Geofence warrants turn the usual way of pursuing suspects on its head. Typically, police identify a suspect and then obtain a warrant to search a home or a phone.
In late 2023, unbeknownst to many users including PAPD, Flock added a new 'Nationwide Lookup' search feature. Using this feature, an out-of-state local law enforcement or federal agency could perform a broad search of data from Flock's entire nationwide network of over 6,000 cameras, including the 20 cameras then-deployed in Palo Alto.
Mobile Fortify, now used by United States immigration agents in towns and cities across the US, is not designed to reliably identify people in the streets and was deployed without the scrutiny that has historically governed the rollout of technologies that impact people's privacy, according to records reviewed by WIRED. The Department of Homeland Security launched Mobile Fortify in the spring of 2025 to "determine or verify" the identities of individuals stopped or detained by DHS officers during federal operations, records show.
During a confrontation with ICE agents, two legal observers had their faces scanned by a federal officer to include in a vague database. "We have a nice little database, and now you're considered domestic terrorists," the ICE agent said at the time. It wasn't clear at the moment whether the agent was bluffing. But now, new details reported by CNN reveal that Alex Pretti, the ICU nurse murdered by ICE agents in Minneapolis was indeed closely tracked by a border agent system before his killing.