over 100 Venezuelans believed to have been deported to El Salvador.”

404 Media asked the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) over multiple weeks if the agency had any legitimate security concerns with these names being published, or if it could tell us anything about these people. The agency never responded, despite responding to requests for comment for other 404 Media articles. GlobalX did not respond to a request for comment either.

“It is critical that we know who was on these March 15 flights,” Lee Gelernt, a lawyer at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the lead counsel on the ACLU’s related case, told 404 Media. “These individuals were sent to a gulag-type prison without any due process, possibly for the remainder of their lives, yet the government has provided no meaningful information about them, much less the evidence against them. Transparency at a time like this is essential.”

In recent months, the U.S. government has said that the El Salvadorian government has jurisdiction over the people detained in CECOT, while El Salvador told the United Nations that “the jurisdiction and legal responsibility for these persons lie exclusively with the competent foreign authorities [the United States],” leading to a situation where people are detained in a foreign prison but both responsible parties are not willing to claim legal responsibility for them. A similar situation has happened in Florida at the “Alligator Alcatraz” camp, where people detained by the federal government are being held in a state-run facility, and experts have said it’s not clear who is in charge. Brané said with the massive increase in ICE funding as part of Trump’s new law, we are likely to see more detention camps, more detainments, more deportation flights, and, likely, more people who aren’t publicly accounted for in any way.

“When you look at what ICE is doing now in terms of how they treat people, how they operate when they're given even a little bit of rope, it’s terrifying to think what the budget increase is going to do,” Brané said. “This is a taste of what we're going to see on a much larger scale."

You can read the list below. 404 Media has removed people listed on the flight manifests as “guards” (404 Media found at least one of these names matched someone who lists their employment online as a flight transport detention officer). Reportedly eight women deported to El Salvador were later returned. 404 Media is not publishing the names of women known to have returned to the U.S. The manifest also includes the names of several El Salvadorians mentioned as being deported in a White House Press release, court proceedings, and media reports. We have not included their names below because the administration has formally acknowledged that they were deported.

Manuel Quijada-Leon
Irvin Quintanilla-Garcia
Jose Ramirez-Iraheta
Josue Rivera-Portillo
Jorge Rodriguez Gomez
Mario Jeavanni Rojas
Edgar Leonel Sanchez Rosales
Brandon Sigaran-Cruz
Miguel Enriquez Saravia
Abraham Hernandez-Mania
Jean Morales-Loaiza
Nelson Alfaro-Orellana
Jhonnarty Pachecho-Chirinos
Cristian Alpe-Tepas
Jordyn Alexander Alvarez
Jose Alvarez Gonzalez
Wilfredo Avendano Carrizalez
Jose Gregorio Buenano Cantillo
Istmar Campos Mejia
Jose Chanta-Ochoa
Keider Alexander Flores Navas
Noe Florez-Valladares
Miguel Fuentes-Lopez
Roberto Interiano Uceda
Jose Lopez Cruz
Diego Maldonado-Fuentes
William Martinez-Ruano
Osmer Mejias-Ruiz
Iran Ochoa Suescun
David Orantez Gonzalez
Ariadny Araque-Cerrada
Elena Cuenca Palma
Maria Franco Pina
Mayerkis Guariman Gonzalez
Wilmary Linares-Marcano
Scarlet Mendoza Perez
Ofreilimar Peña Boraure
Edilianny Stephany Rivero Sierralta
Dioneli Sanz Aljorna
Anyeli Sequera Ramirez
Yanny Suarez Rodriguez
Karla Villasmil-Castellano

For a while, I have said that the AI slop endgame, for social media companies, is creating a hyper personalized feed full of highly specific content about anything one could possibly imagine. Because AI slop is so easy to make and because social media algorithms are so personalized, this means that Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube can feed you anything they perceive its users to possibly want. So this means that AI slop makers are exploring ever more niche areas of content. 

Case in point: Facebook AI slop about the horrific and deadly Texas flood. Topical AI content about disasters, war, current events, and news stories are at this point so commonplace that they are now sadly barely notable, and AI-powered “misinformation” about horrible events are all over every social media feed I can think of. But as we document our descent into this hellhole, I thought some AI slop surfaced on Bluesky by Christina Stephens was particularly notable:

Yesterday, Silicon Valley trade publication The Information launched TITV, a live-streaming news program. For its first episode, the company’s founder Jessica Lessin interviewed Mark Zuckerberg about his recent attempts to hire AI executives away from other companies for huge sums of money.

It is impossible to say what actually happened in the interview, however, because there were audio problems with the livestream—the Zuckerberg segment was completely silent, giving us a minute and 50 seconds of video of Zuckerberg’s face moving with no sound coming out.

In recent weeks, however, Zuckerberg has really ramped up his rhetoric about “superintelligence,” throwing hundreds of millions of dollars at AI researchers in attempts to hire them at Meta, and beginning work on massive data centers around the country to power his AI. Zuckerberg and Meta have talked endlessly about AI as a game changer, while being unable or unwilling to keep AI-generated misinformation and slop off of Meta platforms.

Meanwhile, there has been increased discussion about the possible power of using AI for journalism, which we have written about extensively. I saw the silent interview with Zuckerberg as both an opportunity to check out the awesome abilities of Meta’s AI, and to test AI tools at a task some of them are supposedly good at—reading lips. If these technologies worked as well as their creators have promised, it might be possible to provide the world with information from The Lost Mark Zuckerberg Interview.

Here is how my experiment went.

Because Zuckerberg was obviously talking about Meta AI, I thought I would try his tool first. I took video from the interview and asked Meta AI to lip read it to tell me what they were saying:

“I’d love to help! However, I’m a text-based AI and don’t have capability to visually lip read videos,” Meta AI said. It then suggested that I “find a professional lip reader or transcription service that specializes in lip reading videos” or “use automated lip reading software.” 

I then tried to upload still images to see if Meta AI could parse them:

When I uploaded additional images, Meta AI was also not able to provide any information about what was being said.

I then went to ChatGPT, because Zuckerberg is reportedly offering pay packages of up to $300 million to OpenAI staffers to come work at Meta. I uploaded the 1:50 video and ChatGPT told me “the video processing took too long and timed out.” I then uploaded a 25 second clip and it told me “the system is still timing out while trying to extract frames.” I then asked it to do the first five seconds and it said “even with the shorter clip and smaller scope (first 5 seconds), the system timed out.” I then asked for it to extract one single frame, and it said “it looks like the system is currently unable to extract even a single frame from the video file.” ChatGPT then asked me to take a screenshot of Zuckerberg. I sent it this: 

And ChatGPT said “the person appears to be producing a sound like ‘f’ or ‘v’ (as in ‘video’ or ‘very’),” but that “possibly ‘m’ or ‘b,’ depending on the next motion.” I then shared the 10 frames around that single screenshot, and ChatGPT said “after closely analyzing the progression of lip shapes and facial motion,” the “probable lip-read phrase” was “This is version.” I then uploaded 10 more frames and it said the “full phrase so far (high confidence): ‘This version is just.’”

I then decided to try to extract every frame from the video and upload it to ChatGPT.

I went to a website called frame-extractor.com and cut the video into 3,000 frames. After it had processed 700 of them, I tried to upload them to ChatGPT and it did not work. I then decided I would go 10 frames at a time from the beginning of the clip. Even though I sent an entirely different portion of the video and told ChatGPT we were starting from a different part of the video, it still said that the beginning of the video said “this version is.” I continued uploading frames, 10 at a time. These frames included both Lessin and Zuckerberg, not just Zuckerberg.

ChatGPT slowly began to create a surely accurate transcript of the lost audio of this interview: “This version is just that it we built,” ChatGPT said. As I added more and more frames, it refined the answer: “This version is what we’re going to do,” it said. Finally, it seemed to make a breakthrough. “Is this version of LLaMA more powerful than the one we released last year?” the ChatGPT transcript said. It was not clear about who was speaking, however. ChatGPT said "her mouth movements," but then explained that the "speaker is the man on the left" (Lessin, not Zuckerberg, was speaking in these frames). 

I had uploaded 40 of a total of 3,000 frames. Zoom video is usually 30 fps, so in approximately 1.5 seconds, Lessin and/or Zuckerberg apparently said “Is this version of LLaMA more powerful than the one we released last year?” I then recorded this phrase at a normal speaking speed, and it took about four seconds. Just a data point.

Lipreadtest

0:00

/4.973333

1×

I then got an error message from ChatGPT, and got rate-limited because I was uploading too much data. It told me that I needed to wait three hours to try again. 

Finally, I did what Meta AI told me to do, and tried a bespoke AI lip reading app. I found one called ReadTheirLips.com, which is powered by Symphonic Labs. This is a tool that people have been trying to use in recent months to figure out what Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein were saying to each other in silent b-roll news footage, without much success.

I paid $10 for three minutes worth of transcription and asked it to lip read using its “Multiface Detection.” After waiting 10 minutes, I got an error message that said “Transcription failed, no credits have been used, try again later.” I then asked it to focus only on Zuckerberg, and actually got some text. I separately asked it to focus on Lessin.

Here is a transcript of what the AI says they were talking about. It has not been edited for clarity and I have no idea which parts, if any, are accurate:

LESSIN: Thanks for joining us again, TV. We're happy to have you already this morning. News that you've spent even more money with your big announcement about your new supercomputers. We'll get to that, but to start, you've been in huge scale like I.

ZUCKERBERG: Happy TO BE HERE. We're GOING TO TALK A LITTLE BIT ABOUT META'S AI STRATEGY. It's BEEN BUSY, YOU KNOW? I THINK THE MOST EXCITING THING THIS YEAR IS THAT WE'RE STARTING TO SEE EARLY GLIMPSES OF SELF-IMPROVEMENT WITH THE MODELS, WHICH MEANS THAT DEVELOPING SUPERINTELLIGENCE IS NOW.

LESSIN: You HAVE BEEN ON A PLANE OF AI HIRING, WHY AND WHY NOW? 

ZUCKERBERG: Insight, and we just want to make sure that we really strengthen the effort as much as possible to go for it. Our mission with a lab is to deliver personal superintelligence to everyone in the world, so that way, you know, we can put that power in every individual's hand. I'm really excited about it.

LESSIN: I DON'T KNOW, I DON'T KNOW, I DON'T KNOW.

ZUCKERBERG: Than ONE OF THE OTHER LABS YOU'RE DOING, AND YOU KNOW MY VIEW IS THAT THIS IS GOING TO BE SOMETHING THAT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT TECHNOLOGY IN OUR LIVES. IT'S GOING TO UNDERPIN HOW WE DEVELOP EVERYTHING AND THE COMPANY, AND IT'S GOING TO AFFECT SOCIETY VERY WISELY. SO WE JUST WANT TO MAKE SURE WE GET THE BEST FOCUS.

LESSIN: Did YOU FEEL LIKE YOU WERE BEHIND WHAT WAS COMING OUT OF LAW BEFORE I'M NOT ADJUSTING.

ZUCKERBERG: On THIS FROM ENTREPRENEURS TO RESEARCHERS TO ENGINEERS WORKING ON THIS HIDDEN INFRASTRUCTURE, AND THEN OF COURSE WE WANT TO BACK IT UP WITH JUST AN ABSOLUTELY MASSIVE AMOUNT OF COMPUTER RESEARCH, WHICH WE CAN SUPPORT BECAUSE WE HAVE A VERY STRONG BUSINESS MODEL THAT THROWS OFF A LOT OF CAPITAL. LET'S TALK ABOUT.

LESSIN: Like THIS SUMMER, PARTICULARLY, YOU SWITCH GEARS A LITTLE BIT.

ZUCKERBERG: I THINK THE FIELD IS ACCELERATING, YOU KNOW, WE KEEP ON TRACK FOR WHERE WE WANT TO BE, AND THE FIELD KEEPS US MOVING FORWARD.

The video ends there, and it cuts back to the studio.

Update: The Information provided 404 Media with several clips (with audio) from Lessin's interview with Zuckerberg, as well as a real transcript of the interview. Here is the real segment of what was said. As you can see, the AI captured the jist of this portion of the interview, and actually did not do too bad:

Lessin: Mark, thanks for joining TITV. We're happy to have you here. Already this morning, [there’s] news that you've spent even more money with your big announcement about your new supercomputers. We'll get to that. But to start, you took a huge stake in ScaleAI. You have been on a blitz of AI hiring. Why, and why now?

Zuckerberg: Yeah, it's been busy. You know, I think the most exciting thing this year is that we're starting to see early glimpses of self-improvement with the models, which means that developing super intelligence is now in sight, and we just want to make sure that we really strengthen the effort as much as possible to go for it. Our mission with the lab is to deliver personal super intelligence to everyone in the world, so that way we can put that power in every individual's hand. And I'm really excited about it. It's a different thing than what the other labs are doing.

And my view is that this is going to be something that is the most important technology in our lives. It's going to underpin how we develop everything at the company, and it's going to affect society very widely. So we just want to make sure that we get the best folks to work on this, from entrepreneurs to researchers to engineers working on the data and infrastructure.

And then, of course, we want to back up with just an absolutely massive amount of compute which we can support, because we have a very strong business model that throws off a lot of capital.

Lessin: Did you feel like you were behind coming out of Llama 4? It seems like this summer, in particular, you switched gears a little bit.

Zuckerberg: I think the field is accelerating, you know, we keep on having goals for where we want to be. And then the field keeps on moving faster than we expect.

The rest of the interview is available at The Information.

On May 23, we got a very interesting email from Ghost, the service we use to make 404 Media. “Paid subscription started,” the email said, which is the subject line of all of the automated emails we get when someone subscribes to 404 Media. The interesting thing about this email was that the new subscriber had been referred to 404 Media directly from chatgpt.com, meaning the person clicked a link to 404 Media from within a ChatGPT window. It is the first and only time that ChatGPT has ever sent us a paid subscriber.

From what I can tell, ChatGPT.com has sent us 1,600 pageviews since we founded 404 Media nearly two years ago. To give you a sense of where this slots in, this is slightly fewer than the Czech news aggregator novinky.cz, the Hungarian news portal Telex.hu, the Polish news aggregator Wykop.pl, and barely more than the Russian news aggregator Dzen.ru, the paywall jumping website removepaywall.com, and a computer graphics job board called 80.lv. In that same time, Google has sent roughly 3 million visitors, or 187,400 percent more than ChatGPT. 

This is really neither here nor there because we have tried to set our website up to block ChatGPT from scraping us, though it is clear this is not always working. But even for sites that don’t block ChatGPT, new research from the internet infrastructure company CloudFlare suggests that OpenAI is crawling 1,500 individual webpages for every one visitor that it is sending to a website. Google traffic has begun to dry up as both Google’s own AI snippets and AI-powered SEO spam have obliterated the business models of many media websites. 

This general dynamic—plummeting traffic because of AI snippets, ChatGPT, AI slop, Twitter no workie so good no more—has been called the “traffic apocalypse” and has all but killed some smaller websites and has been blamed by executives for hundreds of layoffs at larger ones. 

Despite the fact that generative AI has been a destructive force against their businesses, their industry, and the truth more broadly, media executives still see AI as a business opportunity and a shiny object that they can tell investors and their staffs that they are very bullish on. They have to say this, I guess, because everything else they have tried hasn’t worked, and pretending that they are forward thinking or have any clue what they are doing will perhaps allow a specific type of media executive to squeeze out a few more months of salary.

But pivoting to AI is not a business strategy. Telling journalists they must use AI is not a business strategy. Partnering with AI companies is a business move, but becoming reliant on revenue from tech giants who are creating a machine that duplicates the work you’ve already created is not a smart or sustainable business move, and therefore it is not a smart business strategy. It is true that AI is changing the internet and is threatening journalists and media outlets. But the only AI-related business strategy that makes any sense whatsoever is one where media companies and journalists go to great pains to show their audiences that they are human beings, and that the work they are doing is worth supporting because it is human work that is vital to their audiences. This is something GQ’s editorial director Will Welch recently told New York magazine: “The good news for any digital publisher is that the new game we all have to play is also a sustainable one: You have to build a direct relationship with your core readers,” he said.

Becoming an “AI-first” media company has become a buzzword that execs can point at to explain that their businesses can use AI to become more ‘efficient’ and thus have a chance to become more profitable. Often, but not always, this message comes from executives who are laying off large swaths of their human staff.

In May, Business Insider laid off 21 percent of its workforce. In her layoff letter, Business Insider’s CEO Barbara Peng said “there’s a huge opportunity for companies who harness AI first.” She told the remaining employees there that they are “fully embracing AI,” “we are going all-in on AI,” and said “over 70 percent of Business Insider employees are already using Enterprise ChatGPT regularly (our goal is 100%), and we’re building prompt libraries and sharing everyday use cases that help us work faster, smarter, and better.” She added they are “exploring how AI can boost operations across shared services, helping us scale and operate more efficiently.” 

Last year, Hearst Newspapers executives, who operate 78 newspapers nationwide, told the company in an all-hands meeting audio obtained by 404 Media that they are “leaning into [AI] as Hearst overall, the entire corporation.” Examples given in the meeting included using AI for slide decks, a “quiz generation tool” for readers, translations, a tool called Dispatch, which is an email summarization tool, and a tool called “Assembly,” which is “basically a public meeting monitor, transcriber, summarizer, all in one. What it does is it goes into publicly posted meeting videos online, transcribes them automatically, [and] automatically alerts journalists through Slack about what’s going on and links to the transcript.”

For this week’s podcast, I’m talking to our friend Casey Johnston, a tech journalist turned fitness journalist turned independent journalist. Casey studied physics, which led her to tech journalism; she did some of my favorite coverage of Internet culture as well as Apple’s horrendous butterfly laptop keyboards. We worked together at VICE, where Casey was an editor and where she wrote Ask a Swole Woman, an advice column about weightlifting. After she left VICE, Casey founded She’s a Beast, an independent site about weightlifting, but also about the science of diet culture, fitness influencers on the internet, the intersections of all those things, etc. 

She just wrote A Physical Education: How I Escaped Diet Culture and Gained the Power of Lifting, a really great reported memoir about how our culture and the media often discourages people from lifting, and how this type of exercise can be really beneficial to your brain and your body. I found the book really inspiring and actually started lifting right after I read it. In this interview we talk about her book, about journalism, about independent media, and how doing things like lifting weights and touching grass helps us navigate the world.

Listen to the weekly podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. Become a paid subscriber for access to this episode's bonus content and to power our journalism. If you become a paid subscriber, check your inbox for an email from our podcast host Transistor for a link to the subscribers-only version! You can also add that subscribers feed to your podcast app of choice and never miss an episode that way. The email should also contain the subscribers-only unlisted YouTube link for the extended video version too. It will also be in the show notes in your podcast player.

• Ask a Swole Woman
• A Physical Education: How I Escaped Diet Culture and Gained the Power of Lifting

This week, we’re going to try something new at 404 Media. Which is to say we’re going to try doing nothing at all. The TL;DR is that 404 Media is taking the week off, so this is the only email you’ll get from us this week. No posts on the website (except a scheduled one for the podcast). We will be back with your regularly scheduled dystopia Monday, July 7. 

We’re doing this to take a quick break to recharge. Over the nearly two years since we founded 404 Media, each of us have individually taken some (very limited) vacations. And when one of us takes off time it just means that the others have to carry their workload. We’re not taking this time to do an offsite, or brainstorm blue sky ideas. Some of us are quite literally gone fishin’. So, for the first time ever: A break!

We are not used to breaks, because we know that the best way to build an audience and a business of people who read our articles is to actually write a lot of articles, and so that’s what we’ve been doing. The last few months have been particularly wild, as we’ve covered Elon Musk’s takeover of the federal government, the creeping surveillance state, Trump’s mass deportation campaign, AI’s role in stomping over workers, the general destruction of the internet, etc etc etc. At the moment we have more story leads than we can possibly get to and are excited for the second half of the year. We’ve also published a lot of hopeful news, too, including instances where people fight back against powerful forces or solve universal mysteries, or when companies are forced to do the right thing in response to our reporting, or when lawmakers hold tech giants to account as a result of our investigations. But in an industry that has become obsessed with doing more with less and publishing constantly, we have found that publishing quality journalism you can’t find anywhere else is a good way to run a business, which means we thankfully don’t have to cover everything, everywhere, all at once.

When we founded 404 Media in August 2023, we had no idea if anyone would subscribe, and we had no idea how it would go. We took zero investment from anyone and hoped that if we did good work often enough, enough people would decide that they wanted to support independent journalism that we could make a job out of it, and that we could make a sustainable business that would work for the long haul. We did not and do not take that support for granted. But because of your support, we now feel like we don’t have to scratch and claw for every possible new dollar we can get, and you have given us the breathing room in our business to quite literally take a breather, and to let the other folks who make this website possible, such as those who help us out with our social accounts, take a paid breather as well. 

And if you want to subscribe to support our work, you can do so here.

We are not tired, exactly. In fact, we all feel more energized and ambitious than ever, knowing there are so many people out there who enjoy our work and are willing to financially support it. But we also don’t want to burn ourselves out and therefore, school’s out for summer (for one week). This week’s podcast is an interview Jason recorded with our friend Casey Johnston a few weeks ago; it’ll be the only new content this week. We’ll be back to it next Monday. Again, thank you all. Also, if you want, open thread in the comments to chat about whatever is going on out there or whatever is on your mind.