Part 2/14:
In the spring of 2024, an intense journey into the depths of the internet uncovered a monumental dataset—1.5 million rows of sensitive information—that would transform one journalist's understanding of global surveillance. Initially investigating a surveillance company called First Swap, known for selling location-tracking software purportedly to governments worldwide, the journalist stumbled upon a trove of data that seemed too extensive and detailed to be mere testing data. Included were geographic coordinates, phone numbers from numerous countries, timestamps, and a sprawling matrix of hundreds of columns, revealing a disturbing level of transparency in illicit tracking activities.