Safety, Security, and Digital Preparedness

for a Second Trump Administration

This includes event planning and physical safety, digital security and online privacy, & a rich set of links to other resources.

Wired: Safety While Protesting

Protesting Tips: What to Bring, How to Act, How to Stay Safe | WIRED

Surveillance Self-Defense

Tips, Tools, and How-tos for Safer Online Communications

"We’re the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a member-supported non-profit working to protect online privacy for over thirty-five years. This is Surveillance Self-Defense: our expert guide to protecting you and your friends from online spying."

How to Disable Ad ID Tracking on iOS and Android

& Why You Should Do It Now

"The ad identifier — aka 'IDFA' on iOS, or 'AAID' on Android - is the key that enables most third-party tracking on mobile devices. Disabling it will make it substantially harder for advertisers and data brokers to track and profile you, and will limit the amount of your personal information up for sale.

"This post explains the history of device ad identifiers and how they have enabled persistent tracking, identification, and other privacy invasions."

GOP Budget Bill Will Make ICE "Largest Federal Law Enforcement Agency in the History of the Nation"

Democracy Now

This bill provides a whopping $170 billion to transform immigration enforcement and detention. This includes $45 billion for new detention jails. That's 265% more than the current ICE detention budget and more than the budget of the federal prison system. ICE's enforcement budget would increase by $30 billion, a threefold increase, and there's some $46 billion for border walls and more.

American Immigration Council calls the bill, quote, "the largest investment in detention and deportation in US history; a policy choice that does nothing to address the systemic failures of our immigration system while inflicting harm, sowing chaos, and tearing families apart"...

The administration is targeting immigrants as a "gateway,"opening the door into violating the rights of anyone they choose to. They're banking on citizens not paying attention if "only" immigrants are affected.

But this $170 billion is to fund a private army that answers only to Trump, and it would be the third largest military force on Earth, after the U.S. and Russia. For perspective, the FBI has a budget of $10 billion

ICE Is Going on a Surveillance Shopping Spree

The entire surveillance industry has been allowed to grow and flourish...

"U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has a new budget under the current administration, and they are going on a surveillance tech shopping spree. Standing at $28.7 billion dollars for the year 2025 (nearly triple their 2024 budget) and at least another $56.25 billion over the next three years, ICE's budget would be the envy of many national militaries around the world. Indeed, this budget would put ICE as the 14th most well-funded military in the world, right between Ukraine and Israel."

ICE’s interest in high-tech gear raises new questions: ‘What is it for?’

The immigration agency’s surveillance tools and increased access to government databases draws privacy concerns

"Federal records show that ICE has increased its spending on surveillance technology, looking to spend more than $300 million under Trump for social-media monitoring tools, facial recognition software, license plate readers and services to find where people live and work."

Ring cameras are about to get increasingly chummy with law enforcement

Amazon’s Ring partners with company whose tech has reportedly been used by ICE

"Law enforcement agencies will soon have easier access to footage captured by Amazon’s Ring smart cameras. In a partnership announced this week, Amazon will allow approximately 5,000 local law enforcement agencies to request access to Ring camera footage via surveillance platforms from Flock Safety.

"In August, Jay Stanley, senior policy analyst for the ACLU Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, wrote that 'Flock is building a dangerous, nationwide mass-surveillance infrastructure.' Stanley pointed to ICE using Flock’s network of cameras, as well as Flock’s efforts to build a people lookup tool with data brokers.

"Matthew Guariglia, senior policy analyst at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), told Ars via email that Flock is a 'mass surveillance tool' that 'has increasingly been used to spy on both immigrants and people exercising their First Amendment-protected rights.'

Here’s the tech powering ICE’s deportation crackdown

"ICE has taken center stage in Trump’s mass deportation campaign, raiding homes, workplaces, and public parks in search of undocumented immigrants. To aid its efforts, ICE has at its disposal several technologies capable of identifying and surveilling individuals and communities."

• Cell-site simulators
• AI facial recognition
• Phone spyware
• Phone hacking and unlocking technology
• Cellphone location data
• Legal and public records databases
• Surveillance giant Palantir

We Tracked Ourselves with Exposed Flock Cameras

Flock left at least 60 of its people-tracking Condor PTZ cameras live streaming and exposed to the open internet

"Unlike many of Flock’s cameras, which are designed to capture license plates as people drive by, Flock’s Condor cameras are pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) cameras designed to record and track people, not vehicles. Condor cameras can be set to automatically zoom in on people’s faces as they walk through a parking lot, down a public street, or play on a playground, or they can be controlled manually, according to marketing material on Flock’s website."

What Serbian Activists Can Teach Us

About Staying Safe Under Authoritarian Pressure

Lessons from the frontlines of the 2024 Serbian uprising for democracy defenders everywhere.

Signal

The Secure Messaging App

"Signal gives you encrypted messages, as well as voice and video calls. It relies on data, so it’s a great option for free calls and texts over Wi-Fi. This can be a huge advantage for those of us who don’t want to pay for SMS text messages and phone calls, or who want to make free international calls.

"It’s not only convenient, but security experts recommend Signal for a few different reasons. Signal is end-to-end encrypted, meaning that no one but your device and conversational partner’s device can read the messages you send. The team behind the software is a privacy-centered nonprofit funded by grants and donations. Perhaps most importantly, Signal is open source, meaning that the code is publicly viewable. It can be examined for potential security holes, and has stood up to auditing. All of these features make Signal one of the best options for boosting your communication security."

Proton

End-to-end encryption

"Proton Mail's end-to-end encryption and zero-access encryption ensure only you can see your emails. Not even Proton can view the content of your emails and attachments."

Bluesky

A better social media

Old-School, Simple, Non-Proprietary Tech

Use tools simple tools that haven't been usurped by big tech

Use the open-source, community-driven tools that were developed in the early days of the web. They still work & are human-readable, easy to learn, accessible, cheap...

Deflock

An open-source project mapping license plate readers

...your go-to resource for understanding and addressing the growing presence of Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs) in our communities.

United States Disappeared Tracker

by Danielle Harlow

Grabbed by men in masks? Was that ICE? Check the United States Disappeared Tracker.

ICE Out

iceout.org

Available in multiple languages, IceOut.org is a community participation website dedicated to collecting and disseminating information about ICE enforcement activities.