The New Surveillance State Is You

"The Department of Homeland Security secretary has spent 2025 trying to convince the American public that identifying roving bands of masked federal agents is " doxing"-and that revealing these public servants' identities is " violence." Noem is wrong on both fronts, legal experts say, but her claims of doxing highlight a central conflict in the current era: Surveillance now goes both ways."

"Over the nearly 12 months since President Donald Trump took office for a second time, life in the United States has been torn asunder by relentless arrests and raids by officers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection, and federal, state, and local authorities deputized to carry out immigration actions. Many of these agents are hiding their identities on the administration-approved basis that they are the ones at risk."

""ICE watch" groups have appeared across the country. Apps for tracking immigration enforcement activity have popped up on ( then disappeared from) Apple and Google app stores. Social media feeds are awash in videos of unidentified agents tackling men in parking lots, throwing women to the ground, and ripping families apart. From Los Angeles to Chicago to Raleigh, North Carolina, neighbors and passersby have pulled out their phones to document members of their communities being arrested and vanishing into the Trump administration's machinery."

Kristi Noem claims that identifying masked federal agents is doxing and that revealing their identities constitutes violence, claims that legal experts dispute. Federal immigration arrests and raids have intensified nationwide under the current administration, involving ICE, CBP, and deputized local authorities. Many agents conceal their identities citing personal risk, while US residents have increased documentation of enforcement actions. Community groups, tracking apps, and social media have proliferated with videos of arrests and physical confrontations. Civilian recording of law enforcement has roots in past practices aimed at countering power imbalances between officials and the public.

Read at WIRED