2026-01-30 22:49:01
Earlier this month we revealed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is using a Palantir tool called ELITE to decide which neighborhoods to raid.
The tool lets ICE populate a map with potential deportation targets, bring up dossiers on each person, and view an address “confidence score” based on data sourced from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and other government agencies. This is according to a user guide for ELITE 404 Media obtained.
404 Media is now publishing a version of that user guide so people can read it for themselves.
404 Media is not publishing the original document for source protection reasons, but has retyped a version below. 404 Media has made some formatting tweaks for clarity and reconstructed some of the images in the guide (some of the images in the original are blurred). We previously did similar with an internal Palantir wiki in which the company explained its work with ICE.
Senator Ron Wyden previously told 404 Media in a statement, “The fact ICE is using this app proves the completely indiscriminate nature of the agency's aggressive and violent incursions into our communities. This app allows ICE to find the closest person to arrest and disappear, using government and commercial data, with the help of Palantir and Trump's Big Brother databases. It makes a mockery of the idea that ICE is trying to make our country safer. Rather, agents are reportedly picking people to deport from our country the same way you'd choose a nearby coffee shop.”
Palantir did not respond to a request for comment. But after publication of our original article, the company wrote a blog post, which said in part, “The ELITE tool is used for prioritized enforcement to surface the likely addresses of specific individuals, such as those with final orders of removal or with high severity criminal charges. The purpose of this tool is identifying the location of known foreign nationals who meet criteria for removal, not for mass prioritization of ‘locations where lots of people it might detain could be based.’”
One section of the guide indicates that during “special operations,” which target “groups of pre-defined aliens” leadership wants action against, normal safeguards in ELITE may need to be turned off. By default, the tool shows people with a final order of deportation, and with no reason preventing their removal (these can be turned off by a user of the tool). For special operations, the guide says those filters may need to be removed “to display all targets within a Special Operation dataset.” Palantir did not respond to a specific question asking if this undercuts the idea ELITE is a targeted, rather than broad, tool.
In testimony 404 Media obtained from a case in Oregon, an ICE official said ELITE is what ICE sometimes uses to track the apparent density of people at a particular location to target. “You’re going to go to a more dense population rather than [...] like, if there’s one pin at a house and the likelihood of them actually living there is like 10 percent [...] you’re not going to go there,” the official said. “It’s basically a map of the United States. It’s kind of like Google Maps.” That case related to a woman, who has the initials MJMA in the court records, who was detained with more than 30 other people in what her lawyers described as a dragnet.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) did not respond to a request for comment.
The user guide follows below.
Overview
Enhanced Leads Identification & Targeting for Enforcement (ELITE) is a targeting tool designed to improve capabilities for identifying and prioritizing high-value targets through advanced analytics. Key functionality includes:
• ELITE enhances target viability and reduces officer workload by integrating new data sources
• ELITE employs an address confidence score that evaluates both the reliability of the source and the recency of the data to enhance prioritization
• ELITE provides the capability to export target lists
• ELITE auto-populates initial key FOW information
• ELITE interfaces with EID for encounters, EARM for cases, and EADM for detention data
• ELITE includes a geospatial heat map to better inform the field in developing articulable facts for consensual encounters
ELITE Workflow
The ELITE workflow includes all phases of targeting from identifying subjects to disposition.
1. Individuals are identified and sent to AOR-specific review queue
2. Officer conducts review of leads
3. Officer refines leads into list of actionable targets
4. Supervisors review the actionable targets and moves selections into the planning stage
5. After case is worked, officers disposition target
Home Screen
The ELITE home screen includes three main tabs: Enforcement Lead Tracker and Geospatial
Lead Sourcing, and UID Search.
The Enforcement Lead Tracker tab displays leads assigned to your queue, the Geospatial Lead Sourcing tab displays potential leads based on a map-view, and the UID Search tab allows you to look up individuals based on a Unique Identifier.
On the bottom left of the Home Screen, details about your profile are visible.
1. Creating a lead from UID Search
a. On the UlD tab you can search by many attributes for an individual anywhere within the immigration lifecycle.
NOTE: Ensure you verify entries and press Enter to run the search.
a. A list of results will appear in the Results pane.
b. Select a row to view individual details. Key Sections include:
i. Unique Identifiers: A-Number, FBI Number, etc.
ii. Tags/Flags: Detention or criminal indicators.
iii. Biographical Information.
iv. Addresses.
c. On the top right corner, you may create a lead on this individual.
d. If the system detects an existing lead, it will be visible at the top of the pop-up.
e. Select a queue option (e.g., Enforcement Review Queue) to continue.
f. Click Create once the queue is selected
2. Creating bulk leads from UID Search
a. In the results pane, you can select up to 50 individuals with the checkboxes.
NOTE: Leads created in UID will populate into YOUR Enforcement Review Queue regardless of where the individual's highest confidence address is located.
Geospatial Lead Sourcing Tab
The Geospatial Lead Sourcing tab allows you to populate the Enforcement Review queue with leads by applying filters and selecting individuals from a map.
a. ELITE default filters include Final Order= Yes, Reasons preventing removal= No, New Address Since Case Closed= No, and Active Case= Yes.
b. ELITE allows you to filter results by several other attributes organized by the following categories (Bio & IDs; Location; EID, EARM, IJ, CIS; Criminality (ACRIMe, NLETS, NCIC); Operations; Leads; Enrichments)
c. Confirm filters are correct and select View Results to see the cases displayed on the map
2. Select Individuals on the Map
a. You may select individuals one at a time or use the radius or polygon to select a focal area. You may need to zoom into your selection before drawing your focal area, then select individuals for review and possible nomination to the Enforcement Review queue. You are restricted to only viewing possible targets in your IMM current duty location.
3. Choose from Selected Individuals
a. Selected individuals will be listed on the bottom half of the screen.
b. Selecting an individual provides a preview of their record. Some of the data shown here includes name, A-Number, major case info, tags/flags for pertinent details, Unique IDs, and biographical data. The boxes highlighted across from the subject's Photo can be selected to show additional pertinent information. The individual timeline displays relevant encounters, detention, detainers and EOIR decisions on the right side of the screen.
NOTE: Address confidence score is a new feature of ELITE that factors in address recency and source (CLEAR, ACRIME Criminal Record, ACRIME RAP sheet Query, USCIS from UIP, HHS, NCATC, etc.) to generate a numerical value. Addresses are color coded (red, yellow, green). Red represents the address has a low confidence. Yellow represents a moderate confidence. Green represents a high confidence.
4. Create Leads
a. Selecting Create Leads will generate a pop-up with the headings New and Already Exists. Selecting the Create button continues the workflow by generating a new lead, but if a lead already exists it will be identified here for further review. Select Create to send the desired selected targets to the Enforcement Review queue/tab list. You can create up to 50 leads for review.
NOTE: A tagging feature enables potential leads to be labelled for easier organization and assigning for officer review.
Special Operations Filter
Special Operations are groups of pre-defined aliens specifically targeted by Leadership for action. Utilization of filters (including default filters) could change the intended target list for your area. As always, make sure you do your due diligence on each target to confirm removability prior to acting. Officers should consult ICE broadcasts or leadership for guidance on when to use these filters.
To filter by Special Operation, select the Click to Modify Filters button on the Geospatial Lead Sourcing tab.
The drop box will include a list of all available operations to select from
NOTE: Default filters such as Case Final Order Indicator = Yes and Are there reasons
preventing removal? = No may need to be removed to display all targets within a Special Operation dataset
Enforcement Review Queue
The Enforcement Review queue displays leads generated from the Geospatial Lead Sourcing tab. Here, officers are expected to validate leads in ELITE and determine which are best suitable to move to the Actionable Target queue.
1. In the Enforcement Review queue/tab the Apply Filters section can be used to isolate leads by office, keywords, or lead creator.
2. Selecting each alien individually will allow you to: Request Supervisor Action (reassignment or transfer) Add Enrichment or Note, Generate FOW, or Share.
a. Selecting Add Enrichment or Note will allow you to enter an Investigative Note, Attachment, Additional Address, Vehicle Information, Additional ID, Employer, Known Associate, Social Media, or Phone Number.
3. Select the check boxes on the desired aliens this will populate the Move Leads to Actionable Targets Queue section on the right. Select Submit to send the leads to the Actionable Targets queue.
NOTE: You can select each desired subject to review whether they are a good candidate for an actionable target list, and/or enrich the lead prior to sending it to the next queue. The Move to Actionable Targets Queue button can be used to send a single target to the next queue upon completion of a review/enrichment. The Archive Lead button moves the lead to a queue where it can still be enriched and is discoverable in the map, but it cannot be dispositioned.
NOTE: Archiving a lead will require the officer to enter a justification.
Tags
Tags serve to collate data for further operations based off user specified input, such as gang activity, local operation names or specific locations where operations will occur, as they relate to individuals. The Edit Tags button exists in the top selection bar within the enforcement lead tracker.
After selecting Edit Tags you will have the ability to create new tags, view details of existing tags and search for tags within your AOR. Below is an example of Create New Tag dialog box.
Users will be asked to create a Tag Name and to grant other users the ability to view or edit tags.
They also can also add leads to the tag upon creation.
NOTE: By default, all those in your AOR can view tags. Sharing further limits view to only those listed and tagging yourself limits the view to only yourself.
By clicking on View Details, users can further investigate information related to tags. Those with edit permission can also utilize the Edit Lead, Edit Viewers or Edit Editors button in the upper right corner. This will allow them to add or remove leads themselves, viewers or editors.
Users can also add Tag leads in bulk from within the Enforcement Review, Actionable Targets or Planning and Dispositioning queues. To do this, select the check box next to the leads you wish to tag, then select the Bulk Actions button in the upper right-hand corner. You will be given a preview pane and the ability to select from a drop down of tags you have access to within your AOR.
Actionable Targets Queue
The Actionable Targets queue displays a list of vetted targets deemed eligible for planning and execution. A supervisor is required to move a target from the Actionable Targets queue to the Planning queue.
(Supervisors only) to send leads to the Planning queue:
Planning Queue
Once in the Planning Queue, both officer and supervisors can continue to work the lead.
To create an operation packet:
1. Select the desired subjects and right-click anywhere to export the list to Excel
2. If desired, select each target individually that will be part of the operation and print the FOW.
Dispositioning
In the Dispositioning queue, officers can review leads post enforcement operations and provide an outcome/disposition status relative to each. The disposition status of the lead post operation is crucial for reporting purposes.
2026-01-30 22:30:25
The $75-million, Amazon-funded Melania Trump documentary is tanking at the box office, but a 2018 erotic thriller that depicts the First Lady as a sexual monster is rocketing up Amazon’s sales charts. Melania: Devourer of Men is currently an Amazon bestseller, sitting at number 3 in the “political thrillers & suspense” category in the Kindle store. A general search for "Melania" on Amazon returns a banner ad for the documentary, the First Lady's memoir, and the erotic thriller as the top results.
A Reddit-led campaign to disrupt the Amazon search results for “Melania” is behind the sudden spike in popularity of the eight year old book. “This weekend, Amazon is premiering its $75 million Melania Trump documentary. It already seems to be a flop,” a post in r/BoycottUnitedStates explained. “We're going to add insult to injury by messing up Melania's Amazon search results. Specifically, we're going to amplify the paranormal erotic thriller novel Melania: Devourer of Men so it ranks higher than her movie.”
Part of the success of the campaign is thanks to author J.D. Boehninger’s willingness to give the book away. “A redditor reached out to me last week and asked me if I would make the book free,” the pseudonymous Boehninger told 404 Media. “They explained their reasoning, basically said they were going to try to pull this off, and why my book was the right choice. I loved the idea, so I made the book free. But that was the only role I played here.”
Melania: Devourer of Men depicts the First Lady as a monster whose life is upended after her husband becomes President and she has to move from New York City to Washington DC. “Now, surrounded by young, strapping Secret Service agents and pursued by the cunning and handsome FBI director James Comey, Melania must work to keep everything from falling apart,” reads the book's description. “Because Melania has secrets of her own –– deadly secrets –– and no one yet knows how far she'll go to protect them.”
Boehninger said he wrote the book in 2018 as an experiment. “It was a test of the Kindle store algorithm,” he said. “My friend told me that three things did well back then: monster fiction, erotica, and stuff about Trump…so I figured I could write the book for the Kindle store: a combo monster fiction/ erotica/ Trump book. I thought it would blow up…but, sadly, it didn’t really perform back then. So glad to see people finding it now!”
The Melania documentary is a two hour long film / bribe directed by Brett Ratner and distributed by Amazon. The company paid $40 million for the rights to it during a bidding war. “This has to be the most expensive documentary ever made that didn’t involve music licensing,” Ted Hope, a former Amazon film executive, told The New York Times. The expense of the film and the advertising push around its release have some people believing Amazon’s support of the movie is a way for the company to get in good with the President.
In the runup to its release, the documentary has become a source of scorn from a public exhausted with all things Trump. Its wide theatrical distribution is something Amazon doesn’t do for most of its films, and certainly not its documentaries. Posting pictures of empty seats in ticket apps and defaced advertisements has become a popular pastime online. The film’s distributor in South Africa stopped its release in the country, citing “recent developments,” but would not go into specifics.
“I know blessedly little about that movie! I've seen headlines about empty theaters but I don't know much else,” Boehninger said. He thinks it’d be funny if the book sold better than the documentary, but he isn’t expecting to make a lot of money. “The ebook is free in the Kindle store, and I think that for a lot of people, giving Amazon money would probably defeat the point of this protest. That said, I've seen that some people are paying money for the paperback version and for my other book. I appreciate that!”
2026-01-30 03:00:30
Senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine formally asked the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to investigate and provide details on many of the surveillance technologies being used by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), according to a copy of the letter shared with 404 Media.
The letter touches on many of the surveillance technologies and companies that 404 Media has been writing about in recent months, including Flock license plate readers, Penlink social media and location data monitoring, Clearview AI’s facial recognition tech, Paragon Solutions’ phone hacking technology, as well as other social media scanning and biometric collection databases used by DHS in Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.
“We are deeply concerned that ICE’s surge in brutality against American communities is being facilitated by the inappropriate and unsupervised use of surveillance technology,” the senators wrote. “As such, we formally request an investigation by your office into the methods that DHS uses to collect, retain, analyze, and use data about the communities where it operates in conjunction with the companies mentioned above, and any companies DHS is seeking to conduct business with–for similar purposes—in the future.”
The letter then demands that Joseph Cuffari, the Inspector General for DHS, provide information about how DHS obtains, processes, and stores people’s sensitive data, whether it keeps track of false positive and incorrect identities returned with its biometric surveillance tools, whether it keeps track of times its surveillance tools are used against U.S. citizens, how it shares information with private companies, and how it obtains information from other federal agencies. It also seeks information about DHS’s relationships with data brokers, whether it allows people to opt out of surveillance, and any privacy protections around some of the data it obtains.
While the letter itself seems unlikely to change anything about how ICE is operating in the field, these types of information gathering exercises from lawmakers often result in new details about the inner workings of surveillance programs and tools and can eventually lead to reform.
“In addition to egregious practices we have seen in public reporting, it’s important that your office shine light on activities that undergird ICE’s enforcement actions including a muddled patchwork of technology procurements that have significantly expanded DHS’ ability to collect, retain, and analyze information about Americans,” they wrote. “Together, ICE’s new information collection tools potentially enable DHS to circumvent the constitutional protections provided by the Fourth Amendment—protections guaranteed to all Americans and all persons within our borders.”
The Trump administration has sought to undercut inspectors general across the federal government; soon after he was inaugurated, Trump fired at least 17 inspectors general. Cuffari, who was appointed during Trump’s first term and served under Joe Biden as well, was one of the few inspectors general who was left in his post. In 2024, an independent panel found that Cuffari had violated ethics rules during this confirmation process and recommended that he be replaced, but Biden left him in his role.
2026-01-29 22:54:40
Chat & Ask AI, one of the most popular AI apps on the Google Play and Apple App stores that claims more than 50 million users, left hundreds of millions of those users’ private messages with the app’s chatbot exposed, according to an independent security researcher and emails viewed by 404 Media. The exposed chats showed users asked the app “How do I painlessly kill myself,” to write suicide notes, “how to make meth,” and how to hack various apps.
The exposed data was discovered by an independent security researcher who goes by Harry. The issue is a misconfiguration in the app’s usage of the mobile app development platform Google Firebase, which by default makes it easy for anyone to make themselves an “authenticated” user who can access the app’s backend storage where in many instances user data is stored. Harry said that he had access to 300 million messages from more than 25 million users in the exposed database, and that he extracted and analyzed a sample of 60,000 users and a million messages. The database contained user files with a complete history of their chats with the AI, timestamps of those chats, the name they gave the app’s chatbot, how they configured the model, and which specific model they used. Chat & Ask AI is a “wrapper” that plugs into various large language models from bigger companies users can choose from, Including OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Anthropic's Claude, and Google’s Gemini.
2026-01-28 23:54:09
Hackers claimed on Wednesday they’ve stolen a mass of internal data from Match Group, which runs dating apps Hinge, Match, and OkCupid.
Match Group, the company that owns the targeted platforms as well as Tinder and other massively popular dating apps, says it is investigating the incident.
404 Media downloaded the data and reviewed portions of its contents. It appears to contain some users' unique advertising IDs; corporate receipts; and other internal company documents.
2026-01-28 23:50:52
The Doomsday Clock, a symbol of how close humanity is to destroying itself, has moved from 89 seconds to 85 seconds, four seconds closer to “doomsday.” That is the closest the Clock has ever been to midnight. That’s when, in the metaphor proposed by the keepers of the Clock, the world ends. According to the scientists and experts who oversee the ritual setting of the Doomsday Clock, the end of the world is more possible now than it’s ever been.
But In 2026, I feel I don’t need the reminder.
President Donald Trump’s masked police have executed people in the street, the last nuclear treaty between Russia and the US is about to die, and tech oligarchies are constructing massive resource-sucking datacenters to power an unwanted nuisance technology they say is a path towards a godlike super intelligence.
Why watch the Clock? What is the point of keeping time? I have watched this ritual timekeeping for a decade and, I confess, I am feeling numb and cynical about it.
The Doomsday Clock began ticking in 1947, two years after Albert Einstein and a group of Manhattan Project veterans founded the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the organization that sets the clock. For almost eight decades, generations of the world’s brightest minds have gathered once a year to tell the world how screwed it is.
Alexandra Bell, the current head of the Bulletin, said The Doomsday Clock is worth preserving, of course. Bell describes herself as a late stage Gen Xer. The Clock, she told me in a call last week, has always been a part of her life. “One of every four movies on TV was a nuclear one,” she said. The clear and iconic lines of the Clock have been present in pop culture for decades, most noticeably as a thematic image in Alan Moore’s Watchmen comic book. According to Bell, the symbol is important. “It’s clear that people respond to it. If you simply had a set of scientists deliver a statement about the state of existential risks…would it have the same global reach that the Clock does?”
Nuclear expert Joseph Cirincione also doesn’t recall a time when the Doomsday Clock wasn’t ticking away in the background of his life and work. “It’s part of the fabric of the nuclear age,” he said. Cirincione worked on military reform as a Congressional staffer for nine years before starting a long career in the nuclear world. He’s the former director of non-proliferation at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the retired president of the Ploughshares fund.
Cirincione wasn't exactly skeptical of the Clock when I spoke to him the day before the announcement. “The Doomsday Clock is probably the most cited measure of nuclear risk in the world today,” he said. But he did share some of my concerns. “Being so close to midnight, you’re afraid the metric loses its power,” he said.“What does it mean to go from 89 seconds to 75 seconds?”
“Here's the dilemma: I believe we are seconds away from nuclear catastrophe,” he said. “This is true. This is an accurate reflection of the risk. You can make a long list of what the risks are, but at the top of the list is that a crazy man has the sole unfettered ability to launch a nuclear war, and no one can stop him, and that is our president. That is true. He could do that this afternoon. The President of the United States is increasingly demonstrably mentally unstable, and yet, if he wanted to launch a nuclear weapon, no one could stop him.”
During an interview with New York Magazine published on January 26, 2026—the day before the Clock ticked forward—Trump appeared to forget the word “Alzheimer’s” when describing the health issue that felled his father. “Well, I don’t have it,” Trump said after his press secretary filled in the word for him. “I don’t think about it at all. You know why? Because whatever it is, my attitude is whatever.”
These are not inspiring words from a man with the ability to end all life on Earth.
Cirincione wants the Bulletin to stress Trump’s diminished mental capacity during its announcement, but he’s not hopeful they will. “What holds them back is that the natural desire of experts to be non-partisan and to not explicitly criticize a leader of a country, a leader of a political party, they don't want to be dragged into that,” he said. “Discussing the mental stability of that person that is way too sensitive for a group like the Bulletin to take on. So they will shirk from that.”
During speeches and a question and answer session after the announcement, the experts at the Bulletin mentioned Trump many times. It’s clear they see him as a liar and a threat to world peace. “We’ve seen President Trump using [AI videos] to try to persuade people that things have happened that have not happened,” Steven Fetter, a member of the Bulletin’s Science and Security Board, said. But as Cirincione predicted, they didn’t touch on his mental state.
They did, however, hit on another topic Cirincione worried they would avoid. “The biggest change in nuclear risks over the last 10 years is that seven of the nine nuclear armed states are now led by authoritarian leaders,” he said.
The rising tide of authoritarianism and nationalism were central talking points of the Bulletin’s announcement this year. Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Maria Ressa gave the keynote address of the announcement. Ressa, a journalist from the Philippines, is well aware of the world’s current horrors. Ressa reported on the presidency of Rodrigo Duterte who was a kind of proto-Trump. She said that democracy, diplomacy, and science don’t work without a shared sense of reality, what she calls the world’s operating system.
“The operating system has been corrupted, deliberately, systematically, for profit,” she said during her address. “The platforms that mediate our information were built on an extractive and predatory model. They turned our attention into a commodity and our outrage into their business model…this brings out the worst of humanity. They don't connect us, they divide us, and in that division, they've enabled the collapse of cooperation and the rise of illiberal leaders who exploit chaos. As of last year, 72 percent of the world is now under authoritarian rule.”
In her address, Ressa was critical of big tech. “The old order is not coming back,” Ressa said. “We’re witnessing something more dangerous: the fusion of state power with the tech oligarchy. The men who control the platforms that shape what billions believe have merged with the men who control governments and militaries. Might makes right is the new operating principle and they have the tools to manufacture consent or to simply drown out dissent.”
In a world where the tech company Palantir works hand in glove with ICE to figure out which neighborhoods to raid and Flock’s facial recognition technology is used liberally by police across America, Ressa’s words hit the mark more closely than the threat of nuclear weapons. And maybe that’s what I’m feeling too: the sense that nuclear weapons, like the Clock, are a nostalgic fear in the face of Big Tech overreach and the rise of authoritarianism.
And yet. The United States is set to spend trillions of dollars on new and different kinds of nuclear weapons. In less than two weeks, the last remaining treaty that limits the amount of deployed nuclear weapons in America and Russia will expire. Trump has threatened to test nuclear weapons again. China is building more nukes. Multiple countries, including South Korea, have expressed interest in acquiring their own nukes.
The risk of nuclear annihilation can feel abstract and overwhelming. The world has built a series of complicated and interconnected systems that allow a handful of people to destroy everything. When facing the totality of these weapons I feel like the protagonist of a Lovecraft story. I am struck dumb by horrors beyond my comprehension.
Best, then, to keep the metaphors simple. “Other people have tried,” Cirincione said. “None of them have come close to the traction of the Clock. So, the best argument for keeping the Clock is that it works and it has a proven track record, and you'd be foolish to give up that symbol now.”
Bell said that more people are paying attention to the Clock than ever before. She tells me that traffic is up at the Bulletin’s website and more people are reading about nuclear weapons, climate change, and the existential risks of technology like AI. The Clock, Bell said, is still connecting with people. “It’s not just a warning, it’s a call to action,” she said. “The fact that it’s not midnight yet means we have time to fix these problems.”
I ask her how close the Clock has to tick down to midnight before the metaphor breaks down.
“I hope we never have to find out,” she said. “Every metaphorical second counts.”
So the Clock ticks on. Four seconds closer now.
“How long can we go? We go until midnight,” Bell said.
