Gaby Del Valle

Policy Reporter

Gaby Del Valle is a policy reporter at The Verge, where she covers privacy, the Department of Homeland Security, and the tech-right. “The most surveilled place in America,” her report on border technology in the Arizona borderlands, was a finalist for the 2023 Livingston Award for National Reporting. Have a tip? Contact her at gaby@theverge.com or via Signal at gabydvj.26

Gaby Del ValleOct 14

DHS resists oversight measure for ICE agents.

In the wake of a spate of ICE shootings, the Government Accountability Office recommended that ICE agents’ body-worn cameras automatically activate whenever an officer draws a weapon — but DHS disagrees.

Though DHS agreed with other recommendations in the GAO report, the department’s financial management director said auto-activated body cameras would pose “significant operational risks, including advertent or false activations during routine movement,” and could lead to the “unauthorized recording of sensitive interactions with informants or victims.”

DHS rejects watchdog’s call for ICE to use auto-activated body cameras

[The Washington Post]

Russian bot farms are still trolling, even after Ukraine’s drone strikes on Yandex

Gaby Del ValleOct 13

Gaby Del ValleOct 9

A judge just sealed the Jane Doe v. Cornell complaint.

Another person was doxxed because of the Cornell rape lawsuit — this time, it was a man who shares a name with one of the defendants, and who didn’t attend Cornell at all.

In the order to seal the complaint and other documents, judge Phaedra F. Perry Bond wrote that “everyone involved, be it the public, parties, or their attorneys, needs to do their part in bringing the temperature down before someone gets hurt.”

ICE detainees in Georgia used the facility’s video calling software to expose the conditions inside

Gaby Del ValleOct 8

Someone just swatted Cornell’s Jane Doe.

After online vigilantes doxxed the former Cornell student, someone called the police in Jane Doe’s hometown claiming there had been a shooting at her parents’ house, her attorney told CNN.

“Somebody could have been killed. This has gone too far.”

The vigilante doxxing campaign against Cornell’s Jane Doe happened in plain sight

X and Substack aren’t doing anything to stop users from harassing women they believe are connected to the rape case — and the women who aren’t.

Gaby Del ValleOct 7

AI hallucinations are making entitled customers even worse

Gaby Del ValleOct 2

Gaby Del ValleSep 30

Two more cops got caught using government databases to track romantic interests.

A pair of sheriff’s deputies in Pinellas County, Florida, were arrested on felony charges by their own department for using official databases to look up women they were interested in — including a 17-year-old girl.

One of the sheriff’s deputies, Karl Gwynne, reportedly looked up a woman on the agency’s automatic license plate reader database 300 times.

2 Pinellas deputies arrested for tracking people they were interested in, sheriff says

[Tampa Bay Times]