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TLDR.

ICE is buying a software tool that analyzes information purchased from commercial data brokers to track people.



And we're going to pretend this is an issue because of immigration enforcement, rather than government from top to bottom being able to use commercial data brokers to get around legal limitations on their own actions, or the fact that commercial data brokers collecting huge numbers of dossiers on normal people are allowed to exist and work with impunity.

And both will continue to be allowed to do this, obviously. Something something private business free speech child protection that doesn't apply to ICE because I'm against ICE right now.


Why is the government doing mass-surveillance for alleged civil[1] infractions?

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[1] Nearly all deportations - overstays are civil, not criminal[2][3] cases.

[2] If they were criminal cases, every accused would be constitutionally entitled to a trial by jury.

[3] Anyone using the term 'illegal' to refer to those people is speaking out of both sides of their mouth. They want to make them sound like criminals, while denying them the constitutional protections that all accused criminals are entitled to.


>[2] If they were criminal cases, every accused would be constitutionally entitled to a trial by jury.

Are there any reputable law scholars that supports this argument? Otherwise this feels suspiciously close to sovereign citizens argument about how they don't need drivers licenses because they're "traveling" or whatever.

>[3] Anyone using the term 'illegal' to refer to those people is speaking out of both sides of their mouth. They want to make them sound like criminals, while denying them the constitutional protections that all accused criminals are entitled to.

What about "illegally" parked cars? Those are also civil infractions.


> Are there any reputable law scholars that supports this argument?

Yes, literally everyone, because that's how the law is written.

Note https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/2436 - this would reclassify it from a civil to a criminal offense, but did not pass into law.

Also note that entry into the US after having been removed from it is, by law, a criminal offense.

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> What about "illegally" parked cars? Those are also civil infractions.

You should note that nobody calls the people who put them there 'illegal drivers'. (We also don't apply that moniker to people speeding, failing to signal on a lane change, or being responsible for many other moving violations. We do apply it to people driving drunk or without a license - which are criminal offenses.)


>Note https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/2436 - this would reclassify it from a civil to a criminal offense, but did not pass into law.

I stand corrected, thanks.

>You should note that nobody calls the people who put them there 'illegal drivers'. (We also don't apply that moniker to people speeding, failing to signal on a lane change, or being responsible for many other moving violations. We do apply it to people driving drunk or without a license - which are criminal offenses.)

Nobody calls them "illegal" drivers because there's a more specific term, specifically "driver who parked illegally" or "speeder". The latter already incorporates an implication if illegality, and the former is basically the same as "illegal driver" but with slightly different phrasing. The equivalent for immigrants would be "person who immigrated illegally", but that's basically the same as "illegal immigrant". I suppose you can try to use the latter term as an attempt to destigmatize the term, but that feels like the whole "autism vs people with autism" thing from a few years ago all over again.


Why would they even wait for a civil infraction? What difference does that make? Why are they doing mass surveillance on people wearing brown shoes?

If the dossiers are available on the market, and the price is right, and they're allowed to for some reason even though they wouldn't be allowed to collect that information themselves, they should just buy them for every citizen just in case.


The overstay is the civil infraction I'm referring to.


Because the government has decided mass-surveillance is OK so long as they really, really want to do it.


Because they have funding and Deportations are a priority for this administration.


Do you think they’re not gonna use this on you next?


They totally are but since we don't have data privacy laws and SCOTUS has ruled time and time again that getting data from 3rd parties the user has voluntarily turned this information over to is not illegal, I'm at the loss what to do here.

I talk about this issue with people time and time again including my wife. I then watch her pretty much turn over location to every app because she just clicks top button to make prompt go away. I finally got into her iPhone and number of apps that had widespread location access was so frustrating.


Don't you think they're using this on you now?


Because the government was elected with a strong mandate to deport illegal migrants?


48% is not a strong enough mandate to break federal appropriations and spending laws, to use the military as a weapon against civilian protesters, or, in this case, to shred the 4th amendment.


So 52% is enough to import 15 million new people that don't speak the language and take a crap-ton of jobs and houses making a lot of people homeless.

(and that's forgetting immigration became an 80/20 issue when we found out the number)


Immigration issues of any scale do not justify violating citizen's rights, though. Side effects matter and the risks are tremendous. 52% enough or not - that's what already happened in the past and no one can change the past. There's only the present, that needs to be carefully driven towards a desirable future, with conscious and significant effort to avoid undesirable ones. History is full of stories about how easy it is to fuck up.

It possibly would be very different if federal administration would openly recognize the potential issues and put at least a sliver of effort in showing how it deals with those. I can understand their statement that the scale of the problem requires action of comparable scale - that is logical. However, careless actions become incredibly dangerous at scale, and I have yet to see a sliver of understanding of this, for all I'm seeing so far is arrogant stubborn self-confidence that is very hard to distinguish from malicious intent. And I'm putting a lot of effort here with my suspension of disbelief for the sake of civilized discussion.

Those hotheads are supposed to be a conservative government. They don't act like one at all.


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I get to think and say whatever I want as long as my First Amendment rights still exist. You get the right to disagree and think and say whatever you want. I sincerely hope it's how things will remain, and so will all our other Constitutional rights. Because I witnessed first-hand what could happens when the Constitution becomes a piece of paper, and I hope that no one would ever have to experience that.

But more than this, I'm curious what logical connection have made you bring fentanyl into the discussion about purported government surveillance of illegal migrants and possible side effects of this on US citizens and legal permanent residents. Seriously, why have you even thought of it?


This totally incoherent my dude. People shipping contraband don’t normally hang around at the destination, they go back when they’re done.

And if someone did, like, overstay a visa used to traffic narcotics or something and “must go”, you’re just cutting their expenses for the next trip.


Tons of gangs have established long term distribution systems. Just because CNN didn't tell you that, doesn't mean it's not true.


So you’re asking us to let criminals free? Just stop and think for a sec.


Some of that fentanyl came from the US, you know that right?


"imported" as though someone rang em up on Aliexpress?

15M people over the course of decades, and you can't possibly prove they contribute meaningfully to homelessness (besides, possibly, many of them being homeless themselves).


The immigration policy of the last ~13 years was not reached by a singular, 1-time 52% consensus. They were the product of decades of often bipartisan legislature, and both-parties-taking-turns partisan executive policy, much of it set decades ago, with plenty of opportunity in the intervening years for steering and review.

You're acting like some prior President cracked his knuckles one day, and signed an EO to import 15 million people in, and justifying the unconstitutional insanity of the past 8 months based on that falsehood.

You're drawing a false equivalence fallacy, and covering blatantly illegal and unconstitutional actions. A 52% consensus isn't enough to achieve those, either. You need 66% consensus in Congress, and 3/4s of States.

If the issue is as existential as you think it is, it's on you to build the consensus necessary to achieve that. If you can't, tough luck.


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Are you going to continue to be so smug when it is your turn to go to a concentration camp?


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> call everyone a nazi

The parent poster didn't call you anything, but one does raise eyebrows at people who look at the crazy authoritarian shit that is being done, and say 'this is legal, and good, and desirable and it makes me happy :)'.

They are certainly a prominent and loud and very defensive group of people, they are definitely not 'everyone'.


What's authoritarian about it?

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Tus6VzGtuXY

Defending your country is not authoritarian. It's what ALL countries do.


This government went about arresting a man who is legally here and has been convicted of no crimes, throwing him into a tropical prison for an indefinite sentence without a trial, then when a judge orders him released, insisting that it can't do it (meanwhile, it was sending more people to that prison), then, weeks later, when it did release and return him, immediately arrests him again, charged him with a bunch of crimes, had a judge orders him released pending trial, then arrested him again and gave him the option between confessing and being exiled to a country he's never even been to?

If you think this is normal, and legal, and makes you happy and that a 48% mandate lets you and your friends make this utter mockery of the law - you are absolutely an authoritarian. This utterly pisses on every American value, and half the constitution and the rule of law to boot.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deportation_of_Kilmar_Abrego...


I don't think we'd ever interacted, and I can't remember the last time I called anyone a Nazi.

FWIW I'm pretty sure when someone is at the point of saying they "have empathy ... but", it means they do not have empathy. It sounds like something deeply hurt you in the past, and for that you have my sympathies, but lashing out at others is not going to solve that.


How would you substantiate this statement? He won with among the smallest popular vote % margins in history [0]. In fact he won by less than HRC beat him by in 2016. There is no strong mandate for this administration, regardless of how you slice it.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_presiden...


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>Of course you’re being downloaded for this on hacker news. Because hacker news is part of the surveillance state.

I'm not sure what HN you're reading, but basically every mass surveillance comment thread is overwhelming against it, eg. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45173277


for those of us who have tried to keep our soul while working in tech, what would you recommend going forward?


That’s not the whole story. It plays a part, but if it were just that, it wouldn’t be nearly as bad. Your comment makes it think that this is a “both sides” thing and it’s anything but that.

The bigger story is that the Republicans have illegally dismantled safeguards against the centralization and collection of data. And they’ve stopped any sort of warrant process for collecting and analyzing this data.

Buying commercial data with a warrant or a process around it to ensure it is lawfully used is one thing. Disregarding the law and constitution to do whatever you like is a wholly different matter.

And don’t forget the end game. This is about silencing political opponents. It’s not for a lawful use. It’s purely so the Republicans can keep their man in power in perpetuity.

The end game alone makes this vastly different than what’s been done before.


> The bigger story is that the Republicans have illegally dismantled safeguards against the centralization and collection of data. And they’ve stopped any sort of warrant process for collecting and analyzing this data.

Are you going to link this story? It would be interesting. What was the previous warrant process, and what laws required it?


I wonder what's the most important source of location data here - apps that you have given permissions to do so? Telecom providers? GPS?


I'm also very curious. It's too bad someone doesn't come up with a tool so you can see your own data....

I wrote this TLDR, because I wondered what I would have to do to prevent tracking (turn off bluetooth etc), but it's just a commercial data broker.




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