| TechCrunch techcrunch.com
Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai
8:11 AM PST · March 2, 2026
A group of hacktivists calling themselves “Department of Peace” claimed to have hacked the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), leaking allegedly stolen documents online.
On Sunday, the nonprofit transparency collective DDoSecrets published data relating to contracts between DHS, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and more than 6,000 companies, including defense contractors Anduril, L3Harris, Raytheon, and surveillance enabler Palantir, as well as tech giants Microsoft and Oracle.
The hacktivist said the data comes from the Office of Industry Partnership, a unit within DHS that procures technology from the private sector.
DHS and ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Department of Peace explained their motives in a document alongside the hack, citing the recent killings of two peaceful protesters, U.S. citizens Alex Pretti and Renée Good, earlier this year in Minneapolis by federal agents.
“Why hack the DHS? I can think of a couple Pretti Good reasons! I’m releasing this because the DHS is killing us and people deserve to know which companies support them and what they’re working on,” the hackers wrote.
Since the beginning of the Trump administration, DHS and federal immigration agents with ICE have undertaken a campaign of mass deportations, arresting people with largely no criminal records, and detaining them in overcrowded facilities where critics say they are held in inhumane conditions. The mass deportation campaign has been aided by several tech companies, with Palantir at the forefront.
Security researcher Micah Lee organized the leaked data on a dedicated website, making the information easily searchable.
The site shows the name of the contractors, the amount of money they were awarded, as well as contact information, such as full names, email addresses, and phone numbers.
The largest contracts by total money awarded included $70 million for Cyber Apex Solutions, a company that claims on its barebones website to be “focused on filling the security gaps of critical infrastructure” in the U.S.; and $59 million for Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), which provides AI services for government agencies. Underwriters Laboratories was awarded $29 million to provide testing, certification, and market intelligence to customers.
Cyber Apex Solution, SAIC, and Underwriters Laboratories did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
This story was updated to clarify that Palantir enables, not provides, surveillance for the government.
For many years, data brokers have existed in the shadows, exploiting gaps in privacy laws to harvest our information—all for their own profit. They sell our precise movements without our knowledge or meaningful consent to a variety of private and state actors, including law enforcement agencies. And they show no sign of stopping.
This incentivizes other bad actors. If companies collect any kind of personal data and want to make a quick buck, there’s a data broker willing to buy it and sell it to the highest bidder–often law enforcement and intelligence agencies.
One recent investigation by 404 Media revealed that the Airlines Reporting Corporation (ARC), a data broker owned and operated by at least eight major U.S. airlines, including United Airlines and American Airlines, collected travelers’ domestic flight records and secretly sold access to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Despite selling passengers’ names, full flight itineraries, and financial details, the data broker prevented U.S. border forces from revealing it as the origin of the information. So, not only is the government doing an end run around the Fourth Amendment to get information where they would otherwise need a warrant—they’ve also been trying to hide how they know these things about us.
ARC’s Travel Intelligence Program (TIP) aggregates passenger data and contains more than one billion records spanning 39 months of past and future travel by both U.S. and non-U.S. citizens. CBP, which sits within the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), claims it needs this data to support local and state police keeping track of people of interest. But at a time of growing concerns about increased immigration enforcement at U.S. ports of entry, including unjustified searches, law enforcement officials will use this additional surveillance tool to expand the web of suspicion to even larger numbers of innocent travelers.
More than 200 airlines settle tickets through ARC, with information on more than 54% of flights taken globally. ARC’s board of directors includes representatives from U.S. airlines like JetBlue and Delta, as well as international airlines like Lufthansa, Air France, and Air Canada.
In selling law enforcement agencies bulk access to such sensitive information, these airlines—through their data broker—are putting their own profits over travelers' privacy. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) recently detailed its own purchase of personal data from ARC. In the current climate, this can have a detrimental impact on people’s lives.
