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.

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.