With Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents deployed to more than a dozen airports across the U.S. and border device searches growing increasingly common, it’s more important than ever to consider your digital security before you travel.
The risks are real. Customs and Border Protection agents have the authority to examine travelers’ devices.
If you’re flying, take these steps to reduce the likelihood that your sensitive information is compromised at the airport.
Head to the link in our bio to get even more tips.
📷 Andrea Renault/STAR MAX/IPx
Trump’s new counterterrorism strategy targets anyone the administration deems to be “anti-American, radically pro-transgender, and anarchist.”
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The Pentagon’s top watchdog says cuts to civilian harm mitigation and response efforts have been so severe under War Secretary Pete Hegseth that the United States cannot adequately protect civilians in conflict zones.
Thursday’s scathing analysis by the Department of War’s inspector general came on the same day that the top U.S. commander overseeing the war in Iran dismissed reports of civilian casualties and said the U.S. had no means to corroborate reports of strikes on hospitals and schools. The inspector general specifically notes that the military stopped funding a database that tracks civilian harm that could be used for such verification.
Head to the link in our bio to read more from @nick_turse
📷 Maxim Shemetov/Pool Photo via AP
A Manhattan resident who was on the cruise ship at the center of the hantavirus outbreak traveled freely after leaving the ship, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention did not warn public health authorities in New York of her potential exposure to the deadly virus, according to New York City and state officials.
The woman, a dual citizen of New Zealand and the United States with residences in Manhattan and Fort Lauderdale, Florida, was one of 30 passengers who left the MV Hondius expedition cruise ship while it docked at Saint Helena island, in the South Atlantic, in late April after one passenger had already died of a lethal strain of hantavirus. A second and third passenger died days later, one on board and one in a hospital in South Africa, but by the time the ship had become a focus of headlines worldwide, the woman was well on her way on a globe-hopping itinerary.
The CDC informed health officials in various states of other Americans potentially exposed to the virus, but failed to alert New York health officials about the Manhattan woman.
There is no indication that the woman intended to come back to the United States or to New York any time soon. Instead, she continued on a multi-continental trip around the world. Her ability to continue traveling — and the lack of notice issued to authorities in the location to which she might eventually return — raise worrying questions about the potential spread of the disease, said Dr. Abraar Karan, an infectious disease specialist at Stanford University.
“If she’s on the loose, then we need to be aware of where she might come back to,” Karan said. “So the New York Department of Health, and officials at the port of entry, they need to make sure this person is flagged when they return.”
New: Why is CA State Sen. Scott Wiener — who styles himself as “a progressive” and is the leading candidate to replace Nancy Pelosi — opposing a pair of popular, progressive taxes on billionaires in California? Even the moderate Pelosi supports one of the taxes. For answers, I looked at Wiener’s biggest donors: venture capitalist CEO Garry Tan, who has called the taxes “anti-billionaire bullshit,” and crypto billionaire Chris Larsen, who has poured at least $13 million into killing both taxes. To be clear, revenue from the taxes are expected to help poor Californians afford healthcare by offsetting cuts to Medicaid by the Trump administration. In an effort to kill the statewide Billionaire Tax, Larsen has teamed up with the likes of Google co-founder Sergey Brin, who has taken a MAGA turn and is giving to Republican candidates, Palantir founder Peter Thiel, and the anti-union pistachio farming giant Stewart Resnick, who has also funded Republicans. Larsen and Tan are also funding attack ads against Wiener’s opponent Saikat Chakrabarti, who supports both billionaire taxes and nationalizing AI, which is freaking out some in Silicon Valley.
There is a legitimate argument to be made that Wiener is not simply acting on the whims of his donors (although opposing them would be “political suicide,” per one source from San Francisco), but is rather opposing the wealth taxes because he sincerely believes in opposing them, ie., they don’t fit within his YIMBY/Abundance vision of neoliberal deregulation for San Francisco and California. Organizers from SF who have opposed Wiener on housing and homelessness issues for years were very clear with me: Wiener is NOT a progressive (notwithstanding some pro-LGTBQ bills in the state senate), but has ingratiated himself with a corporate billionaire class in the Bay Area, the likes of whom he hopes to take with him to Congress.
Read the full piece @theintercept 💻 (link in bio📌)
“The fact that they not only dismantled the Voting Rights Act but did so leaving Southern states time to actually redistrict for 2026 makes me believe that this is ultimately about a power grab,” @bermz told us.
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A recently released FBI file shines new light on the days immediately leading up to the arrest of then-Columbia University student and Palestinian rights activist Mahmoud Khalil.
On March 6 of last year, two days before unidentified officers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement abducted and arrested Khalil at his home, the FBI received an anonymous tip claiming that Khalil, listed incorrectly as a 22-year-old, had called for “violence on behalf of Hamas.”
According to the heavily redacted documents, as of March 19, 2025, the FBI had closed an investigation into the tip and determined that Khalil “does not warrant further FBI investigation.” But by then, ICE had already secretly taken Khalil, now 31, thousands of miles away to a detention center in Louisiana. Despite the FBI’s decision to close the tip, the Trump administration continued to paint Khalil as a “Hamas supporter” and a threat to national security.
Head to the link in our bio to read more from @akela_lacy .
A city official in Miami Beach, Florida paid thousands of dollars to hire billboard trucks with text attacking specific members of an anti-Zionist Jewish group, according to a new filing in federal court.
David Suarez, a city commissioner for Miami Beach, is accused of hiring the trucks to drive past a Jewish Voice for Peace demonstration outside the Art Basel festival in Miami Beach in December. The trucks accused JVP of being an “extremist group” and singled out members Alan Levine and his wife, Donna Nevel, with the label “Jew Hater,” according to court documents that Jewish Voice for Peace South Florida filed on Wednesday.
The trucks arrived while JVP and other Palestine solidarity organizations were protesting Art Basel in what has become an annual tradition since 2023. Activists have picketed each year outside the annual art fair, calling for a boycott over financial ties between Art Basel sponsor UBS and Elbit Systems, an Israeli weapons manufacturer.
New FBI documents shared exclusively with me by Mahmoud Khalil’s legal team show that someone submitted an anonymous tip about him to the FBI just 2 days before ICE abducted him last year.
The FBI promptly closed an investigation into the tip and wrote that Khalil did not warrant further investigation. That didn’t stop the Trump administration from arresting and detaining Khalil and continuing to echo the tip’s claims while it worked to deport him.
Read more @theintercept . Link in bio 🔗
Armed federal agents recently arrested Dr. David Morens, a 78-year-old retired government scientist, strip-searched him, and charged him with crimes that could carry decades in prison — all for allegedly using his personal email to try and evade Freedom of Information Act requests.
The Justice Department has, for decades, largely taken a hands-off approach to enforcing FOIA, and it has almost never treated FOIA evasion behavior as a crime — at least until now.
But this case is about more than one official. It is about whether the government is establishing a new standard for enforcing transparency, and whether that standard will be applied fairly.
Read more in @theintercept at the link in our profile.
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