Eyes Everywhere: Surveillance in the United States and Palestine

(Photo by Dugan Meyer via Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 4.0 DEED)

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At an ICE Out of L.A. protest in June 2025, protestors gathered around parked Waymo taxis, spray painted them with anti-ICE and anti-AI slogans and symbols, then lit them on fire. Why? Because Waymo’s self-driving taxis have cameras on top and inside, recording constantly.

Protesters worried that footage from those cameras could be used to identify and track them down. There are no verified reports that Waymo shared camera footage with ICE in this case. But Waymo footage has been used as evidence by law enforcement for years. Most recently, on July 6, 2026, Waymo contacted police to report the behaviour of two male teenagers inside one of their taxis. The taxi was remotely disabled, and the teenagers were arrested. 

Waymo began in 2009 as a small experiment at Google, later becoming its own venture under Google’s parent company, Alphabet. According to a Google transparency report, Alphabet’s companies received a combined 60,933 information requests from U.S. government agencies between January and June of 2025. Data was handed over in 89% of cases. But Alphabet is just one piece of a bigger, increasingly invasive surveillance regime.

U.S. Surveillance in the 2020s

CCTV cameras with Automatic License Plate Readers (ALPRs) have been widely adopted since 2019. These cameras take time- and location-stamped photos of the license plates of passing cars.

The largest producer of ALPRs in the U.S. is Flock, which contracts its services out to law enforcement agencies across the country. The majority of these agencies opt into sharing their data with Flock’s national database.  So police are able to track the movements of people across state lines without a warrant. They have used Flock’s database to track at least one Texas woman suspected of trying to access abortion care. There are also several cases of this data being used by police officers to engage in stalking behaviour. 

Under the second Trump administration, ICE has access to personal information, like tax and medical records, that would not normally be shared between government departments. ICE is also sweeping social media for additional data. State-level attempts to limit this access are undermined by ICE’s ability to purchase vast amounts of information from data brokers.

ICE-Israel Surveillance Ties 

ICE has been using this data in combination with several AI technologies to increase its surveillance of activists and undocumented immigrants. For example, ICE agents have used facial recognition apps and license plate readers to identify people observing and recording raids on immigrant communities. Agents then called out their names or addresses as a form of intimidation. 

ICE also has a close relationship with Palantir, a data analytics company with multiple military and government intelligence contracts. Palantir has built several digital tools for ICE. One of these tools, ELITE, has a similar interface to Google Maps, displaying likely residences of undocumented immigrants to help select targets for raids and deportations.

Palantir has had an office in Tel Aviv since 2015, and signed a formal defence contract with the Israeli government in 2024. Importantly, this exchange of surveillance technology is not one-sided. Several surveillance technologies developed in Israel have also been implemented along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Israel’s Surveillance of Palestinians

For Palestinians, a mass level of surveillance that would shock many Americans is a daily occurrence. The Israel Occupation Force conducts regular raids and searches of Palestinian homes, often in the middle of the night.

Israel also controls the information and communications infrastructure within Palestine as part of its occupation. This gives Israel near-total control over how and when Palestinians can communicate, share, and access information. The social media accounts of Palestinians are monitored, and they’re frequently arrested for posts about resisting Israeli occupation.

Israel has been building up digital surveillance systems to monitor Palestinians’ every movement since the early 2000s. It spent tens of millions on CCTV cameras in the mid 2010s. It has since integrated AI technology like facial recognition scans at military checkpoints, which Palestinians must cross in order to access necessities. 

The Overlapping Effects

The experiences of Palestinians and Americans are, of course, not the same. These are different situations, rooted in different histories, in different parts of the world. But there is overlap in the companies creating the technologies that enable surveillance in both places. And the Israeli and American governments are happy to sell this technology to each other.

There’s also overlap in the tactics used to control the communities in both places. The widespread use of surveillance cameras. The conspicuous military-style raids against civilians. The invasive social media monitoring. The sweeping collection and aggregation of data that should be private.

The cameras create a feeling of being watched always and everywhere. Constant raids generate a sense of instability and fear. The knowledge that people are being constantly monitored, sometimes by friends and neighbours, causes distrust within communities. When community becomes risky, resisting state oppression gets harder.

Ubiquitous surveillance can cause people to become apathetic. If surveillance cannot be avoided, people often lean into the idea that “if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear,” and begin policing their own actions. But state surveillance violates many other human rights besides the right to privacy.

Human Rights Implications

The use of aggregated data as a justification for arrest blurs the line of what can be considered arbitrary detention. And so, freedom of movement becomes restricted. In the U.S., immigrants have become afraid to leave their homes, creating a need for community members to drop off food and other essentials.

In Palestine, widespread high-tech military checkpoints restrict where and when Palestinians can move on their own land. Palestinians are denied the ability to visit family in other cities and villages. Israel also frequently denies members of the diaspora from returning to Palestine.

There can be no freedom of speech when everything people say is monitored by a government that does not care about their interests. There can be no freedom of assembly if there is fear of future retaliation. People cannot take part in cultural life if they are afraid to leave their homes. 

What Are the Solutions?

The companies that develop and manage surveillance technology should be heavily regulated, but the law has not kept up with the digital age. In 2021, human rights group Freedom House made policy recommendations that could help protect people from the violence of expanding surveillance. On the most basic level, people should have more control over their personal data, including the ability to delete it. Steps should also be taken to limit the trade of surveillance and censorship technology between governments.  

These recommendations would greatly limit the capacity of surveillance tech companies. But considering the governments that are these companies’ biggest customers would have to be the ones to restrict them, the situation will likely not change any time soon. This leaves many individuals feeling powerless. Protecting your personal data from the government and tech companies is indeed difficult right now, but that does not mean there is nothing to be done. 

You can (and should!) get informed about how you interact with surveillance every day. You can also take steps to limit the access these companies have to you and your data wherever possible. And, most importantly, you should refuse to allow this level of surveillance to start feeling normal, just because it’s everywhere.

Edited by Ayah Mohammad