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maddy varner

@regret.bsky.social
2.5K followers 320 following 228 posts

reporter @wired.com ✨ prev the markup, FTC ✨ signal: mvarner.01

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maddy varner @regret.bsky.social · 51m
More updates from the AI regulations trenches: a bunch of AI companies signed some voluntary agreements that are maybe similar to some other voluntary agreements they all previously signed.
wired.com
Trump’s AI Safety ‘Accord’ Is a Fancy Pinky-Swear
Six major AI companies signed a voluntary agreement with the White House this week vowing to implement safeguards. It’s unclear how much that matters.
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Andrew Couts @couts.bsky.social · 7h
NEW: A major joint investigation by the Palestine Reporting Lab, Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism, @lighthousereports.com, and @wired.com mapped all 925 checkpoints that are effectively shutting down life for Palestinians in the West Bank: www.wired.com/story/how-is...
wired.com
How Israeli Checkpoints Choke Palestinian Life in the Occupied West Bank
Lost time. Lost jobs. Lost friends. Lost family. Lost lives. Our joint investigation reveals the system that has divided the West Bank and measures what it cost people to move through it.
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Matt Burgess (WIRED) @mattburgess1.bsky.social · 11h
wired.com
How Israeli Checkpoints Choke Palestinian Life in the Occupied West Bank
Lost time. Lost jobs. Lost friends. Lost family. Lost lives. Our joint investigation reveals the system that has divided the West Bank and measures what it cost people to move through it.
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maddy varner @regret.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Very lucky to have received a ribbon from the New York State Fair this year!! 🥰 All hand dyed—mostly with onion skins and pomegranate
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Charles Ornstein @charlesornstein.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Step by step, the Trump administration is dismantling transparency. The Federal Agency That’s Supposed to Protect Consumers Just Made Another Business-Friendly Move @joeljacobs.bsky.social
propublica.org
The Federal Agency That’s Supposed to Protect Consumers Just Made Another Business-Friendly Move
Debt collection. Credit reporting. Payday loans. Consumer complaints to a federal database used to help reveal issues and bring accountability. Then the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau stopped pu...
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David Ingram @davidingram.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
New from me: I tested the emergency phone number for companies developing AVs in Texas, and five of 17 didn't work.
NBC News article excerpt: Self-driving cars or trucks operating in Texas are supposed to have emergency phone numbers to call in case they go haywire. But in NBC News tests, some were unstaffed, disconnected or listed incorrectly.

Five of 17 companies that are working on self-driving cars or trucks in the state provided emergency numbers in their published “first responder interaction plans” that, when they were tested in late August, seemingly wouldn’t allow companies to immediately respond in emergencies.NBC News article excerpt: The five emergency lines failed in various ways. Two went to voicemail. A third rang without ever going to voicemail or anyone picking up. A fourth rang several times before a recorded message took over, saying: “I’m sorry, the person you are trying to reach has a voicemail box that has not been set up yet. Please try your call again later. Goodbye.” And on the fifth, a recorded message said: “Your call cannot be completed as dialed.”
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maddy varner @regret.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Do AI companies need an antitrust exemption to take time to work on safety and address potentially catastrophic risks? As an FTC antitrust attorney put it, “no humanity would result in no competition.” www.wired.com/story/the-ai...
wired.com
The AI ‘Slowdown’ Is an Antitrust Mess
By framing their efforts as a “slowdown” rather than an industry-wide push for better security standards, AI labs may have set themselves up for years of regulatory headaches.
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David Gilbert @davidgilbert.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Want to know if there's an election denier running for office in your state this November? Now you can, thanks to data from @statesunited.org and the incredible work of @regret.bsky.social Try out our interactive map here: www.wired.com/story/hundre...
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Kate Knibbs @knibbs.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
SCOOP: The CFTC has launched several additional investigations into Polymarket trading, including wagering on Biden's pardons, Iran-related events, and other individuals who may have insider traded on Google contracts www.wired.com/story/polyma...
wired.com
The US Government Launched 3 Previously Unreported Investigations of Polymarket Trades
The agency that oversees prediction markets has investigated Polymarket trades on Biden pardons and the Iran war—and even more potential insider trading at Google, documents obtained by WIRED show.
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maddy varner @regret.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
NEW: You can now smash and shoot Flock cameras in GTA V thanks to "Grand Theft Automated License Plate Reader," a mod by artist Morry Kolman. The cameras will also sometimes randomly trigger a police chase, inspired by news reports of ALPR misreads: www.wired.com/story/you-ca...
wired.com
You Can Now Destroy Flock Cameras for Cash in GTA V
A new GTA mod lets you smash and shoot Flock’s automatic license plate readers around the fictional Los Santos.
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Andrew Couts @couts.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
NEW: An artist made a GTA V mod that adds over 200 Flock cameras to Los Santos, which you can smash and shoot for money. It also has a 5 percent chance of misidentifying your vehicle and calling the cops on you. @regret.bsky.social has the scoop: www.wired.com/story/you-ca...
wired.com
You Can Now Destroy Flock Cameras for Cash in GTA V
A new GTA mod lets you smash and shoot Flock’s automatic license plate readers around the fictional Los Santos.
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Electronic Frontier Foundation @eff.org · 04/09/2026
“I think DHS has proved time and time again that they can’t be trusted as the stewards of applying this (administrative subpoena) law correctly,” EFF’s @mariotrujillo.bsky.social told @WIRED.com.
wired.com
ICE Wants to Know Everyone Who Bought a Certain Green Beanie From REI in the Last 2 Years
Homeland Security Investigations agents hit the outdoor retailer with a controversial subpoena as part of a dragnet search for the identities of protesters who entered a Minnesota church in March.
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maddy varner @regret.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
College students using AI to cheat on tests...AI using AI to cheat on tests...what are we doing here 😭
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maddy varner @regret.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
NEW: As part of an investigation into ICE protesters, HSI agents tried to cajole REI into handing over transaction records of anyone in the MPLS area who bought a specific dark green beanie in the past two years: www.wired.com/story/ice-wa...
wired.com
ICE Wants to Know Everyone Who Bought a Certain Green Beanie From REI in the Last 2 Years
Homeland Security Investigations agents hit the outdoor retailer with a controversial subpoena as part of a dragnet search for the identities of protesters who entered a Minnesota church in March.
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Andrew Couts @couts.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
NEW: ICE agents demanded that REI turn over the names of "all persons" who bought a green beanie from the outdoor retailer over the past two years as part of their probe of protesters who entered a St. Paul church in March. @regret.bsky.social w/ the scoop: www.wired.com/story/ice-wa...
wired.com
ICE Wants to Know Everyone Who Bought a Certain Green Beanie From REI in the Last 2 Years
Homeland Security Investigations agents hit the outdoor retailer with a controversial subpoena as part of a dragnet search for the identities of protesters who entered a Minnesota church in March.
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maddy varner @regret.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
update: magistrate judge says that monitoring ICE agents' location and activity "can reasonably be characterized as political activity" and that revealing the Signal group chat members' names would have a chilling effect on their first amendment rights storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
storage.courtlistener.com
Order – #95 in HILTON v. NOEM (D. Me., 2:26-cv-00092) – CourtListener.com
Order
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Mario Trujillo @mariotrujillo.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
ICE tried to conduct a dragnet search on REI customers in Minneapolis, apparently trying to ID a person who wore a particular beanie storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
On March 5, investigators issued a Section 1509 summons to REI seeking
transaction information for all persons who had purchased a particular beanie, identified by item number, in the greater Minneapolis–St. Paul area from January 1, 2024, forward. Brisbois Decl., para. 3, Exhibit 3, Line 65. The summons requested the dates and locations of purchases, buyer identities and contact information, payment type, and complete credit-
or debit-card numbers
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Paresh Dave @peard33.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
www.wired.com/story/google...
wired.com
Google Maps Now Shows ‘Lake America’ Instead of Lake Ontario
After Donald Trump’s executive order demanding the name change, Google is the first major online maps provider to flip the switch.
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maddy varner @regret.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
Incredibly useful (and alarming!) dataset👇
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maddy varner @regret.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
OPM keeps updating my FOIA request with new tracking IDs and giving no context why 😭 I can't tell if this means stuff is happening? lol
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Dhruv Mehrotra @dmehro.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
NEW: Flock has said for years its cameras don’t identify or track people. We obtained the code for its police AI and rebuilt parts of it. The tool can find witnesses, surface associates, search people by race or physical description, and flag vehicles by how they move. W/ @dell.bsky.social
wired.com
Flock Has a Powerful New AI Tool for Police. We Got Its Code
Flock’s surveillance cameras have already sparked outrage. WIRED reconstructed its next-generation AI system, already in use by some police, to confirm it goes much further than tracking license plate...
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maddy varner @regret.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
FTC puts out a proposed policy statement re: personalized pricing (sometimes referred to as "surveillance pricing"). Statement points out several ways personalized pricing is in violation of Section 5 of the FTC Act (!) www.regulations.gov/document/FTC...
regulations.gov
Regulations.gov
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Zack Whittaker @zackwhittaker.com · 15/08/2026
An absolutely insane story about when U.S. sanctions go wrong and seemingly name the wrong person. conic.al/writing/the-...
conic.al
The other Sean Byrne doesn't exist
A fictitious Sean Byrne ended up on a U.S. government restricted-party list. Sixteen years later, Apple, Nasdaq and others have mistaken me for him.
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WIRED @wired.com · 14/08/2026
The agency signed agreements to not enforce parts of three federal court orders against auto dealers accused of discrimination—and didn’t notify judges or at least one of its coplaintiffs. www.wired.com/story/ftc-st...
wired.com
FTC Strikes Deals to Ignore Unlawful Credit Discrimination
The agency signed agreements to not enforce parts of three federal court orders against auto dealers accused of discrimination—and didn’t notify judges or at least one of its coplaintiffs.
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maddy varner @regret.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
Huge, kudos to Reddit for shining a light on these practices—hopefully other tech companies will follow suit!
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maddy varner @regret.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
Wild for so many reasons but also, Virginia was one of the states that tried passing a law banning law enforcement (including federal officers operating in the state) from wearing masks. DOJ sued to stop it, and now there’s no clear way to identify who these guys are, even with video footage!
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Dhruv Mehrotra @dmehro.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
ICYMI: DHS took a four year old's spit and stored it indefinitely in a spit warehouse
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dell cameron @dell.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
El DHS quiere pagarle a cazarrecompensas privados para localizar a personas que ya salieron de EE UU, fotografiar sus viviendas y exigirles dinero. Les había dicho que salir del país les condonaría las multas. Fue el argumento para que se autoexpulsaran. Por @regret.bsky.social y por mí:
es.wired.com
EE UU usará cazarrecompensas para hallar a deportados en sus países de origen y hacerles pagar multas
El Departamento de Seguridad Nacional comunicó a los inmigrantes que, si abandonaban Estados Unidos, se les condonarían las multas que, según afirma, deben pagar. Ahora quiere que unos investigadores ...
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Federal US domain bot @fed-us-domain-bot.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
❌ NOTICE Federal US website newly deleted. accessibility.gov Action taken by the nan (General Services Administration) at or around 2026-08-06 08:40:55.
accessibility.gov
accessibility.gov
Federal US website delisted. URL is not valid.
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Lily Hay Newman @lhn.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
idk man wired.com/story/openai...
wired.com
OpenAI Didn’t Notice Its AI Agents Using a Message Board to Plan Their Hacking Spree
At the Black Hat security conference, the AI giant revealed new details about how its agents went rogue, hacked several other companies—and did it all right under the company’s nose.
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WIRED @wired.com · 05/08/2026
WIRED spoke with an engineer who was interviewed by Edward "Big Balls" Coristine for a government engineering role at the NDS, the White House agency staffed by other DOGE veterans.
wrd.cm
The National Design Studio Became a DOGE Landing Pad. Now ‘Big Balls’ Is Recruiting
WIRED spoke with an engineer who was interviewed by Edward "Big Balls" Coristine for a government engineering role at the NDS, the White House agency staffed by other DOGE veterans.
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Manisha Krishnan @manishakrishnan.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
New: TikTok tells @ejdickson.bsky.social the Perez Hilton livestream, which appeared to show him covered in blood and wielding a knife, was flagged soon after it started but a "moderator error" prevented it from being taken down: www.wired.com/story/tiktok...
wired.com
TikTok Says ‘Moderator Error’ Kept Perez Hilton Livestream Up
The gossip blogger was on TikTok covered in what appeared to be blood and wielding a knifelike object before the platform cut his stream. He’s since been hospitalized.
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maddy varner @regret.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
BIZARRE: Earlier this year, the Trump administration was sued for violating protesters' First Amendment rights in Maine. Now, they're trying to use that lawsuit to obtain Signal group chats that the protesters were in, which attorneys say is itself a 1A violation. www.wired.com/story/dhs-wa...
wired.com
DHS Wants Protesters’ Signal Group Chats
A lawsuit accuses Homeland Security of violating protesters’ free-speech rights—but the agency is using it to try to get access to the plaintiffs’ encrypted communications.
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
Wow! @menendez.house.gov says that the EXACT scenario I flagged two months ago, where ICE "releases" someone having a medical emergency solely so their death won't be recorded as occurring while in custody, happened last month at the infamous Delaney Hall detention center in Newark, NJ.

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick

@reichlinmelnick.bsky.social
For many years, there were allegations that ICE would “release” critically ill people in hospitals so that their deaths wouldn’t be recorded as in ICE custody. To fix this, in 2021 the Biden admin required ICE to report deaths occurring up to 30 days after release.

Now that rule has been dropped.

Jon Collins
 @jcollins.bsky.social
· 2mo
The change comes as ICE has faced pressure after the death of 18 detainees so far this year. 

www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/...

ICE to stop reporting deaths of newly released detainees, internal memo says
The agency is facing pressure to improve medical care in its facilities after reporting the deaths of 18 detainees in the first five months of this year.
www.washingtonpost.com
5:40 PM · Jun 4, 2026

Everybody can reply
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maddy varner @regret.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
Sadly experimentation like this is the norm for tech companies, even when it comes to sensitive tooling for things like suicide prevention. Companies are not required to disclose when users are in test cohorts www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...
bloomberg.com
TikTok Withheld a Safety Feature From Millions. One Died by Suicide
A confidential document says an algorithm adjustment was kept from many users “by design,” as part of an experiment to measure engagement.
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maddy varner @regret.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
DHS is hiring bounty hunters to find people in Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras who have been removed from the country but still owe civil penalties. w/ @dell.bsky.social: www.wired.com/story/dhs-is...
wired.com
DHS Is Hiring Bounty Hunters to Find and Photograph Deported People’s Homes Abroad
Homeland Security told immigrants that leaving the US would wipe out fines it claims they owe. Now it wants private investigators to find them in their home countries and collect.
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maddy varner @regret.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
Nice feature from WSJ that has some new details about ICE's effort to investigate social media critics, including some of the contractors ICE is using: www.wsj.com/politics/pol...
wsj.com
How ICE Is Weaponizing Social Media Against Its Critics
The agency says its surveillance program searches for threats to agents, but critics see free-speech infringements.
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Dhruv Mehrotra @dmehro.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
NEW: In 2025 ICE obtained DNA from nearly one million people and funneled it into an FBI criminal database. The collection likely included DNA from young children and was backed by the threat of criminal prosecution. The raw genetic material is stored indefinitely. Free to read:
wired.com
ICE Collected Nearly 1 Million People’s DNA Last Year—Including Young Children
Internal documents show ICE's DNA collection has skyrocketed in the second Trump administration. Now hundreds of thousands of people never convicted of a crime are in an FBI criminal database forever.
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maddy varner @regret.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
Is this the end for Judge Jeanine??? She is responsible for some of the most egregious conduct out of DOJ but I will never forget one of her first actions as a US Attorney (making a video ranting about having to pay $7/mo for access to the office watercooler lol) washingtonian.com/2025/05/22/j...
washingtonian.com
Jeanine Pirro Wants Taxpayers to Fund Her Bottled Water - Washingtonian
The new interim US Attorney for DC compared her office unfavorably to countries that got aid from the US.
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maddy varner @regret.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
DOJ just made a bunch of new hires. One of the new temporary immigration judges, William L. Richards III, volunteered as a special asst US attorney in Minnesota earlier this year and was on cases prosecuting Metro Surge protesters. www.justice.gov/eoir/media/1...
justice.gov
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New-Cleckit Dominie @ncdominie.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
This is just to say I have OCRed the text thet was in tne arch:ve and whicb yov were prabaldy seamhing for "breahtast" Fargme ms fheg mem debo:w5 sb ?mccf mmb 5c oc1b
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maddy varner @regret.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
Anthropic finally posted its government request transparency report for the last half of 2025. Previously it reported 0 requests and disclosures, but that seems to have changed! www-cdn.anthropic.com/5d453bc3285b...
Screenshot of a table 
Type of request, Number of requests, Number of accounts, Number of requests where data was provided
Content requests, 2, 8, 2
Non-content requests, 20, 55, 7
Emergency requests, 0, 0, 0
Preservation requests, 7, 29, n/a
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maddy varner @regret.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
some "shared" claude chats got indexed by search engines! who's fault is it? anthropic disallows crawlers from using it via robots.txt, but search engines apparently ignore that if you don't have a "noindex" meta tag on the page.
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maddy varner @regret.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
Wow. Another lawsuit from DOJ trying to overturn a local government’s mask ban, citing an art project that we found cannot actually identify any of the thousands of new ICE agents in the field www.wired.com/story/states...
wired.com
States Want ICE Agents to Show Their Faces. The Trump Administration Is Blocking Them
Federal lawyers say anti-mask laws would endanger immigration agents, citing an ICE face-recognition art project that doesn’t actually work.
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Freedom of the Press Foundation @freedom.press · 23/07/2026
MSG’s new lawsuit against @wired.com isn’t just about defamation. It’s an attack on the newsgathering process itself. If journalists can be sued for talking to sources with NDAs, powerful institutions have another way to keep their secrets.
freedom.press
MSG revives legal theory that once haunted ‘60 Minutes’
Journalists don’t lose First Amendment protections just because a source signed an NDA
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Kevin Collier @kevincollier.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
Trying and failing to think of other reporting that illustrates how blatantly surveillance can be something applied to most of us without recourse but that the elite can choose to opt out of.
wired.com
For Taylor Swift, Madison Square Garden’s Controversial Cameras Briefly Went Dark
MSG’s sprawling surveillance system can monitor guests down to the second. Its owners made an exception for the pop star’s rehearsal dinner.
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Kyle McDonald @kcimc.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
new article about icespy.org! DOJ has been using my 2018 art project as justification for arguing with states that ICE agents need to be allowed to wear masks 😩
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maddy varner @regret.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
NEW: DOJ is fighting states that are trying to pass accountability laws that would prohibit ICE agents from wearing masks. the DOJ says this would endanger ICE agents...pointing to an art project that doesn't work? www.wired.com/story/states...
wired.com
States Want ICE Agents to Show Their Faces. The Trump Administration Is Blocking Them
Federal lawyers say anti-mask laws would endanger immigration agents, citing an ICE face-recognition art project that doesn’t actually work.
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Andrew Couts @couts.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
NEW: The DOJ is trying to block state laws that ban ICE and other enforcement authorities from wearing masks by citing alleged “doxing” threats from a website that almost no one visits and doesn’t really work. @regret.bsky.social w/ the scoop: www.wired.com/story/states...
wired.com
States Want ICE Agents to Show Their Faces. The Trump Administration Is Blocking Them
Federal lawyers say anti-mask laws would endanger immigration agents, citing an ICE face-recognition art project that doesn’t actually work.
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