The Medford Police Department is building a network of mass surveillance through controversial collaborations with ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations and law enforcement agencies across Southern Oregon, according to new documents we obtained. Major components of the surveillance network include the use of automated license plate reader (ALPR) technology, and monitoring of social media through “sock puppet” accounts. Meanwhile, Jackson County is using a third-party lease to make its publicly owned building available to ICE for its Southern Oregon field office, creating another “backdoor” for local government resources to be utilized by ICE despite Oregon’s status as a “sanctuary state.”
Our latest trove of public records total 313 pages. Below is an overview of the records, which were obtained through public records requests to the city of Medford, the city of Grants Pass, and Jackson County. We provide a downloadable copy of the records at the bottom of this blog post.
The Southern Oregon “crime analyst” network
The Medford police have built an interagency network of “crime analysts,” representing local police and sheriff’s agencies from multiple counties across the region, including Jackson, Josephine, Douglas and Klamath counties. The network also includes law enforcement staff from the Oregon State Police, Deschutes County in Central Oregon, and the FBI. Pages 9-143 and 168-186 reveal emails shared across this network, providing insight into its function: the crime analysts attend trainings and networking events together, and discuss their various surveillance technologies including license plate readers and social media “sock puppet” accounts.
Notably, agents from ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) are included in network collaborations and meetups. HSI is a branch of ICE; on ICE’s website, HSI is described as “ICE special agents [who] launch and pursue investigations into transnational crime and violations of the customs and immigration laws of the United States.” HSI describes one of their primary focuses of investigation as “worksite enforcement investigations focus[ed] on reducing illegal employment, holding employers accountable and protecting employment opportunities for the country’s lawful workforce.”
Monitoring social media and the identity of Medford’s “sock puppet” account
Documents we previously obtained via public records requests revealed how the Medford Police Department (MPD) uses social media to monitor political dissent, and these documents led the ACLU of Oregon to file a lawsuit against MPD for its illegal surveillance of political activists. In local activist circles, it has been speculated that MPD conducted this surveillance through the use of a “sock puppet”, a term that describes the fake social media accounts law enforcement use to monitor activists and communities.
Our current release of records confirm the identity of the Medford police’s “sock puppet” account on Facebook. Page 1-8 of the records reveal that in 2020, MPD used an account with the name “Jessica Taylor” to participate in the “Black lives matter Southern Oregon” Facebook group and times even appeared to help organize events. (In our copy of the records, we have redacted the names and profiles of non-police Facebook users.)
Page 41 also references the use of “sock puppet social media accounts” by Josephine County Sheriff’s Office crime analyst Daniel Peoples. Peoples’ focus, he tells the network of fellow analysts, is on illegal marijuana activity. His professional background includes working as “an open-source intel analyst for Paypal and Chevron through private security contracting groups Sibylline and Pinkerton.” On page 51, Amanda Billings of the Ashland Police Department tells the crime analyst network, “I have much to learn with sneaking around in social media.”
Mass surveillance through automated license plate readers
Automated license plate readers (ALPR) are widely described by privacy experts as tools of mass surveillance. As described by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, “ALPRs automatically capture all license plate numbers that come into view, along with the location, date, and time. The data, which includes photographs of the vehicle and sometimes its driver and passengers, is then uploaded to a central server…. [A]utomatic license plate readers are used to track and record the movements of millions of ordinary people, even though the overwhelming majority are not connected to a crime.”
Our records reveal MPD has actively promoted the exchange ALPR data with ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations, and MPD’s crime analysts have requested license plate data gathered during border crossings from HSI and provided local license plate data to HSI (see pages 9-12 and 45-48).
According to the Oregon Department of Justice, “Oregon’s sanctuary laws say
that state and local government, including law enforcement agencies, cannot help enforce federal immigration laws without an order signed by a judge.” However, ICE and HSI have a history of exploiting relationships with local law enforcement — and ALPR data — for immigration enforcement in sanctuary states. Records obtained by the ACLU in in 2018 and 2019 show how ICE targets immigrants in California for deportations by using license plate data collected by Vigilant on behalf of local police departments. In 2025, researchers revealed that ICE agents are also using Flock’s ALPR data, this time through “backdoors” to data collected by local law enforcement in Illinois.
Pages 88-89 describe the APLR technology held by MPD in 2023 — which included Vigilant, Axon Fleet 3, and Flock — and crime analyst Jill Hatten’s offers to run license plates for anyone in the network: “If you need any LPR searches done, please reach out to me or one of the other analysts here at MPD.”
This same email chain reveals that law enforcement in Central Point, Klamath Falls, and both the Josephine County and Jackson County Sheriff’s Offices are using Flock. On page 60, Amanda Billings of the Ashland Police Department tells the crime analyst network, “Even though we don’t have cameras in our city, I love any opportunity to search for something through Flock.” The ACLU describes Flock as “AI-driven mass surveillance.”
Map and logistics of Medford’s camera network
Page 144 provides a 2025 map of the City of Medford’s “City and/or Police cameras.” This map appears to include a variety of different camera types, including the City’s ALPR cameras. Page 146-164 contains Medford’s policy on use of ALPRs, and copies of Medford’s invoices and agreements with Vigilant, which is another ALPR company and Flock’s main competitor.
Page 145 reveals the extent of Medford’s SCRAM program, which is a private security registration program. Through SCRAM, individuals and businesses can voluntarily “register” their privately owned security cameras with MPD; if the police are seeking surveillance footage from a given time or location, they will request footage from these cameras. According to the records, 590 properties in Medford have enrolled in the SCRAM program as of May 2025.
Additional collaborations with ICE and HSI in Jackson and Josephine counties
Page 187-313 is a copy of the lease and property documents related to the ICE’s field office in Medford. Located at 3715 International Way, the Medford ICE office is responsible for a large swath of ICE’s activities across the State of Oregon; according to ICE’s website, the Medford office’s coverage area includes Jackson, Josephine, Douglas, Coos, Curry, Crook, Jefferson, Deschutes, Klamath, and Lake counties. The Medford ICE office is housed in a building owned by Jackson County. The County rents the building to William McCulloch of BM2W, suggesting that ICE has access to this publicly owned property through a third-party sublease or similar arrangement. Pages 312-313 outline the current lease agreement: in 2019, the County’s lease to BM2W was renewed for 25 years at the rate of $0.2804048 per square foot per year.
Page 165-167 is a copy of the 2021 Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between ICE’s HSI and the Josephine County Sheriff’s Office. The MOU outlines a process for designating Josephine County Sheriff’s officers “to perform the duties of a Customs Officer…. HSI is not conveying the authority to enforce administrative violations of immigration law.” This MOU was previously released by the Rural Organizing Project.
Our PDF containing the public records described in this post can be found at the bottom of this page.
If you have a tip about any of the topics covered in this article, including ICE activity or mass surveillance issues in your community, please contact us at info4publicuse@protonmail.com.
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