Tech features and investigations at @technologyreview.com | proud Los Angeles resident | send me tips (not PR pitches) on Signal: eileenguo.15 | português-español-中文 https://www.technologyreview.com/author/eileen-guo/
New investigation from @jamesmodonnell.bsky.social & me into the border #SurveillanceTech by #Anduril, General Dynamics, and Israeli co. Elbit Systems that failed to catch 1 in 4 deaths within range.
In other words: 1,050+ people dying on camera.
www.technologyreview.com/2026/09/21/1...
1/x
After years of championing "free speech," Texas lawmakers have enabled a dramatic rise of censorship in Texas universities, banning concepts, canceling courses and closing departments seen as "woke," and even using AI bots as censors. All in the name of freedom. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/1...
Many supposed news organizations are launching weird AI and tech products that fundamentally break the rules of journalism.
Any interview is an individual conversation with its own terms between a source and reporter.
Earlier this week, I agreed to interviews with two USA Today journalists. They wrote fantastic articles about the Cornell case that I'm proud to have been a part of.
What I did not know is that their employer considers interviews to proprietary and opens up recordings to be used by any journalist.
Please join me on MS NOW 10a-1p w/
@repcasar.bsky.social // @gregcasar.bsky.social
Randy Korgan
@eileenguo.bsky.social@jamesodonnell.bsky.social@agrobbonta.oag.ca.gov@nhannahjones.bsky.social@hamilton4kansas.bsky.social
Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch
Dr. Reza Aslan
Mala Muñoz
The tower on the hill is an Anduril surveillance tower, one of hundreds that watch the US-Mexico border. The view at right is from where a 31-year-old man lay for hours after crossing the border and then died, neither apprehended nor rescued. 1x
Days after we published our story on deaths by border towers, Rep Delia Ramirez announced a plan to terminate CBP's surveillance tower program—and dismantle DHS.
Citing our reporting, she said: "The towers that we have paid a billion $ to just don’t work.”
www.technologyreview.com/2026/09/23/1...
New investigation from @jamesmodonnell.bsky.social & me into the border #SurveillanceTech by #Anduril, General Dynamics, and Israeli co. Elbit Systems that failed to catch 1 in 4 deaths within range.
In other words: 1,050+ people dying on camera.
www.technologyreview.com/2026/09/21/1...
1/x
An update on this story:
Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin said this in our request for comment on @ramirez.house.gov's plans:
"Radical leftists are calling to defund the police and abolish DHS. It’s NEVER going to happen.”
www.technologyreview.com/2026/09/23/1...#DHS#defund
This fascinating, grim and utterly necessary story from my old chums at Tech Review: zillions spent on high-tech US border surveillance and yet thousands of people still dying within a stone’s throw of towers.
A horrible reminder of how the promises of a technology often fail.
New investigation from @jamesmodonnell.bsky.social & me into the border #SurveillanceTech by #Anduril, General Dynamics, and Israeli co. Elbit Systems that failed to catch 1 in 4 deaths within range.
In other words: 1,050+ people dying on camera.
www.technologyreview.com/2026/09/21/1...
1/x
Scoop: The anonymous source behind a POLITICO story that the White House is now using to justify a ban on the outlet was none other than JD Vance himself.
Details in @status.news: www.status.news/p/white-hous...
An investigation mapped nearly 4,000 sites where migrant remains were found against roughly 600 US border towers. More than 1,050 people died within a tower's range since 2015. 🧵
www.technologyreview.com/2026/09/21/1...
If surveillance at the US-Mexico border is so all-seeing, why isn't it saving lives? @technologyreview.com and the Times of San Diego used EFF's map of border tech to conduct this first-of-its-kind analysis of the relationship between surveillance and migrant deaths.
And this isn't an isolated issue; 2/3of all of the towers (600+) that we analyzed had at least 1 death within their advertised range - and many had far more than that.
(You can see a map of the towers and deaths in our story. )
New investigation from @jamesmodonnell.bsky.social & me into the border #SurveillanceTech by #Anduril, General Dynamics, and Israeli co. Elbit Systems that failed to catch 1 in 4 deaths within range.
In other words: 1,050+ people dying on camera.
www.technologyreview.com/2026/09/21/1...
1/x
Our full story package is here: www.technologyreview.com/supertopic/b...
And as always, if you have more information on this or other stories: my Signal is open: eileenguo.15.
New investigation from @jamesmodonnell.bsky.social & me into the border #SurveillanceTech by #Anduril, General Dynamics, and Israeli co. Elbit Systems that failed to catch 1 in 4 deaths within range.
In other words: 1,050+ people dying on camera.
www.technologyreview.com/2026/09/21/1...
1/x
Nor is it an issue of the past.
While the Trump admin appears more focused on interior enforcement + deportations, people con't to cross -- and they continue to die within sight of surveillance.
Plus, record levels of funding to DHS in 2025, is set to triple the # of towers in coming years.
This was a data story, but it's also v. much a human story. The people that died came from all around the world and ranged in age from 0-70.
We inc their stories as much as we can - esp this deep dive into 30-yo Graciela Gomez Hernandez, from Mexico...
www.technologyreview.com/2026/09/21/1...
New investigation from @jamesmodonnell.bsky.social & me into the border #SurveillanceTech by #Anduril, General Dynamics, and Israeli co. Elbit Systems that failed to catch 1 in 4 deaths within range.
In other words: 1,050+ people dying on camera.
www.technologyreview.com/2026/09/21/1...
1/x
And this isn't an isolated issue; 2/3of all of the towers (600+) that we analyzed had at least 1 death within their advertised range - and many had far more than that.
(You can see a map of the towers and deaths in our story. )
"The idea that an organization that is an alternative host—for email, websites, and other services—could be designated a terrorist organization simply for providing a service that a lot of people want…is scary," EFF’s @jillian.bsky.social told @reason.com.
It’s good that Meta is creating some bare-bones safety features for kids, but a far better option would be to make these platforms safe for everyone.
Shouldn’t we all be protected from Big Tech’s predations? My latest @nytopinion.nytimes.com (gift link).
www.nytimes.com/2026/08/27/o...
Pentagon fires the publisher and the editor in chief of Stars and Stripes, the military newspaper funded by DoD that has long enjoyed editorial independence from the government. wapo.st/3UsenSA
Flock has told the public for years that its technology “cannot recognize, identify, or track individuals.”
The company has now built an AI system that does both. And @wired.com got the system's code -- allowing us to reconstruct it, and learn exactly how Flock's new tool is supposed to work:
(New Release!) How are people really using AI?
Today, researchers at MIT, Stanford, + 12 academic institutions are launching the AI Observatory: public infra for measuring how people actually use AI assistants in the wild.
🔗 ai-observatory.org
📜 www.dataprovenance.org/ai_observato...
Not to be some wild-eyed innocent, but I think it should be slightly bigger news that The Lancet have crunched the numbers and found that Musk's USAID cuts will kill 14 million people. And that's just by 2030.
That's 9,600 people a day, every day, until the next world cup rolls around.
I missed this excellent look by @mirandagreen.bsky.social into the conservative funders, pink slime websites, + campus activists that attacked campus #DEI. www.cjr.org/tow_center/h...
Same tactics + some of the same groups (Accuracy in Media) that we found in our censorship investigation 👇
W/ith @giselilla.bsky.social + @cargocultscientist.bsky.social, I delved into the origins of the “censorship-industrial complex” idea, how it went from the fringes of the online right to a driver of Trump2 policy, + what it means for the Internet.
www.technologyreview.com/2026/08/07/1...
the fact that a billionaire can randomly throw $100,000,000 into a campaign against taxing the rich seems like the best argument yet they can afford it
W/ith @giselilla.bsky.social + @cargocultscientist.bsky.social, I delved into the origins of the “censorship-industrial complex” idea, how it went from the fringes of the online right to a driver of Trump2 policy, + what it means for the Internet.
www.technologyreview.com/2026/08/07/1...
As someone caught in the web of this elaborate conspiracy theory, its good to see some in-depth, critical analysis of its origins. This right wing propoganda campaign has had a huge impact on politics and policy, with little attention from the center or left. www.technologyreview.com/2026/08/07/1...
Mike Benz was paid over HALF A MILLION DOLLARS from a SINGLE ORGANIZATION in a SINGLE YEAR to spread lies that there's a massive conspiracy to censor conservatives online
www.technologyreview.com/2026/08/07/1...
***major must-read/must-share deep dive*** into the free speech phonies and their conspiracy theories driving so much bad faith trump admin policy right now
W/ith @giselilla.bsky.social + @cargocultscientist.bsky.social, I delved into the origins of the “censorship-industrial complex” idea, how it went from the fringes of the online right to a driver of Trump2 policy, + what it means for the Internet.
www.technologyreview.com/2026/08/07/1...