Filming federal agents in public is legal, but avoiding a dangerous—even deadly—confrontation isn’t guaranteed. Here’s how to record ICE and CBP agents as safely as possible and have an impact.
Archived copies of the article:
Strength in numbers.
Go live, and let them know you’re live if they start harassing you, especially if there’s not a lot of people with you.
Don’t have to worry about your phone filling or them destroying evidence if it’s in the cloud.
Don’t engage with ICE if possible, address your audience. Instead of calling the officer a nazi directly maybe say, “Hey chat look at all these nazis.”
Uh… BULLSHIT:
Yet as dangerous as the mere act of observation became for these victims of ICE and Border Patrol’s violence, video is also what documented their murders and is now holding federal agents accountable.
There is no one being held accountable for these blatant murders.
To anybody reading this person’s misguided opinion: Don’t let perfect be the enemy of progress. Don’t let temporary set backs and the sometimes slow pace of justice keep you from doing what you know is right. And don’t let unaccountable, anonymous naysayers poo-poo all over one of the very most important, non-violent tools we still have at our disposal.
Record. Record. Record. Be safe. Keep your distance. Do not obstruct. Keep the footage rolling as best you can. It doesn’t have to be perfect. You may have to stop for your own safety. That’s okay. Because if you don’t, you might not be around for the next time when you could actually be the one to make a difference.
Be a force of good and progress. Even if it’s just the tiniest and nearly immeasurable sliver, you are holding the line and making a positive impact.
Accountability in the court of public opinion, the last line of defense. The public needs to understand that institutions will not save us. They are corruptable.
Indeed the “investigations,” the feds are doing are not criminal but looking at use of force protocols or some bad faith bullshit. State officials are predictably too weak to stand up to them, just as the administration knew they would be.
Why not drones?
- bring friends, open carry.
How to record ICE
- Unlock phone
- Open camera or live stream app
- Go to video or live mode respectively
- Tap the record or start stream button respectively
- Point camera at ICE thug
- Don’t cover microphone
Ez pz
This is actually a good article. It’s not just about recording and streaming. How about don’t upload videos to Google Drive you don’t want DHS to be able to subpoena? Also I includes advice on how to best avoid altering the files or doing anything that will make them less useful when we are putting these Nazis on trial.
I have never live streamed. I don’t have Facebook on my phone or Instagram or anything else that has that capability. What is a quick way to record and make something public?
Sending a 2nd comment instead of editing so you definitely see this.
You can also have your phone set to auto backup any videos and pics to a cloud service, so its backed up before the thugs can delete it.
Make sure someone you trust somewhere else can access that account in case you’re arrested or kidnapped
Thank you, I’ll see what I can find
Unfortunately a private stream on YouTube (which requires 1k subscribers, I believe), Twitch (which is strict on any violence and is owned by Bezos), or Kick (which is owned by fascists themselves but rarely bans people for any reason) may be your best quick to adopt option.
I’d certainly reccomend looking for alternatives. The ACLU used to have a live stream app but moronically shut it down in the beginning of 2025. You know, when we needed it the most.
Step 7, get beat up, arrested, shot in the face.
Remember an unlocked phone is an open invitation. A locked phone is supposed to require a warrant
Locked with a password and not biometrics. Maybe have a recording phone.
If on an iPhone, you can tap the power button 5 times and it will bring up emergency screen. After that, the phone REQUIRES PIN to unlock. So they can’t hold it to your face or use your thumb print on older models.
If on an iPhone, you can tap the power button 5 times and it will bring up emergency screen. After that, the phone REQUIRES PIN to unlock. So they can’t hold it to your face or use your thumb print on older models.
Maybe there are lapel spy cams you can wear as an observer that record to your phone.
There are button-cams that you can replace shirt buttons with. There’s a camera for almost literally everything
The NYCLU recommends focusing on ICE agents themselves where possible to document their activity, rather than using the camera to follow the people impacted by agents’ actions.
Additionally, recording for as long as possible, even after interactions with agents appear to be over, is a way of ensuring that you capture any unexpected activity that could crop up as a crowd is dispersing.
While it may be tempting (and often newsworthy) to immediately post video footage of ICE or other immigration official activity to social media as soon as it is safe, you may want to pause before doing so. “It can expose people in the video to harm as well as the person who filmed it,” says Zammuto from Witness.
Precautions you could take, depending on the situation, include blurring the faces of bystanders in the video, scrubbing metadata from files, and removing location data.
Someone linked to footage from this app during some of the recent events: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.anonymous.vemosiceapp
Looks effective to me. I would enable cloud upload (through Google photos or whatever) of the local copy so even if you lose your phone you can still get the footage.
