iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Margy O’Herron

David J. Bier @davidjbier.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

Trump's new public charge rules focus on immigrants with disabilities. Our research finds that immigrants are 24% less likely to be disabled than US-born citizens; illegal immigrants are 64% less likely. ⬇️ www.cato.org/blog/immigra...

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Margy O’Herron @margyoh.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

The admin claims many states and localities aren’t cooperating with ICE; they dispute that. The reality is that the extent of cooperation is governed mostly by local law and policy. And most jurisdictions, even “sanctuary” ones, already share info with DHS, esp about those with serious crimes.

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Reposted by Margy O’Herron

Brennan Center @brennancenter.org · 14/07/2026

In a new piece in @thehill.com, @margyoh.bsky.social explains how the Trump administration is undermining the independence of immigration courts from politics. She writes: "That’s dangerous for everyone — citizens and noncitizens alike.” And she explains how Congress can help.

thehill.com

Our immigration courts no longer offer even the veneer of fairness

Congress must take the courts out of the Justice Department to insulate judges from political interference.

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Emile Ayoub @emileayoub.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

Data brokers pose grave threats to Americans' privacy and our national security. But the US govt continues to bankroll the industry: it's one its major patrons! It's past time to close the checkbook. Congress must prohibit govt agencies from paying brokers billions to buy Americans’ sensitive info.

brennancenter.org

Congress Must Close Data Broker Loophole by Prohibiting Government Purchases of Americans' Sensitive Data

A two-pager compiled by the Brennan Center illustrating why Congress must close the data broker loophole by prohibiting government purchases of Americans' sensitive data.

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Margy O’Herron @margyoh.bsky.social · 24/04/2026

DOJ's plan to strip nearly 400 citizens of their citizenship is a major escalation from the 25 denaturalization cases filed in Trump's first administration. 🧵1/6 www.nytimes.com/2026/04/23/u...

nytimes.com

Justice Dept. Targets Hundreds of Citizens in New Push for Denaturalization

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Brennan Center @brennancenter.org · 22/04/2026

We stand against the department’s attempts to silence nonprofits on the basis of their views and support for civil rights. 2/2

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Brennan Center @brennancenter.org · 22/04/2026

The Department of Justice shouldn’t use its power to target its ideological enemies or dismantle civil rights. Now it is targeting the Southern Poverty Law Center. 1/2

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Margy O’Herron @margyoh.bsky.social · 13/04/2026

The Trump Justice Department is using the Board of Immigration Appeals to restrict immigrants’ due process and substantive rights and is compromising the board’s impartiality.

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Margy O’Herron @margyoh.bsky.social · 12/04/2026

This is not how due process and the rule of law work. The administration is shamelessly targeting immigrants based on their Constitutionally-protected speech and now has fired judges who faithfully applied the law.

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Reposted by Margy O’Herron

Brennan Center @brennancenter.org · 01/04/2026

Tomorrow the Supreme Court is hearing a major constitutional case about birthright citizenship because President Trump chose to act with striking disregard for the law. bit.ly/4bI28aP

brennancenter.org

Birthright Citizenship Shouldn’t Be Up for Debate

The text and history of the 14th Amendment are clear, yet the case is at the Supreme Court.

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Tom “T.M.” Wolf @tomtmwolf.bsky.social · 31/03/2026

"Will the Supreme Court protect birthright citizenship?" A reasonable question, given <gestures broadly> all this. Keep in mind as you assess how the Court behaves at tomorrow's oral argument ⬇️

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Margy O’Herron @margyoh.bsky.social · 31/03/2026

On the eve of the birthright citizenship argument in the supreme court tomorrow, Abby VanSickle and Julie Tate published a fascinating article in today's NYT detailing the citizenship origin stories of all 9 supreme court justices. 1/6

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Brennan Center @brennancenter.org · 25/03/2026

ICE arrests have increased, but arrests of immigrants with criminal convictions — especially violent offenses — have not. Brennan Center Senior Fellow @margyoh.bsky.social explains what you need to know:

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Margy O’Herron @margyoh.bsky.social · 03/03/2026

Again, Noem cites false data. Approximately 60% of people in ICE custody have no criminal history whatsoever.

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Margy O’Herron @margyoh.bsky.social · 03/03/2026

Last week, Lyons said 200k kids were lost-today Noem says upped it to 400k. Neither is true. Kids were released to vetted sponsors, not lost. DHS wants to deport them, which Noem herself conceded, although she said they were “reuniting” kids with family outside the US.

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Margy O’Herron @margyoh.bsky.social · 03/03/2026

During her Senate testimony, Sec Noem claims that many immigrant criminals have come to the U.S., but immigrants commit crimes at lower rates than people born in the US, and communities with high concentrations of immigrants have lower rates of crime. www.brennancenter.org/our-work/ana...

brennancenter.org

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Reposted by Margy O’Herron

wendyweiser.bsky.social @wendyweiser.bsky.social · 25/02/2026

The SAVE Act could block millions of Americans from voting. It is not common sense. If passed, it would be the first time in history Congress passed a vote suppression law. #SOTU

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Brennan Center @brennancenter.org · 25/02/2026

U.S. elections are secure and accurate, but now the federal government is threatening that infrastructure. www.brennancenter.org/our-work/res...

brennancenter.org

Timeline of the Trump Administration’s Efforts to Undermine Elections

Together, these actions form a concerted strategy to interfere with elections.

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Reposted by Margy O’Herron

Amos Toh @amostoh.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

25/ Congress should also use its power to close the data broker loophole and strengthen privacy protections against AI-enabled surveillance. It should demand transparency about how the military is using AI in hostilities – a critical first step towards regulating the technology.

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Amos Toh @amostoh.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

24/ Congress has the constitutional power and duty to regulate the military. It should reassert its authority over matters of war and peace.

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Amos Toh @amostoh.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

23/ This appears designed to pressure Anthropic to waive its usage restrictions on Claude – restrictions that might reflect not only the company’s own policy preferences but also what U.S. and international law require.

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Amos Toh @amostoh.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

22/ DOD has threatened to designate the company as a supply chain risk, which would not just cut it off from future military work but also chill its business with other companies that themselves have a stake in defense contracting. www.axios.com/2026/02/16/a...

axios.com

Exclusive: Pentagon warns Anthropic will "pay a price" as feud escalates

The Pentagon may label Anthropic a "supply chain risk," forcing all its vendors to sever ties.

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Amos Toh @amostoh.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

21/ Anthropic is no doubt aware – and perhaps increasingly wary – of the legal issues created by the Pentagon’s use of Claude in military operations. But relying on Anthropic – or any company – to restrain the military is a fool’s errand.

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Amos Toh @amostoh.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

20/ All questions Congress must demand the Pentagon answer in its investigations of military actions in Venezuela, on the high seas, and elsewhere. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/02/o...

nytimes.com

Opinion | How to Respond, Right Now, to Trump’s Boat Strikes

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Amos Toh @amostoh.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

19/ Was Claude, Maven or any other AI used to distinguish strike targets from civilian infrastructure, assess the civilian impact of strike options, or otherwise plan the attack? For that matter, how is the military using AI in its boat strikes, and prep for possible strikes on Iran?

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Amos Toh @amostoh.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

18/ The Venezuela attack struck several apartment buildings and killed two civilian air traffic controllers in a car leaving the Caracas international airport. www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...

newyorker.com

The Overlooked Deaths of the Attack on Venezuela

To many on the ground, civilian fatalities were simply the cost of ousting Nicolás Maduro.

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Amos Toh @amostoh.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

16/ Given that Congress did not authorize the Venezuela operation, and that Venezuela did not pose an imminent threat to the US, the attack was unconstitutional on its face. This makes any use of AI to facilitate the attack unlawful. www.brennancenter.org/our-work/ana...

brennancenter.org

Attack in Venezuela Was Unconstitutional

Congress must assert its control of military matters.

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Amos Toh @amostoh.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

15/ Remember the public uproar in 2018 over Google’s involvement in Maven, the Pentagon’s AI pilot to analyze troves of drone and satellite footage? It’s now a full-fledged program the military has credited with speeding up targeting. breakingdefense.com/2025/05/ai-u...

breakingdefense.com

AI 'unchained': NGA's Maven tool 'significantly' decreasing time to targeting, agency chief says - Breaking Defense

"NGA Maven is now available to all services and all combatant commands. There are 20,000 active users through more than 35 service and combat and command tools across three security domains," said NGA...

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Amos Toh @amostoh.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

13/ Then there’s the use of AI to “assist weapons targeting without sufficient human oversight.” All attacks – AI-assisted or not – must comply with U.S. law and the international law of war.

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Amos Toh @amostoh.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

11/ AI enables DOD to take this data and connect the dots with other discrete datasets about US persons to recreate their movements, associations, and political views at scale – an invasion of privacy far more egregious than the type of surveillance before the Carpenter court.

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Amos Toh @amostoh.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

10/ But law enforcement and intelligence agencies - and DOD - have bought their way around this protection, spending millions to purchase entire databases of Americans’ location information and other sensitive data from data brokers on the commercial market. int.nyt.com/data/documen...

int.nyt.com

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Amos Toh @amostoh.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

8/ What is clear is that AI-enabled spying raises serious Fourth Amendment concerns that neither Congress nor the courts have directly grappled with – in large part because the law is not keeping up with how quickly the technology is evolving. But that doesn’t mean DOD has a blank check.

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Amos Toh @amostoh.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

7/ Why would the military be spying on Americans? When it is monitoring targets overseas, for example, it likely sweeps up Americans’ e-mails, phone records, location information and other personal data - all of this is just as likely to route through Latin America or the Middle East as the U.S.

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Amos Toh @amostoh.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

6/ But are the disputed uses of Claude lawful? Using the model to “spy on Americans” can mean many things – from running it across multiple data sources to generate personal information about Americans to trying to reconstruct this information from the data the model was trained on.

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Amos Toh @amostoh.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

5/ Defense secretary Pete Hegseth has declared, “We will not employ AI models that won’t allow you to fight wars.” And DOD insists that it should be free to use Claude however it wants, as long as it is obeying the law. media.defense.gov/2026/Jan/12/...

media.defense.gov

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Amos Toh @amostoh.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

4/ This rift is emerging at a time where the Pentagon is pushing for breakneck adoption of AI in warfighting. www.war.gov/News/News-St...

war.gov

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Amos Toh @amostoh.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

3/ In January, Anthropic and DOD were deadlocked over the appropriate uses of Claude. Anthropic wants assurances that the Pentagon will not use Claude to “spy on Americans or assist weapons targeting without sufficient human oversight,” which would violate the company’s usage policies.

reuters.com

Exclusive: Pentagon clashes with Anthropic over military AI use, sources say

The Pentagon is at odds with artificial-intelligence developer Anthropic over safeguards that would prevent the government from deploying its technology to target weapons autonomously and conduct U.S....

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Amos Toh @amostoh.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

2/ Anthropic signed a $200 million contract last year to develop “frontier AI capabilities” for DOD. Its AI model, Claude, has now been integrated into classified systems developed by Palantir and Amazon for the military. www.semafor.com/article/02/1...

semafor.com

Exclusive: Palantir partnership is at heart of Anthropic, Pentagon rift

The roots of the conflict point to the changing nature of software stacks as top officials push to modernize the military.

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Amos Toh @amostoh.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

1/ The dispute between Anthropic and DOD over the limits of using AI in warfare is escalating. I’ll have more to say on what these limits should be in a @brennancenter.org report out next month. But for now, here’s what you need to know, and what’s truly at stake 🧵: www.nytimes.com/2026/02/18/t...

nytimes.com

Defense Dept. and Anthropic Square Off in Dispute Over A.I. Safety

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Margy O’Herron @margyoh.bsky.social · 12/02/2026

It is also critical to remember in this debate that immigrants commit crimes at lower rates than people born in the US, and communities with high concentrations of immigrants have lower rates of crime. www.brennancenter.org/our-work/ana...

brennancenter.org

Debunking the Myth of the ‘Migrant Crime Wave’

Data does not support claims that the United States is experiencing a surge in crime caused by immigrants.

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Margy O’Herron @margyoh.bsky.social · 12/02/2026

The remaining 35% have either a pending charge (but no conviction), a misdemeanor immigration conviction for “improper entry,” or a conviction for another nonviolent offense.

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Margy O’Herron @margyoh.bsky.social · 12/02/2026

Bumping this up because Senator Lankford also used incorrect numbers. To repeat: based on ICE’s own data, 60% of those arrested and detained have NO criminal history, and only 5% have a conviction for a violent offense.

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Margy O’Herron @margyoh.bsky.social · 10/02/2026

Lyons is incorrect: it is not a crime to “skip a Notice to Appear,” whatever that means.

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Margy O’Herron @margyoh.bsky.social · 10/02/2026

Lyons says, “I can assure you,” ICE does not have a database that tracks US citizens, but ICE has signed contracts worth millions that do just that. www.brennancenter.org/our-work/res...

brennancenter.org

ICE Wants to Go After Dissenters as well as Immigrants

The Trump administration is being open about its plans to violate Americans’ First and Fourth Amendment rights.

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Margy O’Herron @margyoh.bsky.social · 10/02/2026

Lyons’ claim that 60% of people in detention have a pending or final criminal charge is false. The number is exactly backwards. Approximately 60% of people in ICE custody have NO conviction or even a pending charge. And only 5% have a conviction for a violent crime.

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Margy O’Herron @margyoh.bsky.social · 10/02/2026

Lyons and Scott: ICE and CBP are not involved in any planning for elections.

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Margy O’Herron @margyoh.bsky.social · 10/02/2026

10,000 out of 20,000 BP are wearing body cams, 3,000 of 12,000 at ICE

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Margy O’Herron @margyoh.bsky.social · 10/02/2026

Lyons and Scott: all agents are trained on “less lethal” weapons use like tasers

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Margy O’Herron @margyoh.bsky.social · 10/02/2026

Lyons: says curriculum is the same but timeline is shorter, there is pre-employment training, and “on the job”training. Scott: no change to CBP training except is now doing quarterly training re protestor interactions.

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