Federal surveillance spending feeding ICE jumped to $513 million
The short version: A new Mijente/Just Futures Law/Surveillance Resistance Lab report, covered by Verified Privacy VPN, shows federal surveillance spending tied to ICE hit $513 million, with Palantir as the backbone.
Our Take
Credit to Verified Privacy VPN for putting numbers on something we've been saying for years: the surveillance dragnet isn't theoretical, it's a line item. The report they're covering — from Mijente, Just Futures Law, and the Surveillance Resistance Lab — tracked DHS contracts with 11 vendors from 2013 to 2026 and found funding more than doubled year over year, then jumped again to $513 million. Because DHS runs both ICE and CBP under one roof, that money blurs the line between "border security" and surveillance of people already living in American communities.
This matters to the ALPR fight specifically because local Flock networks don't stay local. Once a camera scans a plate, that data can end up in regional sharing hubs, fusion centers, and eventually federal systems — including the kind of Palantir-powered pipelines the report calls the "backbone" of ICE data surveillance. A city council votes to approve a few cameras for stolen cars, and three years later that data trail is part of a federal enforcement apparatus nobody in that meeting ever discussed. The money flow the report tracks is the demand side; your neighborhood's camera network is often the supply side.
If you want to see what's actually watching your streets, check our camera map, and if your town hasn't had a public conversation about where that data goes, our take-action page has the tools to start one.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of Verified Privacy VPN (vp.net), published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.