Hi, I’m Tony Webster. I’m a data journalist, software engineer, and photographer.
Current Work
I am currently a student studying post-conflict governance and humanitarian law. My journalism examines issues at the intersection of civil rights and technology, such as artificial intelligence, data privacy, and elections.
Prior Work
In 2017, I received awards from the Minnesota Society of Professional Journalists and Minnesota Coalition on Government Information after suing to obtain public records in court for my reporting on emerging uses of facial recognition technology. My case went up to the Minnesota Supreme Court, creating freedom of information case law that has since been relied on by many others.
In 2018 and 2019, I spent months delving through search warrant dockets as part of my research on geofence warrants, a novel cell phone reverse location law enforcement technique. My reporting for Minnesota Public Radio News won an award from the Minnesota Society of Professional Journalists, was cited in the Harvard Law Review, Stanford Law Review, and The New York Times, and it was used in a criminal case that ultimately led a federal court to rule the technique violated the Fourth Amendment.
In 2020, I reported on civil unrest, police disciplinary issues, and I covered multiple contentious court cases involving election procedure changes during the pandemic. Through a public records lawsuit, I obtained thousands of documents from the Minneapolis Police Department and co-reported a story for the Minnesota Reformer on flaws in the department’s disciplinary processes, leading to a nationwide Best Use of Public Records award from the NYU Journalism Institute and immediate policy reform within the department. My reporting for Sahan Journal about the Minneapolis Police Department was cited by U.S. Department of Justice findings while announcing a consent decree against the department.
In 2022, I sued to challenge the Minnesota Secretary of State’s 19-year practice of charging a $13,500 fee to access raw data in the Minnesota Business and Lien System, successfully negotiating a settlement that makes the data available for free to researchers, journalists, and non-commercial uses. The settlement democratized the availability of an essential consumer rights dataset.