ICE uses Facebook data to find and track immigrants | Hacker News Reader

ICE uses Facebook data to find and track immigrants

theintercept.com

114 pointsgaryfirestorm15 comments

Title is misleading. ICE is actually two organizations under a single umbrella. There’s Enforcmenet and Removal Operations (which is what people commonly associate with ICE) and there’s Homeland Security Investigations. The article is about HSI. HSI doesn’t “track immigrants” (that’s the ERO), they track criminals. Smugglers, people traffickers, etc.

Thank you for clarifying, it's easy to conflate government agencies with opaque operations.

A journalist writing about the subject should do their research and due diligence.

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3727182-CSS1.html

In this case (referenced in the article), it looks like it was an agent working for ERO who was requesting FB data?

ERO and HSI are different directorates under the same organization. Confusing two departments of an organization for being two different organizations is like saying a programming team and QA team of a software development company are two different organizations.

This is basic proposition logic.

A: ICE contains ERO.

B: ICE contains HSI.

C: ERO tracks immigrants.

D: HSI tracks criminals.

E: HSI uses Facebook data.

The statements above simply don’t imply that “ICE uses Facebook data to track immigrants”. Now as twelveoz pointed it out, a document linked to the article contains information that would imply that, but that information is not included in the body of the article. Whether a department counts as an organization or not is a semantic argument.

The author makes reference to ICE using these techniques to find "unauthorized immigrants", which seems to be just another softer term for "illegal immigrant".

If we want to progress, we need to recognize countries do have different values and have the right to monitor their borders to limit who can enter based on those values.

When someone chooses to break the law to cross a border and live anywhere without notifying the authorities they have to accept the consequences of that.

Sure, as long as we apply this principle evenly. People who break the speed limit aren’t “speeders,” they’re “illegal drivers.” Forgot to declare some Bitcoin to the IRS? You’re not mildly negligent, you’re an “illegal crypto currency trader”!

Very few people dispute that countries have the right to control their borders. But that doesn’t mean countries have the right to do whatever they want in order to do so, any more than a country’s right to punish murderers means the police can randomly search people’s houses to look for murderers.

Very few people argue that countries have the right to do anything they want to track illegal immigrants. Also it looks like the Trump administration is continuing an Obama era program.

Right, so let's get past the "countries have a right to police their border" strawmanning and have an actual discussion about how that should be done.

>Sure, as long as we apply this principle evenly.

It is applied fairly evenly, despite how many people try to frame it. Online piracy is often referred to as "illegal downloading/filesharing". People selling fentanyl aren't referred to as "unauthorized pharmacists" but "illegal drug dealers." And speeding isn't "illegal driving." When you're speeding, it's not the act of driving itself that's illegal. It's the speed violation, which is often referred to as illegally speeding or illegally exceeding the speed limit. Illegally driving would involve either driving without a license or driving a stolen vehicle. Illegal immigration involves actively violating the law in order to gain access or maintain access to another country. The argument over what term is appropriate is bikeshedding.

"The argument over what term is appropriate is bikeshedding."

Maybe you should take that up with the fellow who started the argument? And I don't understand why you'd state this after arguing a bunch about the appropriate term.

Your examples are good, but do you have any that aren't crimes? Entering the US without authorization is a crime, but staying without authorization is merely a civil infraction. The majority of "illegal immigrants" fall into the second category. Driving without a license is a crime, so a more apt analogy would be parking where it's not allowed. It may sound hyperbolic to compare an immigration violation to a parking ticket, but that is what the law says. We don't call people "illegal parkers" when they park where it's not allowed. Other analogous violations might be trying to take a prohibited item through airport security ("illegal passengers"?) or violating a building code (a builder who deliberately and frequently does this might well be referred to as an "illegal builder").

Interesting side note: in addition to confusing the issue enormously when it comes to the seemingly straightforward "illegal immigrants are criminals by definition" argument, the fact that it's only a civil infraction to be in the country without authorization means that there is no right to a public defender. People without the means to hire a lawyer or the luck to find one who will represent them for free get the joyous experience of representing themselves.

> Driving without a license is a crime, so a more apt analogy would be parking where it's not allowed.

Sure, and the similar analogy is "sure he's parked illegally, but you can't charge him for driving without a licence because parking illegally is a civil infraction."

Prosecuting illegal migration protects the system. If you want to petition for easier access to migrate between countries, thats fine. But willfully ignoring very clear laws and crimes helps no one.

I don’t understand your analogy. Why would the driver be unlicensed in this scenario?

I was hoping the arguments here would be about legality of ICE getting access to (private) Facebook data and how users are unknowingly handing over their life.

Executing a search warrant on an individual (assuming criminal) is understandable, but how do you defend - 'the company developed a special system for ICE to access a vast “ecosystem” of data to facilitate immigration officials in both discovering targets and then creating and administering cases against them.'

This sounds like violation of 4th amendment rights. Also, how is this any different than surveillance?

Further these tools could be used in targeting a particular group(s) of people. 1. It appears to be a framework that creates list of people that can be targeted. 2. Then they request almost any data to Facebook and Facebook hands it over promptly 3. Then they 'administer cases' based on this data.

At this moment, this entire apparatus is targeting 'illegal immigrants'

Since we know the intentions of this administration (see. Executive order on Muslim ban), it would be very hard to imagine that this apparatus will not be misused. Remember that immigrants don't get a fair trial. (Old article '09 - http://www.nbcnews.com/id/29706177/ns/us_news-security/t/imm...)

'The report reveals that from January 2017 through June 2017, Facebook received 32,716 requests for data from 52,280 users. Facebook notes in its report that it complied with 85 percent of the requests and “approximately 57% of legal process we received from authorities in the U.S. was accompanied by a non-disclosure order legally prohibiting us from notifying the affected users.”'

32k requests for 52k users, sounds like a bulk data request potentially being served to Facebook. This is in line with the FISA fiasco that happened few years ago.

Facebook is unfortunately complicit in creation of any 'lists' (I do realize that Facebook is in itself a list)

Overall, the rhetoric (in this case anti-immigrant) coupled with unfettered access to Facebook data and palantir data analytics are digital weapons that can be/are used to target large swaths of people.

People were afraid of 'knock down the door style mass deportations', apparently all they have to do is ask Facebook for help.

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