Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is quietly building up its ability to spy on Americans' phones. Earlier this month, the agency activated a $2 million contract with Paragon, a service that offers the ability to remotely hack into someone's phone. Last week, ICE entered into an $11 million contract for Cellebrite devices, which allow agents to break into a locked phone in their physical possession.
And they don't want you to know why. The justification for the no-bid contract states that ICE's Cyber Crimes Center "has a need for Universal Forensic Extraction Devices (UFEDs) and related services for investigative purposes. Specifically, the Government requires the capability to perform logical, file system, physical, and password data extraction for mobile electronic devices."
Every other substantive paragraph in the document is redacted, to an almost comical degree. "Cellebrite's unique capabilities are that they are the only brand product/service that ██████████," read one paragraph. "Cellebrite remains the most effective solution for ██████████," reads another.
