The surveillance trap

Summary

Podcast Summary: "The Surveillance Trap"

Podcast Information:

• Title: Click Here
• Host/Author: Recorded Future News
• Episode: The Surveillance Trap
• Release Date: June 24, 2025

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Overview

In the episode titled "The Surveillance Trap," Recorded Future News delves into the intricate and often troubling world of immigration enforcement in the United States. Hosted by Dina Temple-Raston, the podcast explores the Intensive Supervision Appearance Program (ISAP), initially portrayed as a humane alternative to detention for immigrants but increasingly utilized as a tool for increased surveillance and enforcement. Through personal narratives, expert insights, and critical analysis, the episode reveals how technology and policy shifts under different administrations have transformed ISAP from a beacon of hope into a surveillance mechanism that entraps individuals already in plain sight.

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1. Introduction to ISAP and ICE's Surveillance Tactics

The episode opens with a discussion on recent demonstrations in Los Angeles against ICE raids, highlighting the underlying strategies ICE employs beyond visible enforcement actions.

• Dina Temple-Raston (00:28): "But also this other thing laying beneath the boots and the bluster, this quieter tactic that isn't going after people hiding in the shadows, but instead is zeroing in on those already in plain sight."

ISAP Defined: ISAP, or Intensive Supervision Appearance Program, was introduced as a more humane system allowing immigrants to avoid detention by using surveillance tools such as ankle monitors and smart apps. Initially seen as a compromise to maintain normalcy for families, ISAP has evolved into a mechanism for stringent monitoring and eventual detention.

• Priscilla Abraham (01:24): "They agreed to be tracked instead by ankle monitors and smart apps and even biometric watches."

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2. Jay's Personal Journey Through ISAP

The heart of the episode is Jay's personal story, illustrating the human impact of ISAP's surveillance measures.

Arrival and Adaptation: Jay immigrated from Guyana as a teenager, bringing hopes inspired by American media. He adapted to life in the U.S. but faced legal troubles stemming from minor marijuana charges.

• Jay (04:12): "I expect betterment, success, happiness. I mean, these are the things you think about in your head."

Encounter with ICE: After a minor conviction, Jay believed his permanent residency was secure. However, due to legal oversights, ICE placed a hold on his release, marking the beginning of his entanglement with ISAP.

• Jay (05:54): "I thought the word permanent means permanent."

Experience with ISAP: Under ISAP, Jay was assigned an ankle monitor managed by a private company, BI Incorporated, part of the Geo Group, the largest private prison corporation in America. The ankle monitor imposed strict regulations, significantly impacting his daily life.

• Priscilla Abraham (08:11): "It's all part of the ISAP program we mentioned before. ICE likes it because it's cheap, about $4 a day instead of the $150 or so it costs to detain someone."

Living with Surveillance: Jay describes the ankle monitor as a constant physical and psychological burden, limiting his freedom and subjecting him to continuous oversight.

• Jay (09:10): "It was still better than a jail cell. The monitor meant he could be home with his three kids and eventually he was allowed to work again."

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3. Shift in Policy Under the Trump Administration

The episode highlights how ISAP's original intent was undermined by policy shifts, particularly under President Trump's administration, transforming it from a compassionate program to a tool for mass detention.

• Priscilla Abraham (02:27): "ISAP was supposed to be about hope. But something shifted, and it wasn't the tech so much as the tactics."

Increased Enforcement: Trump declared illegal immigration a national security threat, leading to a surge in ICE's enforcement actions. This shift pressured ICE to target even low-risk individuals who were previously considered compliant.

• Jay (10:38): "If you're going to have 21 million people and if we have to get a lot of them out because they're criminals, we're going to have to."

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4. ICE's Escalated Enforcement and Surveillance

Under the Trump administration, ICE increased its daily arrest quotas, compelling agents to target already compliant and trackable immigrants. This strategy effectively turns ISAP participants into "low-hanging fruit" for arrests.

• Priscilla Abraham (16:13): "The Department of Homeland Security is raising its daily arrest quotas for ice agents to 3,000 arrests per day."

Technology as an Enforcement Tool: Beyond ankle monitors, ICE has incorporated advanced technologies like the BI SmartLink app, which tracks individuals through their personal devices, raising significant privacy concerns.

• Priscilla Abraham (17:00): "At face value, it appears the best of options. No clunky ankle monitor. But Sara warns it actually raises new concerns because the app gets installed on people's personal phones."

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5. The Mechanics of Surveillance and Data Collection

The episode exposes the extensive data ICE collects through surveillance technologies, often beyond what participants expect or consent to, including potentially sensitive information like genetic material.

• Priscilla Abraham (17:39): "What's clear is that the government is collecting a lot, including things you might not expect, like genetic material."

Private Sector Involvement: Companies like Geo Group facilitate ICE's surveillance through technologies initially designed for other purposes, such as livestock tracking.

• Priscilla Abraham (07:15): "I was happy the time when I hear I was getting an ankle monitor to come home, but then experiencing the rules and regulation that it comes with, it was very stressful."

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6. Jay's Narrow Escape from Detention

An incident where ICE purportedly claims a device malfunction was revealed to be a deliberate setup aimed at detaining compliant individuals. Jay narrowly avoided detention by having his lawyer accompany him during the visit.

• Priscilla Abraham (13:24): "And suddenly, there was all of a sudden an issue with the ankle monitor. It just didn't make sense at the moment."
• Jay (20:02): "They swapped out the old one for a new one. And Jay went home."

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7. Broader Implications and Future Concerns

The episode concludes by highlighting the vast number of individuals under surveillance and the potential for expanding these practices to other populations, raising alarms about privacy, data security, and human rights.

• Priscilla Abraham (19:20): "This is just the beginning."
• Unnamed Expert (19:38): "It means that they're going to continue trying to push those barriers and eventually starting to impact others who have other types of status."

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Notable Quotes

• Dina Temple-Raston (00:28): "But also this other thing laying beneath the boots and the bluster, this quieter tactic..."
• Jay (04:12): "I expect betterment, success, happiness."
• Priscilla Abraham (08:11): "ICE likes it because it's cheap, about $4 a day instead of the $150 or so it costs to detain someone."
• Jay (05:54): "I thought the word permanent means permanent."
• Priscilla Abraham (16:13): "The Department of Homeland Security is raising its daily arrest quotas for ice agents to 3,000 arrests per day."
• Priscilla Abraham (19:20): "This is just the beginning."

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Conclusion

"The Surveillance Trap" serves as a critical examination of how well-intentioned immigration programs like ISAP can be repurposed into mechanisms of control and enforcement. Through Jay's narrative and expert insights, the episode underscores the dangers of unchecked surveillance and the erosion of privacy rights, painting a dystopian reality that extends beyond immigration into broader societal implications.

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Additional Content: Cybersecurity News Highlights

Following the main narrative, the episode briefly touches on other significant cybersecurity events:

1. Iran's National Internet Blackout:

   • In response to Israeli cyber attacks, Iran intentionally shut down its internet to control information and protect government networks, affecting civilians' access to vital information.

2. Scattered Spider Hacking Group:

   • The notorious hacking group Scattered Spider has resurfaced, now targeting insurance companies using sophisticated social engineering tactics, prompting increased cybersecurity measures.

3. OpenAI's Defense Contract:

   • OpenAI signed a $200 million contract with the Department of Defense to develop AI tools for cybersecurity, military healthcare, and logistics, reflecting a broader trend of Silicon Valley's engagement with military applications.

4. TikTok Ban Reprieve:

   • The White House extended the deadline for a TikTok ban by 90 days amid ongoing geopolitical tensions and trade disputes with China, leaving millions of American users in uncertainty.

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Stay Informed

For comprehensive coverage on cybersecurity and intelligence, subscribe to the Cyber Daily from Recorded Future News, which aggregates the latest cyber stories and analyses from around the globe.

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This summary encapsulates the key discussions, personal stories, and critical insights presented in the "The Surveillance Trap" episode of Click Here, providing a thorough understanding for those who have not listened to the original podcast.

Transcript

[Dina Temple Raston]

From Recorded Future News and prx, this is. Click here.

[Priscilla Abraham]

If you've turned on the news lately, you've probably seen the demonstrations roiling Los Angeles. People have taken to the streets not just to protest the heavy handedness of.

[Dina Temple Raston]

ICE raids sparked by sweeping immigration raids.

[Priscilla Abraham]

President Trump's military response.

[Dina Temple Raston]

What are you trying to blend in with?

[Jay]

What's with the camos?

[Dina Temple Raston]

You're not in the jungle, you're in.

[Jay]

The city of Minneapolis.

[Dina Temple Raston]

But also this other thing laying beneath the boots and the bluster, this quieter tactic that isn't going after people hiding in the shadows, but instead is zeroing in on those already in plain sight. People ICE already knows, people they've already processed, people they already monitor in a program called Alternatives to Detention.

[Saira Hussain]

Alternatives to Detention is a way for ICE to continue to monitor your whereabouts, your address, where you work, without you having to physically be detained.

[Dina Temple Raston]

This is Priscilla Abraham.

[Priscilla Abraham]

She's a senior staff attorney in the Immigrant Rights program at the American Friends.

[Dina Temple Raston]

Service Committee, and she works with people.

[Priscilla Abraham]

Who agreed to sign up for this compromise that allowed them to avoid being locked up. They agreed to be tracked instead by ankle monitors and smart apps and even biometric watches.

[Jay]

The transmitter is to be worn around your ankle at all times. It must not cross this line.

[Dina Temple Raston]

They're part of a program with a surprisingly gentle name. Isap. The Intensive Supervision Appearance Program. It's been pitched as progress, a more humane system, one without cages. And at first, that's how it felt. A way to return home to your kids, to hold onto some version of normal.

[Saira Hussain]

My clients could have a semblance of a life with their families, and that's really what they're fighting for.

[Dina Temple Raston]

At the end of the day, ISAP.

[Priscilla Abraham]

Was supposed to be about hope. But something shifted, and it wasn't the tech so much as the tactics. Under Biden, the tools expanded, but under Trump, they hardened. A system sold as compassionate was suddenly being used to entrap. I'm Dina Temple Raston and this is Click Here, a podcast about all things cyber and intelligence. We tell true stories about the people making and breaking our digital world. And today, isap, a program that was supposed to be for people who pose little or no threat. But lately ICE has been changing the rules, turning low level cases into enforcement priorities. And the tech designed to let people have some semblance of freedom, is now being used to do quite the opposite.

[Unnamed Expert]

There's more and more people who are entering the system and being surveilled in some way by the government.

[Priscilla Abraham]

A humane alternative is becoming a trap.

[Dina Temple Raston]

Stay with us. Click Here is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. You chose to hit play on this podcast today. Smart choice. Make another smart choice with Auto Quote Explorer to compare rates from multiple car insurance companies all at once. Try [e-mail] Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Not available in all states or situations. Prices vary on how you buy from recorded future news. This is Click Here if you want.

[Priscilla Abraham]

To understand how ICE uses surveillance technology today. It helps to stop thinking in systems and to start thinking in stories. Stories like Jay's.

[Dina Temple Raston]

He asked us to use just his first initial out of concern that he could face reprisals for talking to us. He came to the US as a teenager in the early 2000s.

[Jay]

I was a freshman in high school.

[Dina Temple Raston]

And he arrived armed with a suitcase and a set of expectations borrowed from all the American TV he'd been watching.

[Jay]

I expect betterment, success, happiness. I mean, these are the things you think about in your head. You know, going to, well, a country like this place that's supposed to be a little bit more advanced.

[Dina Temple Raston]

Jay's from Guyana, a small English speaking country in South America. Think lush rainforests, towering waterfalls, not a lot of traffic. He landed in the New Jersey suburbs and things felt faster.

[Jay]

Everything, you know, the clock turned quicker in America. You know, everything moves faster over here.

[Dina Temple Raston]

But he adapted. He played soccer, he made friends, and eventually some of the wrong ones.

[Priscilla Abraham]

He was arrested a few times on minor marijuana charges. There were fines, probation. And back in 2019, he spent some time in jail.

[Jay]

I paid my fines, I did my time. The judge gave you paperwork and say, you're free to go, report to me and make sure you come to court and file all the rules.

[Dina Temple Raston]

He was ready to go home, see his wife and kids.

[Jay]

When I got downstairs to give them my release paper, they said, you're not going nowhere. ICE put a hold on you. You had to go back. So everything, I just shut down. I was confused, angry, mad. Everything in one.

[Priscilla Abraham]

Jay was a lawful permanent resident, which means green card, the right to work, a path to citizenship.

[Jay]

I thought the word permanent means permanent. So in my head I thought that that was it.

[Priscilla Abraham]

But it turns out the law makes a quiet exception. If you're convicted of a crime, even something small, your status can be revoked. Jay's lawyer back in 2019 never made that clear. Instead, he told him to plead guilty, spend a day in jail, and it'd be behind him. It was bad advice, because now, instead of going home, Jay was headed for ICE detention.

[Dina Temple Raston]

Which according to Jay, was like jail, but much worse.

[Jay]

Everybody's in the open, like a gym with bunk bed. This is like anybody could, you know, crazy stuff go on in there. You know there's violence in there too.

[Priscilla Abraham]

This was mid Covid. The center was overcrowded, short staffed. When fights broke out, the guards just tended to look the other way. At one point, Jay was assaulted. So you can imagine when he got an opportunity to go home under the ISAP program, he jumped at the chance.

[Jay]

So they was giving people ankle monitors that had non violent charges and low criminal charges. They was letting those type of people out. So I fell under that group.

[Dina Temple Raston]

Got it. And so what did you think having an ankle monitor would be like?

[Jay]

I was happy the time when I hear I was getting an ankle monitor to come home, but then experiencing the rules and regulation that it comes with, it was very stressful. You know, my regular life was on hold.

[Dina Temple Raston]

He wasn't free, not really. He was still in ICE custody, just not behind bars. Now he was going to be tracked by a black plastic shackle on his ankle. And the people in charge of monitoring him came from a private company called BI Incorporated. BI started as a company that used gadgets to track livestock. Then it was acquired by Geo Group, the largest private prison corporation in America.

[Priscilla Abraham]

Geo took the technology once used to.

[Dina Temple Raston]

Track cattle and now they use it to track people.

[Saira Hussain]

They're a third party contractor that actually gives out the ankle bracelets or puts the actual application on the phone or they were rolling out for a time. Smartwatch looking tracking device.

[Priscilla Abraham]

It's all part of the ISAP program we mentioned before. Ice likes it because it's cheap, about $4 a day instead of the $150 or so it costs to detain someone. A private company manages the program, but to most people it feels like a government system, which ISAP doesn't seem to go out of their way.

[Dina Temple Raston]

To clarify, ISAP calls them officers, which makes them sound like they're government and they're not. Is that right?

[Unnamed Expert]

Yes.

[Dina Temple Raston]

Jay was assigned an ISAP officer. He was fitted with an ankle monitor. It's black, clunky, hard to ignore. It had a detachable battery and it came preloaded with a roster of assumptions that dogged Jay like a clanking chain.

[Jay]

I never wear a short. I always covered mine, you know, because I was kind of embarrassed.

[Dina Temple Raston]

Even hidden, the thing was a burden.

[Jay]

After being on your foot for a long time, it irritates your foot because you're showering with this thing on your feet. You're doing everything on with this thing on your feet.

[Dina Temple Raston]

You Know, sometimes it rubbed his skin raw, sometimes the battery overheated and burned him.

[Jay]

So I had to. I was back and forth at the office whenever it was bothering me so that they could adjust it.

[Dina Temple Raston]

But for Jay, it was still better than a jail cell. The monitor meant he could be home with his three kids and eventually he was allowed to work again.

[Jay]

I worked one job while I was on the ankle monitor for a while, which is for the ice company.

[Dina Temple Raston]

Different ice. The cold ice?

[Jay]

Yes, the cold ice. The block. Yeah.

[Unnamed Producer]

Okay.

[Jay]

The ice company, you know, I was working for them for like a year.

[Priscilla Abraham]

It wasn't ideal. ISAP made life a logistical nightmare.

[Jay]

It was very stressful because I had to report so many times and, you know, my regular life was on hold. I had to make sure that I'm home until I receive a call from the supervising officer. And I had to let them know two weeks ahead if I'm going to another state, if you miss her, you don't file it, you're going to get in trouble.

[Dina Temple Raston]

Still, Jay had hope. His lawyer said he had a strong case, he'd come to the states legally. His drug charge was minor and his defense attorney have been ineffective. Textbook grounds for dismissal. But immigration isn't very textbook anymore. President Trump's immigration crackdown ramping up.

[Jay]

If you're going to have 21 million people and if we have to get a lot of them out because they're criminals, we're going to have to.

[Priscilla Abraham]

In January, Trump declared illegal immigration a national security threat. And then the purge began.

[Unnamed Expert]

A sense of fear grips this tight knit community.

Bring your paperwork here. Kill your ass.

Modestly, after ICE raided this meat packing.

[Dina Temple Raston]

Plant in Omaha, Nebraska, Jay watched this all unfold on television in headlines, and he could feel it like a weight on his chest.

[Jay]

Oh, and you see it on tv and then you hearing it from the president mouth. And then I have my own situation that I'm going through with it. So I've been worried and it's a lot of time I've been in my window peeking and looking.

[Priscilla Abraham]

And then one day in the middle of all of this, the phone rang. It was his ISAP officer asking him to come in.

[Jay]

They said it was something with my gps, my ankle monitor, but I never really had that problem with them, you know, especially in the manner that they called me, the way they told me. So I was, I was kind of shaky.

[Dina Temple Raston]

So your spidey sense was going crazy?

[Jay]

Yeah, it was really tingling.

[Dina Temple Raston]

So he called his lawyer.

[Jay]

I didn't want to go, so I asked her to can she come with me?

[Dina Temple Raston]

Because this didn't feel like a low battery alert. It felt like a trap. Like the kind where the ending is already written. When we come back, Jay walks into the ISAP office and right into the next chapter. Stay with us.

[Unnamed Expert]

Jan Marsalek was a model of German corporate success.

It seemed so damn simple for him.

Also, it turned out that a fraudster.

[Jay]

Where does the money come from? That was something that I always was questioning myself.

[Unnamed Expert]

But what if I told you that was the least interesting thing about him?

[Jay]

His secret office was less than 500 meters down the road.

[Unnamed Expert]

I often ask myself now, did I know the true Jan at all? Certain things in my life since then have gone terribly wrong.

[Dina Temple Raston]

I don't know if they followed me to my home.

[Priscilla Abraham]

It looks like the ingredients of a really grand spy stories because this ties together the Cold War with the new one.

[Unnamed Expert]

Listen to Hot Agent of Chaos wherever you get your podcasts.

[Dina Temple Raston]

When Jay called his lawyer, Priscilla Abraham, to say ISA wanted him to come in, something didn't sit right with her.

[Saira Hussain]

He's had that ankle monitor for two years at that point. And suddenly, during the Trump administration, there's all of a sudden an issue with the ankle monitor. It just didn't make sense at the moment.

[Priscilla Abraham]

It didn't make sense, but it did make her nervous.

[Saira Hussain]

We had had two people in a similar situation who had gone to their ICE check ins and had been detained.

[Dina Temple Raston]

So we were scared because Priscilla knew something Jay didn't. That this tech sold as a pathway to freedom was starting to become a trap. She had just advised another client who'd received a similar call. His isept officer claimed his ankle monitor wasn't picking up a GPS signal.

[Saira Hussain]

They had gotten a call from an ISEP officer saying that there was no signal. They had to go outside to. To receive a signal.

[Dina Temple Raston]

So he stepped outside.

[Saira Hussain]

Eventually, he went outside to the back alley of his apartment building. And when he stepped outside, there was multiple ICE officers there waiting to arrest him.

[Priscilla Abraham]

It wasn't a malfunction.

[Dina Temple Raston]

It was a setup.

[Priscilla Abraham]

And it wasn't isolated. We spoke with a former ISAP case manager, someone who used to be on the inside. And she told us that ICE agents would sometimes ask her to do something that made her stomach turn to lie. Call somebody like Jay, tell them their monitor was being removed, or that they were finally done and free to move on. Then when they showed up, ICE agents would be waiting, armed and ready to detain them.

[Unnamed Expert]

This building right here behind me, that is the ISAP office and that is the Site of a surprise ICE operation that activists are now calling a setup. ICE agents showed up here armed and masked, arriving with no notice and detaining people who they. Who thought that they were coming here to report for a normal case review. But that was not.

[Priscilla Abraham]

What's happening here isn't an accident. It's a contradiction. Because according to ice, these aren't the people they're targeting. ICE says its focus is on what it calls the worst offenders. But here's the twist. The only people eligible for things like ankle monitors are the least dangerous. The ones ICE says are low risk. The ones they're willing to send back into the community. The ones who follow the rules, who answer their phones and show up when called. People like Jay. Because when ICE says your monitor is glitching, can you come in? They do.

[Dina Temple Raston]

Not because they're guilty, but because they believe that if they cooperate, they'll stay free. But ICE agents aren't just following leads. They're under pressure to make quotas.

[Priscilla Abraham]

The Department of Homeland Security is raising its daily arrest quotas for ice agents to 3,000 arrests per day.

[Dina Temple Raston]

And who's easier to arrest than somebody who's already complying? Someone who's trackable, predictable, cooperative?

[Saira Hussain]

The lowest hanging fruit are people who are on GPS monitoring, going to their ICE check ins, living their life, driving to work. Those are the easiest people to arrest because they're already in compliance with what ICE is asking them to do.

[Dina Temple Raston]

And as ice's reach has grown, so has its toolkit. Now it's not just ankle monitors.

[Unnamed Expert]

In the last several years, there's been this explosion of individuals who are now on not just the ankle monitors, but also downloading onto their own phones, an app called BI SmartLink that effectively tracks people.

[Priscilla Abraham]

This is Saira Hussain, a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. BI Smart Link is an app. It requires you to send selfies or click on a check in link periodically. At face value, it appears the best of options. No clunky ankle monitor. But Sara warns it actually raises new concerns because the app gets installed on people's personal phones.

[Unnamed Expert]

So there's questions about what parts of the phone that it has access to. So, like for instance, does it have access to the call logs? You know, does it have access to the people that you're maybe associating with because of your. Either your location or your call history or your text messages?

[Priscilla Abraham]

ICE hasn't laid out precisely what it collects or how. We reached out to them for a list of what they were collecting and why, and they provided a Link to an ICE report that provides just a hint of what they've been vacuuming up. For example, they mentioned gathering voice prints that they say disappear when a contract expires, or that some of the devices they require ISAT participants to use are technically capable of tracking people continuously. But ICE says it doesn't use that feature. What's clear is that the government is collecting a lot, including things you might not expect, like genetic material. Customs and Border Protection revealed that they've collected DNA samples from over 130,000 migrant children, entering them into the National Criminal Database as if they were suspects. And the irs, an agency that once fought hard to protect taxpayer privacy, now has agreed to share undocumented immigrants data with ice. Even the Post Office has been asked to help ICE with the surveillance.

[Unnamed Expert]

That's never.

[Unnamed Producer]

There were.

[Unnamed Expert]

There were norms and laws in place for decades, because that's exactly the kind of use of government that you don't want. And so to see that break down so quickly and easily and for agencies to fold and not uphold those principles is really worrisome. And so, like, you know, the wheels have fallen off the wagon.

[Priscilla Abraham]

Remember, this was supposed to be the humane alternative. And now the tech that promised to keep people out of detention is often what leads them right back to it. And Sara says this is just the beginning.

[Unnamed Expert]

When you see data protection breakdowns for immigrant communities, for undocumented people, for people who are at risk of deportation, it doesn't stop there. It means that they're going to continue trying to push those barriers and eventually starting to impact others who have other types of status.

[Dina Temple Raston]

So when Jay got the call that the GPS on his ankle monitor wasn't working, Priscilla insisted someone from the office go with him. They'd seen the consequences of walking into one of these offices alone. Maybe it was the sheer presence of a lawyer. Maybe it was dumb luck. Maybe the ICE agents had met their quota that day. But in the end, Jay said that the ISAP officer was pretty nice about it all.

[Jay]

She was letting us know, well, you're not in no trouble. You're not here for that. We just had to check the anchor monitor, and, you know, she said she wasn't receiving no signals.

[Dina Temple Raston]

They swapped out the old one for a new one. And Jay went home. And a few months later, he got even better news. His immigration case was dismissed, his green card status restored. And two years after it was first strapped to his leg, his ankle monitor came off. Jay was free. But 200,000 people are still wearing monitors like his. Hundreds of thousands more are being tracked by apps and smartwatches and GPS beacons and government contractors with prison industry pedigrees. It sounds like dystopian science fiction, but it isn't. It's happening now. This is Click Here.

[Unnamed Expert]

If you're looking for a daily guide to cybersecurity news and policy, sign up for the Cyber Daily from Recorded Future News. It serves up the day's most interesting and important cyber stories from our sister publication the Record, and then aggregates all of the big cyber stories you might have missed from news outlets around the world. Just go to the Record Media and click on Cyber Daily to get all you need to know about the world of cybersecurity right in your inbox.

[Dina Temple Raston]

Here are some of the top cyber and intelligence stories from the past week. From the Internet going dark in Iran to the reappearance of some cybercriminals to another presidential reprieve for TikTok, it's Tuesday, June 24th. Let's start with Iran. Iran experiences an almost complete national Internet blackout, raising concerns about access to information across the country. Last week, as Israeli missile strikes rained down on the Islamic Republic, something else disappeared. Internet connectivity not because Israeli bombs took out infrastructure or power lines were down, this digital blackout was intentional. Officials in Tehran said it was a temporary, targeted measure aimed at blunting Israeli cyber attacks. Pro Israel hackers are taking aim not just at Iran's government networks, but a major crypto exchange as well. Nearly $100 million vanished. In response, Iranian officials have been banned from the Internet entirely. Digital rights groups are warning that the move is now cutting off civilians from life saving information. And they also question whether this blackout is really just about Israeli hackers, because blocking the Internet also allows leaders in Tehran to control what Iranians know or don't know about the war. Meanwhile, a different kind of cyber threat is re emerging here in the United States.

[Unnamed Expert]

The warning from tags is that this group approaches one sector at a time.

[Jay]

And when they come after you, they come after you pretty seriously.

[Dina Temple Raston]

Scattered Spider, a hacking group known for its sophistication and sheer chutzpah, has made a comeback. You might remember them from this past spring's attacks on major retailers like Harrods and Victoria's Secret. Now they seem to have moved on, and they're targeting insurance companies. According to Google's Threat Analysis group, the attacks are using social engineering techniques to infiltrate help desks and call centers. Now insurance firms across the country are scrambling to patch their systems, and everyone is bracing for where Scattered Spider might strike next.

[Unnamed Expert]

Today we're launching OpenAI for government, a new initiative focused on bringing our most advanced AI tools to public servants across the United States.

[Dina Temple Raston]

In Washington, a different kind of partnership is making headlines. The government arm of OpenAI, the company that brought us ChatGPT, has signed a $200 million contract with the Department of Defense. It's their first public deal with the US Government, and the stakes are huge. The goal? Build tools that enhance cybersecurity, streamline military health care, and assist in battlefield legitimate logistics. As part of a broader shift for OpenAI, just last year, the company removed its internal ban on the military use of its models, a quiet but telling policy change. Now other tech giants like Google and Meta are following suit, loosening up their own restrictions on military partnerships. It's a transformation. Silicon Valley, once wary of war, seems to be warming to it. And finally, TikTok White House has extended the deadline for a TikTok ban one day before it was set to kick in. So instead of a deadline and a ban, TikTok has a reprieve for another 90 days.

[Jay]

This is one of those things where it's like, I forgot this was even going on. It's like, oh yeah, TikTok.

[Dina Temple Raston]

Back in January, Congress passed a law giving TikTok's Chinese parent company, ByteDance, a stark sell the app or face a US ban. At one point, a deal seemed within reach. A group of American investors proposed a buyout along with a licensing agreement for TikTok's algorithm. But then geopolitics got in the way, President Trump imposed sweeping new tariffs on China and the deal collapsed. And now TikTok's 170 million American users are caught in the middle.

[Jay]

The 170 million American users may now be a bargaining chip in the ongoing trade war between the countries.

[Dina Temple Raston]

TikTok now has until September 17th to work out a deal. Until then, it's business as usual. Sort of.

[Unnamed Producer]

Today's episode was written and produced by Megan Dietre, Sean Powers, Zach Hirsch, Dina Temple Rastin, and the lead producer was me, Erica Gaeda. It was edited by Karen Duffin, Fact Checked by Darren Ankrum, and contains original music by Ben Levingston with some other music from Blue Dot Sessions. Our staff writer is Lucas Riley, and our illustrator is Megan Goff. Jesse Niswonger is our sound designer and engineer. Click Here is a production of Recorded Future News and prx. Tune in on Friday for Mic Drop, which features our favorite interview of the week. We'll see you then.

[Unnamed Expert]

Looking for more of the cybersecurity and intelligence coverage you get on. Click here. Then check out our sister publication, the Record from Recorded Future News. You'll get breaking cyber news from reporters in New York, Washington, London, and Kyiv, among others. And you'll see for yourself why it attracts hundreds of thousands of page views every month. Just go to the Record Media.