We’ve been investigating government contracts with Clearview.

Clearview’s software lets users compare photos of faces with a database of 3 billion photos taken from other Internet sources. ICE, CBP, DOJ, and the FBI have all reportedly used the software.
Last year, we #FOIA’d the Trump administration CIA for records of communications with Clearview representatives. The agency said it will neither confirm nor deny the existence of any such records.
americanoversight.org/document/gloma…
In June 2020, the FBI also said it would neither confirm nor deny the existence of records regarding the facial recognition software company Clearview AI, Inc.
americanoversight.org/document/gloma…
We also filed a Freedom of Information Act with CBP for a broad range of records related to Clearview. In May 2020, CBP said it found no responsive records.
americanoversight.org/document/no-re…
This is an interesting response because CBP reportedly used Clearview’s technology.

Facial recognition software from Clearview could pose serious risks to privacy.

The public deserves answers about the use of this technology by the government. vox.com/recode/2020/2/…

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More from @weareoversight

21 May
The Biden administration plans to keep the Trump-era Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement office, which was created to advance the Trump admin.’s anti-immigrant agenda. DHS intends to continue the office, known as VOICE, with a new name. #FOIAFriday
time.com/6048445/donald…
VOICE helped promote the Trump administration’s narrative of falsely tying immigrants to crime. Records we obtained show that during the Trump admin., Stephen Miller frequently pushed stories that portrayed immigrants as violent criminals, reported @TIME.
americanoversight.org/investigation/…
We also uncovered records of meetings between far-right anti-immigration groups and Barbara Gonzales, who led VOICE during the Trump administration.
americanoversight.org/in-the-documen…
Read 5 tweets
20 May
Supporters of the “Big Lie” want to undermine faith in our democracy by repeating the partisan audit in Arizona’s Maricopa County around the country.

That’s why transparency is so important around the Arizona audit. So we’re going to court. THREAD
Joe Biden won Arizona in the 2020 election but Trump supporters have tried to dispute these results since November.

First, Rudy Giuliani and some AZ lawmakers held an unofficial “hearing” in which participants made unsubstantiated allegations about the election’s integrity. 2/
Then, in December, a group of Arizona Trump supporters tried to replace the valid presidential electors from their state — who had been chosen by voters in free and fair elections — with a bogus slate of pro-Trump electors. We obtained a copy of the phony certificate. 3/ ImageImageImage
Read 10 tweets
19 May
NEW LAWSUIT: We’re suing the Arizona Senate for failing to release documents related to the partisan audit of the 2020 presidential ballots in Maricopa County. #AZAudit #AZleg
americanoversight.org/american-overs…
After the Senate announced Cyber Ninjas—a firm with no prior experience with election results whose founder has spread conspiracy theories—would lead the audit, we launched an investigation & filed records requests for documents related to the audit.
We asked for public release of key documents from the audit, including the Senate’s communications with Cyber Ninjas, budget information, security measures, techniques, and more.
americanoversight.org/document/recor…
Read 5 tweets
19 May
NEW: Through our FOIA lawsuit, we uncovered that Seema Verma, the Trump administration’s CMS chief, lost her government-issued cell phone two days before President Biden’s inauguration. The government says it can’t recover the records on it.
politico.com/newsletters/po…
Verma was issued a new cell phone on Jan. 18 which she gave back nine days later. The government’s lawyers claim the records on that phone couldn’t be accessed because it was locked and Verma claimed she forgot the passcode.
The government then deleted the phone’s contents in March, without recovering them.

The government’s process for ensuring records are preserved needs to be reexamined, our executive director @AREvers told @DanCGoldberg.
Read 5 tweets
19 May
The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors — whose members are majority Republicans — denounced the audit of the 2020 election and said the Cyber Ninjas firm doesn't “know what they’re doing.” #AZAudit
azcentral.com/story/news/loc…
The Arizona Senate is conducting a partisan audit of the Maricopa County election results. It hired Cyber Ninjas — a firm whose founder has spread conspiracy theories about the 2020 election — to conduct the audit.
The Board said the audit process was a “spectacle that is harming all of us” and insisted that the county didn’t delete any election files. Jake Sellers, the Board chairman, accused Arizona Senate President Karen Fann of trying to legitimize “a grift disguised as an audit.”
Read 4 tweets
19 May
New: We obtained records from spring 2020 that show TV host Dr. Mehmet Oz asked for federal assistance with obtaining hydroxychloroquine, a drug promoted by Trump as a possible coronavirus treatment, for a trial he wanted to run.
americanoversight.org/emails-from-sp…
For weeks in 2020, President Donald Trump used his office to promote the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine as a Covid-19 treatment. Despite lack of evidence that it was effective, Trump continued to refer to it as a miracle drug.
Records we published reveal communications from these early weeks of the pandemic in which Dr. Oz and Fox News host Laura Ingraham contacted officials leading the federal pandemic response to request information about hydroxychloroquine trials.
Read 4 tweets

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