The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) warns about the dangers of “doxing” – the public release of personal information – but its own employees routinely share details online, making them easily discoverable. A crowdsourced wiki, ICE List, catalogs DHS personnel, yet relies heavily on publicly available data the agents themselves post. This creates a paradox where the agency simultaneously condemns and facilitates the very exposure it fears.
The Irony of Self-Exposure
DHS officials have claimed a 1,000% increase in threats against agents and their families due to doxing, and even prosecuted individuals for revealing identities. However, a WIRED analysis shows that ICE agents, like many professionals, openly share career details on platforms like LinkedIn. They post updates, react to motivational content, and even signal they’re “#opentowork,” all while DHS treats this information as if it were obtained illegally.
The ICE List wiki itself doesn’t even engage in aggressive data scraping; it pulls from sources such as OpenPayrolls (a database of public employee salaries) and SignalHire (a data broker), both of which legally compile and sell this information.
The Contradiction in Policy
The agency’s stance is particularly strange given that federal court records, ICE press releases, and even internal CBP documents acknowledge the risk of exposure. Some officials have even inadvertently aided the identification of agents in public statements, like the case of Jonathan Ross, who shot and killed Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis. The federal government has used these claims as justification for allowing agents to wear masks in public, yet the same agents willingly share details about their roles online.
“If this were doxing, then we dox ourselves by simply being present in online environments,” says Dominick Skinner, the owner of ICE List, highlighting the absurdity of the situation.
Why This Matters
The discrepancy between DHS rhetoric and agent behavior raises questions about the agency’s motives. Are they genuinely concerned about officer safety, or are they leveraging the threat of doxing to justify broader surveillance and control measures? The fact that agents voluntarily post their employment details suggests either a lack of awareness or a willingness to accept the associated risks.
Ultimately, the DHS’s messaging creates a climate of fear while ignoring the reality that much of this information is already freely available. This disconnect undermines the agency’s credibility and raises legitimate concerns about how it prioritizes enforcement over actual security.
