January 8, 2026
Big Brother, but make it local
ICE's Tool to Monitor Phones in Neighborhoods
ICE’s neighborhood phone-tracking sparks fury and ‘1984’ cries
TLDR: ICE reportedly bought tools to track phones across neighborhoods without warrants, following people from work to home. Comments erupted with calls to dissolve ICE, “1984” warnings, and tin-foil jokes—capturing a mix of fear, anger, and frantic privacy anxiety over government surveillance near home.
ICE, the U.S. immigration agency, reportedly bought tools called Tangles and Webloc that can watch phones across a neighborhood, track where people go, and do it without a warrant, according to 404 Media. Cue the internet meltdown. The top comments are pure fire: “Dissolve ICE” demands cdrnsf, while saubeidl warns, “They’re building 1984.” One user even jokes about tin foil signal blockers, turning paranoia into a meme. The vibe? A cocktail of fear, rage, and gallows humor.
Some readers go full flamethrower, calling to ban ICE’s ERO (Enforcement and Removal Operations) agents from future public service. Others, like phillipcarter, say they’ll reward “maximally vindictive candidates”, turning the thread into a revenge-fueled election mood board. Meanwhile, wantlotsofcurry hands out gold stars: “404 continues to do great work.”
Civil liberties experts are alarmed too—ACLU’s Nathan Freed Wessler says this kind of granular location tracking reveals who we are and who we spend time with, fueling the community’s “Big Brother at your doorstep” panic. The drama splits into camps: abolitionists vs. privacy survivalists, policy rage vs. meme coping. No matter the lane, the chorus is loud: don’t let mass phone tracking become normal.
Key Points
- •ICE purchased two surveillance systems, Tangles and Webloc.
- •Materials obtained by 404 Media describe Webloc’s ability to monitor neighborhoods and track phones over time.
- •The system uses commercial location data from Penlink covering hundreds of millions of phones.
- •An internal ICE legal analysis indicates these data queries can be conducted without a warrant.
- •Civil liberties concerns were raised by the ACLU regarding the privacy risks of granular location tracking.