Everybody’s Watching You: The Intercept’s 2019 Technology Coverage

A look back at The Intercept’s must-read technology stories from 2019.

Amazon’s Home Surveillance Chief Declared War on “Dirtbag Criminals” as Company Got Closer to Police

Video and internal emails show how Amazon’s Ring has blurred the line between private innovation and public law enforcement.
By Sam Biddle

Inside the Video Surveillance Program IBM Built for Philippine Strongman Rodrigo Duterte

Law enforcement in Davao City familiar with the IBM program said the technology had assisted them in carrying out Duterte’s controversial anti-crime agenda.
By George Joseph

Everybody Does It: The Messy Truth About Infiltrating Computer Supply Chains

The danger of China compromising hardware supply chains is very real, judging from classified intelligence documents, even if a Bloomberg story on the matter is highly disputed.
By Micah Lee, Henrik Moltke

The Trump Administration Is Using the Full Power of the U.S. Surveillance State Against Whistleblowers

An examination of court filings in all seven leak cases filed under Trump yields a detailed picture of how the government tries to unmask confidential sources.
By Micah Lee

Mission Creep: How the NSA’s Game-Changing Targeting System Built for Iraq and Afghanistan Ended Up on the Mexico Border

The revolutionary NSA system merged different sources of electronic surveillance to rapidly map enemy fighters. The ramifications are still being felt.
By Henrik Moltke

Team of American Hackers and Emirati Spies Discussed Attacking The Intercept

Spies working for the United Arab Emirates discussed the attack with operatives at controversial firm DarkMatter.
By Sam Biddle, Matthew Cole

Peter Thiel’s Palantir Was Used to Bust Relatives of Migrant Children, New Documents Show

Palantir previously claimed its software was strictly involved in criminal investigations as opposed to deportations. This was false.
By Sam Biddle, Ryan Devereaux

How U.S. Tech Giants Are Helping to Build China’s Surveillance State

A nonprofit led by Google and IBM executives is working with Semptian, whose technology is monitoring the internet activity of 200 million people in China.
By Ryan Gallagher

Before Being Hacked, Border Surveillance Firm Lobbied to Downplay Security and Privacy Concerns About Its Technology

The CEO of Perceptics, which makes license plate readers, claimed that “CBP has none of the privacy concerns at the border that all agencies have inland.”
By Cora Currier

David Duke and His Twitter Nazis Got Mad at Me. Twitter Took Their Side.

Twitter doesn’t care when its users are abused by Nazi accounts. But what happens when the feelings of the Nazis get hurt? Then Twitter springs into action.
By Jon Schwarz