SCOOP: Israel’s military is a central, foundational part of Project Nimbus, Google + Amazon’s $1.2 billion contract w/ Israel. Despite years of Google insisting that isn’t the case.
My investigation, sourced from a wealth of documents + public statements:
A Google Cloud engineer just interrupted Google Israel managing director Barak Regev at Israeli tech industry conference MindTheTech this morning in NY.
“I refuse to build technology that powers genocide!” he yelled, referring to Google’s Project Nimbus contract
Right after tweeting, a security guard said I had to leave. I asked why I had to leave, & took out my phone. He grabbed my phone, which I quickly took back. He grabbed both my arms & shoved me outside, then yanked my press badge from my neck
A Google Cloud engineer just interrupted Google Israel managing director Barak Regev at Israeli tech industry conference MindTheTech this morning in NY.
“I refuse to build technology that powers genocide!” he yelled, referring to Google’s Project Nimbus contract
Oh man. De Blasio just announced that he's forming a fireworks task force including over 40 law enforcement officers, including 12 FDNY officers, to respond to illegal fireworks. It'll involve "undercover buys" & "sting operations."
Amazon's Ring has partnered with 1,350 police departments and law enforcement agencies as of today.
Amazon has also helped police plan "sting operations" where police leave out Amazon-branded dummy packages and try to catch people stealing them on Ring cameras
I’d told him I had stuff (my backpack, laptop, coat) in the other room, and I had to wait outside for about 20 minutes before they brought it out. I asked him a few times why I was escorted out, and he only said “management” wanted me to leave.
Who's up?
I just wrote about how K-pop fans flooded the Dallas PD tip-submission app with fancams after the police asked for videos of protestors. The Dallas PD said the app is now down "due to technical difficulties."
I'm floored. This is a huge, huge, aggressive police response — and right now, when we have mass protests against police brutality, constant police use of force against protesters, and just a heightened atmosphere of fear generally
Police descending on protesters who were completely peaceful. Completely chaos. People screaming. Police grabbed my arms and tried to cuff me but let me go when I showed my press pass.
SCOOP for
@WIRED
— these appear to be the first publicly-reported arrests of their kind:
Two boys, aged 13 and 14, were arrested in Florida after allegedly making fake, AI-generated nude images of their classmates
SCOOP: Palantir training guides I got from the LAPD show how police were trained to use the data analytics tool. Police searched for people by scars, tattoos, nicknames, license plates, & suspected gang membership. We’ve published the docs with the story:
If you see aggressive policing tactics like these (police showing up in riot gear + raiding buildings in response to fireworks) — and it looks like we'll see more of this — you can reach out at caroline.haskins
@buzzfeed
.com or on Signal at (785) 813-1084
Breaking:
Dozens of Google employees began occupying NYC and Sunnyvale offices today in protest of the company’s $1.2 billion dollar Project Nimbus cloud computing contract with the Israeli government
Major news from the ACLU v Clearview suit: the company is permanently banned from selling access to its facial recognition tool to US businesses + private entities. It's also banned from selling access to law enforcement in Illinois for at least 5 years
Crowd is taking a knee by West 34th and 7th Ave. An activist is pointing out subway stops for people who have been walking all day and need to get home.
SCOOP (1/2): I obtained a Palantir user manual, designed to be used by cops, through a public record request. The guide shows—in detail we’ve never seen before—how the Palantir’s Gotham software tracks, logs, and surveils people.
Waiting for the post about how the depop girlies are selling cheap tops from 2008 for $50 by saying it has “bella swan vibes” or “elena gilbert energy”
SCOOP & my first for
@WIRED
: Google workers are urging the company in a widely distributed petition to cut its ties to MindTheTech, the Israeli tech conference that kicked out two protesters (and me) earlier today:
Last week, I went to an “AI Expo” that was put on by Eric Schmidt’s think tank and funded by Palantir. It was incredibly bleak and surreal. For The Guardian, I wrote about my experience, and the people I met:
Scoop: 2000+ police officers have taken an OSINT course telling them to make fake policing accounts w/ avatars from thispersondoesnotexist
The officer who runs it has talked about how to use OSINT to manipulate women, & posted pics mocking Trayvon Martin
News from me! Next Monday the 21st, I’m starting as a senior technology reporter at
@BuzzFeedNews
. I’ll be writing about surveillance, platforms, and all the specific ways capitalism and power affect our lives. I’m so, so excited to join this extraordinary team!!!⭐️
We've created a searchable table of 1800+ publicly funded agencies that are listed as having used the facial recognition tool Clearview AI, per data we’ve obtained. Reporting this, by contacting every agency in the chart, took 9 months. Here’s the story:
NEW: Amazon, Google, and Microsoft work with ICE and CBP frequently - more often than the general public or even employees realize.
How? They use other companies, which sell their tech to ICE and CBP with their knowledge. An investigation:
Hi!! Some news: I’ll soon be wrapping up at BuzzFeed News. Then, I’ll be coming to
@BusinessInsider
— joining editors
@alistairmbarr
+
@GrahamStarr
+ a talented, growing team — as a senior reporter covering surveillance, AI, and algorithmic decision-making. I’m super excited!!
New/exclusive:
African workers who moderate platforms like Instagram + train AI for places like OpenAI (often for >$2/hr) pub'ed an open letter to Biden.
They say US tech companies need to stop paying "modern day slavery" level wages & union busting:
The moment Derek Chauvin was found guilty of murder in the second degree outside Hennepin County Gov Center. He was also found guilty of murder in the third degree, guilty manslaughter on the second degree, and guilty on all counts.
I’m at George Floyd Square, at the site that Floyd was killed last year. The square and the area around it is dedicated to memorializing him and others killed by police, as well as art and community aid.
It’s a beautiful day, and dozens of people are praying and making art
NEW on Clearview AI, the company that scrapes social media pics + does facial recognition for police, from
@RMac18
,
@_loganmcdonald
, & I:
The CEO has downplayed ties to the far right. And marketing emails I got via FOIL misrepresent its work with police
really really obsessed with what is said to be a rising trend at NJ/NY weddings/sweet 16s/bat + bar mitzvahs…. paying for an 8 foot tall dancing “party robot” with LED lights and a fog cannon
@dancingofpens
the person who did this is a rotten loser. so is anyone who encouraged it. you can’t cure their cruelty and brokenness. it’s baffling and infuriating. but the replies here really highlight how many people adore and respect you. it’s been a while since I’ve seen you, but I have
SCOOP: I got hundred of pages of documents + content moderation info for Gaggle, a student surveillance giant. It scans emails, calendar events, chats, documents, & everything students do. And it pays contract content moderators $10/hour to review it all
Hi!! Today’s my first day at Business Insider as a senior reporter covering surveillance and AI/ML. Workers, researchers, & organizers in this space, you can now reach out, send tips, etc. to my new email: chaskins
@insider
.com. I’m also on Signal at +1 (785) 813-1084
New from me +
@scottlucas
: five baristas who worked in the Slack office had their contracts terminated early when the office shut down due to coronavirus.
Through collective action, they got wages through June 28 and continued access to healthcare
**MAJOR CLEARVIEW NEWS**
More than 2,200 law enforcement departments, gov agencies, and companies across 27 countries have used Clearview, according to docs we obtained. This includes ICE, CBP, hundreds of local PDs, banks, retail stores, & universities.
Lots of people have been wondering what kinds of surveillance tools could be used on protesters demonstrating against police brutality.
Here's a guide to the surveillance tech that's been used in and around Minneapolis:
*Scoop* and my first for
@BusinessInsider
: I got a copy of the contract between Clearview AI + the US Army's Criminal Investigation Command, and the marketing materials Clearview gave to the unit
Right after tweeting, a security guard said I had to leave. I asked why I had to leave, & took out my phone. He grabbed my phone, which I quickly took back. He grabbed both my arms & shoved me outside, then yanked my press badge from my neck
Cannot emphasize enough how peaceful this protest was. But police were waiting for the crowd at 60th St and things escalated immediately. My BuzzFeed press badge is the only reason I wasn’t arrested.
But
@RosalindZAdams
and I are both on our way home. More on this later.
Google Maps photo galleries for middle + high schools are filled with ridiculous memes, erotic fan art, and "cursed images" and it appears administrators have no idea lmao
My conservative estimate is kids have done this for 1 in 10 schools nationally
Google does this confetti effect with pride flags if u search for a queer identity but it doesn’t sit so well next to the uh news stories about people’s right being violated
SCOOP: Ring has never disclosed how many partnerships it has with police. I obtained documents via a public records request — they show Ring told police that it’s partnered with 200 law enforcement agencies around the country.
Can confirm:
Google fired the employee who spoke out during the MindTheTech conference earlier this week in protest of Project Nimbus, the company’s cloud computing contract with the Israeli government
NEW: Facebook is running ads for an anti-vax pamphlet. When I brought it to Facebook’s attention, it said that the ads weren’t a violation of its ad policies, even though it officially has a ban on anti-vax ads.
Palantir is scheduled to make a public listing tomorrow. These documents show that dozens of police depts, sheriff's offices, airport police, universities, and school districts gave their data to the LAPD’s Palantir database.
SCOOP: I obtained a 20-minute video and 100 pages of documents from the Chicago Police Dept showing how they train officers to use batons, create formations, and arrest protesters:
Late last night, Facebook told me it bans "ads containing vaccine misinformation" but not ads that express "opposition to vaccines."
I don't know what the difference between those two things are. All the ads I showed them are still up.
SCOOP: I got a contract and internal emails detailing how Amazon/Ring "partnerships" actually work.
The docs explicitly require police to “encourage adoption” of Ring products.
SCOOP (2/2): 300 cities had access to Palantir through company contracts with Northern California Regional Intelligence Center, which is run by the DHS. The NCRIC gives info to police depts in 14 counties home to almost 8 million people. This is huge.
NEW, on RAVEn the biggest ICE tool you probably don't know about:
The biggest companies in the world are fighting to build this massive data mining & analytics tool, which has already been used to process more than 780,000 immigration documents
New from me at
@WIRED
:
1100+ STEM students from 120+ universities have signed a pledge to not work/intern for Google or Amazon until they drop Project Nimbus, their $1.2 billion contract with the Israeli government
NEW: We looked at how contract tracing is playing out around the world & the US. The beginnings of American efforts aren’t promising. We could have a chaotic stew of apps that vary between jurisdictions, led by companies with no public health experience
NEW: Customer service reps for , which millions had to use to get unemployment $, described chaos internally
Easy access to user data. User docs shared on Slack. Letting fake accounts slide. Constant death threats. My investigation:
I was filming this arrest w my phone and cops grabbed me on my arm and pushed me back w batons. You can see officer’s baton in the video coming at me over and over again “you don’t need to push me I’m press” I’m yelling
#nycprotest
Breaking:
-Google just fired 28 workers who protested against its $1.2 billion Project Nimbus contract with Israel on Tues.
-Among the 28 are 9 workers who were arrested after sit-ins at NY + Sunnyvale offices
-Most fired protesters were much less involved
New (no paywall)
-ID.me keeps "inferred citizenship," face pics, voiceprints, & tons of other sensitive info
-Police, ICE, CBP, etc can ask for any of it
-ID.me wouldn't tell me when, or if, it would push back against data requests from law enforcement
SCOOP: I got several scripts that Ring gives to police outlining how exactly they can talk about Ring.
One of these docs is a spreadsheet with 46 responses to possible questions.
Wyze, a super popular + cheap home surveillance company, had the personal data of 2.4 MILLION users exposed. But what I'm wondering is, why did Wyze have info about "Height, Weight, Gender, Bone Density, Bone Mass, Daily Protein Intake" for some people ??
NEW: At least 15 cities, probably more, are using taxpayer money to subsidize massive discounts on Ring surveillance cameras. These discount programs—which funnel public money to Ring/Amazon—cost upwards of $100,000.
NEW on Clearview AI: The company has given its software to conservative think tanks, a former Trump staffer, and lots of investment firms. Some of these entities have run hundreds of searches. Our latest:
It's good that outlets are thinking twice about endorsing Ring. But it's a bit disappointing that nuclear families getting hacked is what's turning people on these products and not, say, people being demonstrably racist through and with Ring products
In light of recent reports about the security of Ring devices, we’re suspending our recommendation of Ring products & updating affected guides as soon as possible. Ring owners should turn on 2FA & update their passwords with a new, previously unused one.
AOC bringing attention to Ring's partnerships with police (there are now over 1,300), Amazon pitching ICE on Rekognition, and NextDoor's culture problem:
Yes, I will name names.
@amazon
needs to stop integrating Ring cameras w/ police depts & selling facial recognition tech to ICE.
@Nextdoor
needs to publicly deal w/ their Karen problem
Commercial banks need to stop lobbying against the Community Reinvestment Act
Name yours ⬇️
@motherboard
Here’s part 1 of my series about Ring.
In this, I show how DoorBot, the smart doorbell pitched on Shark Tank, transformed into Ring, the company that sells fear & powers Amazon’s very own privatized surveillance network:
**Scoop** with
@RMac18
: SpaceX offices + its daycare are still open, although at least 1 employee was recently tested for COVID-19. When a company VP told employees that the offices couldn’t close, he cited Musk’s position that the covid panic is “dumb”
PG&E is cutting power to hundreds of thousands of people as a response to wildfire conditions. It's worth noting that investor-owned utilities have no incentive to invest in renewable energy. This puts people at risk.
SCOOP: Login credentials for **3,672** Ring owners were leaked this week, exposing log-in emails, passwords, time zones, names people give to specific Ring cameras, live camera footage, 30 to 60 day camera history, address, phone #, and payment info:
NEW: A location data company monitored 16,902 devices at protest sites in 4 cities between May 29 and May 31.
The company then tried to predict protesters' race, age, gender, and whether they were outside agitators. Here's the story: