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The new $2.9 million contract with Penlink PLX allows Trump’s Homeland Security Task Force to intercept, aggregate, and analyze calls, texts, and web activity to track people’s movements
Maurizio Guerrero for Prism
Despite serious concerns raised by dozens of federal legislators about the potential misuse of location technologies to violate rights, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has awarded a new contract to Penlink PLX, a surveillance system that intercepts, aggregates, and analyzes live communications from phone calls, texts, and internet activity. The platform enables DHS to track people’s movements in real time.
The $2.9 million no-bid contract, reported for the first time by Prism, began April 1, with a potential award amount of $8.3 million. The contract supplements the $2.3 million no-bid contract awarded to Penlink last September to provide DHS’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) with surveillance tools—Tangles and Webloc—that also gather real-time data and location information, which was first reported by 404 Media.
With its latest surveillance arsenal, DHS has adopted the real-time location technology used by police departments to target the Black Lives Matter movement and antifa through activists’ social media accounts. This same technology was also used to identify insurrectionists in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, reported independent journalist Jack Paulson.
“In the past, to get location data, law enforcement had to use a warrant approved by a judge,” said Mario Trujillo, senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit that defends digital privacy and free speech. “Without that judicial oversight, these kinds of tools can be abused. People can be tracked for any reason or no reason.”
Without legal authority
According to Trujillo, who litigated to obtain information about Penlink contracts in California, anyone including political dissidents, journalists, and other vulnerable groups could be tracked by this surveillance technology.
These tools can also track the perimeter of sensitive locations, such as an immigration attorney’s office or a church that provides resources to noncitizens, Trujillo explained. “Especially during this administration, this lack of judicial oversight is very, very frightening,” the attorney told Prism.
Penlink’s real-time location potential is amplified by its integration with CLEAR, a data aggregator created by Thomson Reuters, an information conglomerate that also owns the news service Reuters and the legal search engine Westlaw. CLEAR is described in 2023 contract documents from DHS to be “the most comprehensive investigative database platform available,” and that “CLEAR is vital to the mission-essential” work of DHS.
A privacy impact assessment issued last March by the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) indicates that Penlink PLX links the data it collects to a verified personal profile in CLEAR. This creates a comprehensive, real-time portrayal of a person’s digital and physical life. In turn, according to the report, these granular profiles are fed to the data-mining corporation Palantir. The tech company was founded by the right-wing tech billionaire Peter Thiel, a primary peddler of the narrative that artificial general intelligence will surpass human intelligence and lead to a “second coming,” The New Republic reported.
“The primary privacy risk” of Penlink PLX, the SEC reported, is that “personal information may be collected without a clear purpose or legal authority.”
Despite the legal and safety risks—and as the Trump administration continues its crackdown on noncitizens and political dissenters, labeling some as “domestic terrorists“—ICE just obtained access to this location technology.
In 2024, the Biden administration banned location-data purchases because the DHS inspector general found that ICE used location data without a privacy impact assessment. The Trump administration has effectively reversed that decision.
Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, a vocal critic of ICE’s expanding surveillance apparatus, publicized a letter in March, co-signed by more than 70 federal legislators, demanding that DHS’s inspector general investigate the use of Penlink. “ICE is now stonewalling congressional oversight into its purchase of location data,” the letter reads.
“ICE and other Department of Homeland Security agencies are expanding their surveillance dragnet by buying the location data of millions of Americans, feeding it into Palantir’s Big Brother databases and indiscriminately detaining and violating the due process rights of people across the country,” wrote Wyden in an email to Prism. “It has to stop.”
ICE did not respond to requests for comment.
Civil rights organizations have long contended that the government’s collection of individuals’ data without consent or a judicial warrant is a flagrant violation of the Fourth Amendment that allows the government to conduct unreasonable searches and seizures. When it comes to immigration enforcement in particular, agencies operating under DHS have long acted outside the bounds of the law, using unprecedented surveillance at the border and even a bounty hunter program to track and detain migrants.
However, efforts by Congress to prohibit law enforcement agencies from purchasing personal data from commercial providers such as Penlink and Thomson Reuters—through what is known as the data-broker loophole—have been unsuccessful. This is in part because the data-broker industry has spent millions to lobby Congress to nudge legislation in its favor.
“Congress must not reauthorize any spying powers without enacting strong reforms,” Wyden said, “including closing the data broker loophole.”
The rise of surveillance capitalism
Anytime someone visits a website, uses a debit or credit card, searches the internet, or sends a message online, we generate data that cellphone companies, internet service providers, social media platforms, and app developers collect and keep, usually without our knowledge. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, this data eventually finds its way into detailed dossiers compiled by data brokers, revealing “the most intimate details of our lives: our movements, habits, associations, health conditions, and ideologies.”
The U.S. government’s failure to implement comprehensive data protections, coupled with the structural shortcomings of companies’ “notice and consent” framework that offers a vague overview of how personal data is collected and used, has ushered in the age of “surveillance capitalism,” the Brennan Center reports. This shadow digital economy and under-regulated data-broker ecosystem allows the government to obtain vast troves of data about people in the U.S.—information the government would otherwise need a warrant, court order, or subpoena to obtain. Perhaps most troubling, the Brennan Center reported, is the government’s ability to purchase personal data for the purpose of deportation, arrest, and even use of lethal force.
ICE’s April contract for Penlink PLX is an example of how data-broker loopholes function. The contract was awarded through Chenega Defense and Aerospace Solutions, often chosen as a partner by weapons manufacturers because the company obtains contracts without open competition, thanks to legal exemptions for Alaska Native-owned and operated companies within the Small Business Administration. Penlink, however, is owned by Spire Capital, a New York-based private equity firm.
Penlink PLX is intended for use by the Homeland Security Task Force, established by President Donald Trump via executive order on Jan. 20, 2025, and co-led by the FBI and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), a division of ICE. HSI’s core mission is supposed to be transnational crime investigations. However, under the Trump administration, the agency now focuses on routine immigration enforcement, according to Rachel Levinson-Waldman, director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice.
“We are seeing HSI having a pretty significant role in the use, expansion, and deployment of a variety of surveillance technologies that could be used for multiple purposes,” said Levinson-Waldman, who co-authored a 2023 report on HSI’s mission realignment. “It has been one of our many concerns about the expansion of surveillance tech that is both being used to facilitate nasty deportations and the spread of broad immigration enforcement.”
Penlink PLX adds another layer of surveillance, capturing live communications and web activity, according to the company’s website. It also conducts geospatial tracking using real-time location pings from cellphones and intercepted data from mobile apps such as Uber, Lyft, Tinder, and Discord, and social media platforms such as Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram.
Penlink did not respond to Prism’s requests for comment.
Under the Trump administration, Penlink’s monitoring tools are now part of a growing surveillance industrial complex in which digital contractors are an integral part of immigration enforcement.
“The interlocking interests of the immigration agencies and all the companies that are engaged in detention and deportation feel similar, in some ways, to the military-industrial complex,” Levinson-Waldman said. “There is a self-reinforcing relationship between the two that will only be severed by outside action.”
Outside action would require congressional legislation. However, the immigration surveillance apparatus has only grown under both Democratic and Republican administrations.
The Israeli cybermercenary
According to federal contracts, Penlink services have been used by ICE since 2007. The company analyzed wiretapped data for the agency and then expanded to collect social media and internet communications “in real-time” to support “tracking” and “live monitoring,” according to a 2018 report.
In 2022, when Spire Capital first acquired Penlink, the company’s capabilities were significantly upgraded as Spire absorbed Cobwebs Technologies, an Israeli firm that developed Webloc and Tangles. HSI’s more recent 12-month contract with Penlink began in September 2025 and was entered into for the purpose of acquiring Webloc and Tangles, which ICE described as “essential” and “an integral part” of HSI’s investigative mission.
As just one example of how this technology can be used by federal agencies, during a protest, Webloc can identify every phone in an area during a specific timeframe by purchasing vast troves of commercial location data used to personalize ads, or by harvesting data from apps that employ location services, a technology known as “geofencing.” This technology has also been used by anti-abortion groups to target women visiting abortion clinics.
To identify specific individuals, Tangles then scours the open web, including Facebook, Instagram, X, and LinkedIn; the deep web, including databases, government records, and sources not usually indexed by standard search engines; and the dark web, including encrypted marketplaces and forums. The technology is aided by facial recognition and “face search” capabilities that utilize AI to search the internet and databases to locate photos of a specific person.
Cobwebs was part of “the surveillance-for-hire” industry composed of “cyber-mercenaries,” according to a 2021 report from Meta. The tech company accused Cobwebs of collecting data without consent and actively tricking “people into revealing personal information” as a way of gaining access to closed communities.
Cobwebs’ tools were deployed to target “activists, opposition politicians, and government officials in Hong Kong and Mexico,” concluded Meta, a tech company also known for exploiting loopholes and using “egregious” tracking techniques to spy on Facebook and Instagram users.
Cobwebs, like others ICE contracts with, was founded by members of the Israeli military. Cellebrite and Paragon both also can access phone data without user consent. According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Cobwebs was used to identify members of Hamas. Now it’s being used by HSI to surveil and target immigrants, among others.
“I am not surprised that Trump’s ICE would attempt mass surveillance of the American people,” Ohio Rep. Shontel Brown told Prism in an email. In February, she made public a letter to DHS, co-signed by more than a dozen members of Congress, expressing concerns about Penlink’s use and its ability to collect cellular data from entire neighborhoods. “That letter has gone unanswered,” she said.
As a member of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, Brown said she’ll continue to push for answers and legislative measures “to block ICE’s unlawful activities.”
“Republicans gave ICE $75 billion in Trump’s Big Ugly Bill with no guardrails and [DHS] has been run like the Constitution doesn’t exist for the past year,” said Brown, referring to Trump’s domestic policy legislation. “So it’s very concerning to see them acquire powerful tools.”
Integrating real-time location to ICE’s core
Penlink tools are integrated with the powerful data platform CLEAR, which places real-time location at the center of ICE’s surveillance apparatus. Since at least 2022, CLEAR has sourced “real-time location with time stamps” from Penlink, according to DHS documentation first uncovered by 404 Media that revealed the agency’s contract to acquire CLEAR.
The document also mentions the integration of CLEAR with Motorola Solutions‘ license plate recognition technology that includes facial recognition for vehicle occupants. These features, among others, sets CLEAR apart from its main competitor, Accurint, created by the data broker LexisNexis.
“I have become quite concerned about the broader system Penlink is part of,” said Emma Pullman, head of shareholder engagement at the British Columbia General Employees’ Union (BCGEU) in Canada. The union, a long-term investor in Thomson Reuters, has pressured the company since 2020 to align its products with human rights principles.
In April, the BCGEU requested that Thomson Reuters’ board conduct an independent assessment evaluating the extent to which its products “may contribute to adverse human rights impacts when used by law enforcement agencies,” including when the company’s products are combined with other surveillance technologies.
The union’s concern is moral and ethical, said Pullman, but it also stems from the potential legal, financial, and reputational liabilities Thomson Reuters might face for violations committed by ICE agents while using CLEAR.
Thomson Reuters did not respond to requests for comment.
What we’ve seen over the last decade … is an increasingly privatized immigration enforcement controlled by a web of contractors who have made themselves indispensable. This is very much by design.Emma Pullman, head of shareholder engagement at the British Columbia General Employees’ Union
“What we’ve seen over the last decade, which escalated dramatically in 2025, is an increasingly privatized immigration enforcement controlled by a web of contractors who have made themselves indispensable,” said Pullman. “This is very much by design.”
This entanglement of public and private interests coincides with Thomson Reuters spending almost $3 million since 1990 to lobby Congress, focusing more recently on influencing privacy protection legislation. The company has also invested $10.2 million in the political campaigns of Democrats and Republicans.
Politically, the revolving door, in which former government officials are employed by the contractors of the same agency for which they worked (or vice versa), has also contributed to the integration of location technology into the immigration surveillance complex.
The career of James Dinkins is a prime example of how this revolving door operates.
In 2010, Dinkins was the first head of HSI, the office that paved the path for ICE’s sprawling surveillance apparatus. As soon as he retired from HSI in 2014, Dinkins joined Thomson Reuters Special Services (TRSS), avoiding the customary waiting period before a public official can work for a contractor of the agency that previously employed him.
According to public documents, ICE has contracted with TRSS, the division of Thomson Reuters that markets CLEAR, since at least 2010. This means that Dinkins has been on both sides of the deals: as a government official and as a contractor.
Dinkins did not respond to requests for comment.
“Within the context of DHS, the individuals who journey through this revolving door typically share one common, uniting goal: robust privatization of public services and the skirting of legal restrictions that apply to government actors but don’t currently apply to private ones in the same way,” said Toni Aguilar Rosenthal, a program director at the Revolving Door Project, a nonprofit that scrutinizes executive branch appointees.
After a stint in the financial industry, Dinkins served as president and CEO of TRSS from 2019 to 2025, when the company secured $118.7 million in federal contracts, mostly from ICE. Dinkins now serves on TRSS’s board of directors and since 2024, he’s also on Penlink’s board of advisers.
The “DHS revolvers,” as Aguilar Rosenthal called them, possess “an intimate understanding of the constitutional and legal restrictions” imposed on federal immigration agencies, and they also know the loopholes that private contractors can exploit.
Revolvers have tremendous financial incentive to apply their knowledge to generating 360-degree dossiers on everyday people and help to create “a cycle of warrantless tracking activities,” Aguilar Rosenthal said.
Thomson Reuters has maintained that CLEAR is used only for criminal investigations, not for deportations, even though the platform has reportedly been employed to arrest and remove people without criminal records.
Despite the DHS shutdown that has lasted more than 70 days, becoming the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, ICE currently has a budget of $28.7 billion for surveillance tools—10 times the agency’s total surveillance expenditures over the past 13 years, according to WebProNews. This positions ICE as a powerhouse in data collection and analysis, on par with the FBI and the CIA.
“Contractors are trying to make money, so they’re building more and more invasive surveillance technology to sell to the government,” said Trujillo of EFF. “They can push law enforcement into buying things that [government officials] hadn’t thought of or wouldn’t buy otherwise.”
Employees at tech companies are sounding the alarm. In a letter sent this year to the company’s leadership, more than 200 Thomson Reuters employees expressed concern that their products and services weren’t being used “in accordance with the law and our nation’s Constitution.”
At least three Thomson Reuters employees also signed the ICEout.tech pledge, which urges tech companies to cancel all contracts with ICE.
Integrations such as the one between Penlink and Palantir have significantly increased the potential of misuse, risk, and rights violations, according to Pullman.
“Thomson Reuters is making itself increasingly indispensable to ICE through these integrations. However, this raises a critical issue,” Pullman said. “When we layer and integrate data technologies that have never been used together, we are also potentially creating unprecedented risks.”
Editorial Team:
Tina Vasquez, Lead Editor
Lara Witt, Top Editor
Rashmee Kumar, Copy Editor
Maurizio Guerrero is a journalist based in New York City who covers immigration, social justice issues, Latin America, and the United Nations. Follow him on Bluesky at @mauriziogro.bsky.social and on X at @mauriziogro.
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