In September, 404 Media reported on ICE’s planned purchase of the technology, consisting of two Penlink products called Tangles and Webloc. 404 Media has now obtained material that explains in greater detail how the system works.

The material shows Webloc users can search its databases of mobile phone data in various ways. Users can perform a single perimeter analysis to search a specific area for mobile phones across a certain time period. They can draw the target area with a rectangle, circle, or polygon. They then select the maximum number of results the system should display, and the maximum number of devices to return. 

Once a Webloc user has identified a device of interest, they can get more details about that particular phone, and, by extension, its owner, by seeing where else it has travelled both locally and across the country. Users can click a route feature which shows the path the device took. The material suggests that if users look at where the device was located at night, they might find the person’s possible home, and during the day, the person’s possible employer.

The software can also do a multi-permiter analysis, which monitors multiple locations at once to see which devices have been present at two or more specific places.

If you need a link to get past the paywall to read the entire article, here it is.

I want you to understand what it is like to live in Chicago during this time.

Every day my phone buzzes. It is a neighborhood group: four people were kidnapped at the corner drugstore. A friend a mile away sends a Slack message: she was at the scene when masked men assaulted and abducted two people on the street. A plumber working on my pipes is distraught, and I find out that two of his employees were kidnapped that morning. A week later it happens again.

Spotify is running ads recruiting agents for ICE, the federal agency charged with mass deportation and surveillance of immigrant communities. These ads target vulnerable populations, promise signing bonuses, and normalize fear and intimidation in our neighborhoods.

Spotify claims these ads comply with their policy, but the truth is streaming hate is not neutral. It’s a choice. 

We refuse to fund it. We refuse to ignore it.

According to Schwab, the incident may implicate an unspoken political hierarchy within the federal government. “ICE is the agency most aligned with the President and his administration,” he said. “These types of ICE statements are often crafted or heavily influenced by presidential appointees at ICE Headquarters.”

Schwab explained that during his time under the Trump administration, “statements that would garner a lot of attention were cleared by ICE HQ, then forwarded to a DHS spokesperson for approval. Many times that approval included input from the White House, specifically from Stephen Miller.”

Miller is a senior advisor to Trump who has emerged as a key advocate for hardline immigration policies within the administration. Policies for which Miller served as architect include the travel ban, the family separation policy (under which undocumented children are separated from their parents), and a crackdown on the number of refugees the U.S. would admit. While the documents obtained by The Nation do not mention Miller or any other White House official, Schwab stressed that ICE is careful not to put things in writing.

“ICE is notorious for keeping shit out of emails,” said Schwab. This practice may have permeated all of DHS. In 2018, Buzzfeed News reported that then-DHS Secretary John Kelly instructed an official to avoid memorializing their work in the form of emails, saying, “FOIA is real and everyday here in the cesspool, and even federal court action on personal accounts is real.” (Ironically, BuzzFeed obtained the comment in response to a FOIA lawsuit.)

“Recently, a detained immigrant told Project South that she talked to five different women detained at ICDC between October and December 2019 who had a hysterectomy done,” the complaint stated. “When she talked to them about the surgery, the women ‘reacted confused when explaining why they had one done.’ The woman told Project South that it was as though the women were ‘trying to tell themselves it’s going to be OK.’”

“When I met all these women who had had surgeries, I thought this was like an experimental concentration camp. It was like they’re experimenting with our bodies,” the detainee said.

According to Wooten, ICDC consistently used a particular gynecologist – outside the facility – who almost always opted to remove all or part of the uterus of his female detainee patients.

“Everybody he sees has a hysterectomy—just about everybody,” Wooten said, adding that, “everybody’s uterus cannot be that bad.”

“We’ve questioned among ourselves like goodness he’s taking everybody’s stuff out…That’s his specialty, he’s the uterus collector. I know that’s ugly…is he collecting these things or something…Everybody he sees, he’s taking all their uteruses out or he’s taken their tubes out. What in the world.”

The Geophysical Research Letters study found “new pathways by which AW [Atlantic Waters] can access glaciers with marine-based basins, thereby highlighting sectors of Greenland that are most vulnerable to future oceanic forcing,” which is worsened by global warming. They found that “between 30 and 100% more glaciers are potentially exposed” to Atlantic waters than had been previously thought.

The bottom line is that over half of the entire ice sheet may be at risk from this underwater melting. We knew that global warming is leading to more of the kind of monster heatwaves that intensify and extend the surface melt season on Greenland — the kind it is now experiencing. But we are learning that global warming poses a potentially larger risk to underwater melt from warming ocean waters.

Should the power go out, then the ice will melt and the quarter's location in the bowl will shift. If the coin makes its way to the bottom of the ice bowl, then the general rule of thumb is the food is not safe to eat. If the quarter is at the top or near the top, then it's okay to assume the contents of the fridge are safe. And if it's somewhere midway, let your intuition be the guide. To be safe, you can always toss out the questionable items.

This hack isn't guaranteed to be foolproof, but it's a good indicator of how long your fridge and freezer are off power.