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Behind the Blog: New Music and a Crash Out

This article is a behind-the-scenes look at how a story about ICE using Palantir to track 20 million people on iPhones was reported. The journalist, Joseph, explains he gathered information by speaking to four conference attendees, using a snowball method to find sources. He also notes the importance of including a caveat that the officials' claims may need to be taken with skepticism, given the history of DHS dishonesty.

read1 min views8 publishedMay 15, 2026

This is Behind the Blog, where we share our behind-the-scenes thoughts about how a few of our top stories of the week came together. This week, we discuss developers' AI woes, how the magic happens, and the Beach Boys. JOSEPH: Earlier in the week we published ICE Agents Have List of 20 Million People on Their iPhones Thanks to Palantir. This took a little while because I spoke to four people who attended the conference. I spoke to one, I asked if they knew anyone else there. Got another name and phone number, and so on. I included this line in the copy: “The officials’ comments may need to be taken with a pinch of salt, but still reflect ICE’s position that Palantir is allowing the agency to identify people to arrest and locations to raid faster.” I think that was important to include because these are comments and figures coming from senior ICE officials, and one in particular, Matthew Elliston, assistant director of Law Enforcement Systems & Analysis at ICE. As we all know, DHS lies.

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