ICE's Supercharged Facial Recognition App of 200M Images
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I think we're well past the point of stopping these dystopian practices given the government has already collected this data. They're merely using it how they want. If you go through customs as a US citizen, you don't even need to hand over your passport: they just scan your face now.
Calling out these practices is good, but the time to stop this would've been after 9/11 and the ensuing terrorism hysteria (Patriot Act, FISA, etc..) which gave three letter agencies the go-ahead to do whatever they want.
1) Vague threats to leak/expose Congress members' personal matters who craft legislation against them. Chuck Schumer (a sitting US senator) admitted on live TV that the intel community has "six ways from Sunday" to get back at you.
2) Blatant disregard for the law by "just following orders", see anecdotes about Michael Hayden, a former CIA director.
3) Data storage, backup, and classified systems. Decades of collection probably means this data is scattered in many places which could give these agencies a chance to retain data "accidentally" or put up roadblocks due to high level clearances being required to work with these systems.
But let me ask you: how would everyone having access to my data improve the situation? I genuinely don't see the upside to that.
Going forward it would be nice if we stopped letting these mobs grab power but it's too late, so maybe the effort should be focused on using tools like this to our advantage. Surely there must be some value to the populous to track their oppressors and those that control them - have you considered building a citizen-powered system so you can watch the watchers?
Watch in what way? And would it matter seeing as they have the full force of the government behind them anyway?
Today, tools created by US intelligence make the data collection trivial, but more importantly, the data analysis is trivial as well.
We have no evidence of this.
Ofcourse it was mostly the educated elite who wanted out so it still ended up sinking the communist regime long term.
It's always amazed me how well this works when they are scanning you with the same 2015-era cheap logitech camera I have.
Then after the flight takes off, an updated list is sent again to USCBP.
So when you walk up to USCBP, they already have a list of people they expect to see within an hour of the flight landing. The match is much easier at that point.
It all falls apart at land or sea border crossings. Requirements are quite different and travel outside continental US but with zone like the Caribbean are treated differently than travel outside that zone.
As such your immigration record can get messed up if you say exit via land border to Canada as there is no exit record to match up with entry. Many people have gotten email about overstays because of this.
Consider now that precedents for the Judicial being ignored are well underway.
We have an incompetent authoritarian in office right now. A mere slice of competence and we'd already be worse-than-1984.
>go take a flight >demand your photo be taken >"as far as I know it's mandatory" >"I assure you the image is deleted" >"fingerprints derived from the image, what are those" Thanks TSA for logging the facial parameters of 200 million citizens, I'm sure that invasion of privacy helped your basic mission, to screen passengers for planes
And we should condemn the overreach on its own terms and by its own moral failings and not just wave it away with a both-sides-ist "They're merely using it how they want".
Bad things are bad and we should say they are bad. Because at the end of the day every government is possessed of terrible power and the only reason any of them don't get worse is that we vote for the people who aren't bad.
The Godwin equivalent would be discussing the holocaust and replying "Well, if Germany didn't want that they shouldn't have elected the Nazis in 1933." It's true! But unhelpful in context.
https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/privacy...
It would appear the software returns a lot of “potential matches” with propensity scores and demographic and recording information and it’s up to the agent to make the final determination.
It’s more a tool to find potential matches rather than a program that pops up and says “this is who this person is”
The billionaire party owns both political parties; they shuffle the front-people to give the illusion of choice. In reality they get what they want. George Carlin spoke eloquently about this.
What you say may be true and we will see what comes in the future, but dont for a moment believe that all these things are due to the current, nor that previous was fighting to stop it.
You get the government you deserve.
I hope we can get this authoritarian phase over with quickly so that the people who actually made decisions, if only as minor as voting, can suffer for them rather than die peacefully leaving future generations to sort it out.
This is just something the type of people who end up in government try every year despite the fact few people want it.
I voted for Obama twice and he certainly disappointed in several ways. But voting for the other guy would have been more disappointing.
Still disappointment because they need to form a coalition. But that is what countries are: a group of people who despise eachother but have to work together because the alternative is even worse.
What we tend to have is only two viable choices, and that's a consequence of using single-winner election with first-past-the-post voting; using multiwinner elections with a proportional election method (which doesn't have to be party-list proportional, candidate-centered ranked-ballots, multimember district systems like Single Transferrable Vote work fine for this) for legislative elections, and ranked-ballots single-winner elections for executive offices (but the first is more important than the second) can fix that (unfortunately, at the federal level, that takes people heavily invested in the system to vote to end it; which is unlikely to happen unless it becomes a matter of overwhelming public consensus, which it won't without being adopted at some level; however, in many states, it could be done for state elections through citizen processes without politicians voting it in.)
1. https://missouriindependent.com/2024/11/05/missouri-voters-a...
Both (sweeping away due process for mass deportation, and eliminating restrictions on law enforcement and surveillance in the name of “law and order” generally) were both major promises of Trump’s 2024 campaign and things that he made steps toward limited by institutional forces (courts, political resistance including in some cases from old-line Republicans, etc.), which Trump and the MAGA movement derided as deep state traitors, during his 2017-2021 term.
Kind of surprising to see someone who describes themselves as ex-MAGA who is surprised that the GOP under Trump supports these things.
This is pretty off topic obviously but I see this due process claim a lot and I am assuming I’m missing some kind of fundamental legal concepts. And that wouldn’t be surprising because I have no legal background.
If a person is not a citizen, and they’ve overstayed whatever limit there is to staying while not being a citizen, and if the action taken is to remove the person from the country - what role does due process play?
Proof of citizenship seems like it should be a pretty cut and dried thing to determine. It shouldn’t require a court proceeding should it?
If the accusation was like theft or murder and/or the action taken was imprisonment or fines, that would be a different story.
But this is like being escorted out of a movie theater if you can’t present your ticket.
Immigration law demands they be given appropriate notice and opportunity to challenge it in front of a judge (+ appeals), but it doesn't give every person the right to something like a lengthy jury trial as in criminal law for example.
But all law ultimately involves tests of how reasonable is was, appropriate interpretations by judges, and it's chaotic nature will have failures over time that either needs to improved upon through legislative branch or be killed off by judicial branch as violating some higher rights like the constitution.
Exactly. And just like I said, this law can be changed by those who wrote it.
And to be blunt, immigration court is already played loose and fast by the government. It’s a civil proceeding, so the accused is not provided a lawyer for free. They don’t always make sure they explain what’s happening to the person in a language that they understand. So the government often gets what it wants when it goes to immigration court.
The Republicans not following the law is the point.
FWIW ICE detention facilities and removal proceedings in immigration courts are required to provide translators by US law, at no cost. https://www.ice.gov/detain/language-access
The main issue with due process with the current admin is the time pressure they are putting on the detainee by flying them to another state and rushing the deportation, which makes access to time lawyers difficult. Which is something the Supreme Court has already taken issue with.
1. The system doesn't make mistakes
2. The system represents the underlying reality
3. The system can be implemented
Let's see how that plays out here:
1. You're a US citizen. While returning from an overseas trip, a border agent thinks it's a bit weird that you have 3 laptops and flags you for extra screening. Unfortunately, the box for "extra screening" was right next to "fraudulent passport" and they checked the wrong one. You say you're a US citizen. The box says you aren't. No due process? Straight to gitmo.
2. You're in the US on a work visa sponsored by your benevolent megalithic software company. Unfortunately, they engage in some right-sizing by sizing you right out the door with zero notice. It's policy for immigration to retroactively extend your status if you find another sponsor or a different visa. But, on paper, the moment you were terminated you lost your legal status. And, just your luck, immigration agents are waiting outside as you carry your stuff to your car. No due process? Straight to gitmo.
3. You've never had a passport because you grew up in the US and have never travelled internationally. An immigration agent stops you and asks you for proof of your status. All you have is your old (pre-REAL ID) driver's license, but the agent says those are easily faked. Maybe you could go to your parents' house to look for your birth certificate, but the agent wants proof now. No due process? Straight to gitmo.
That's not true. There's a 60 day grace period after your employment ends during which you still have your legal status: https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-8/chapter-I/subchapter-B/...
https://natlawreview.com/article/notices-appear-ntas-being-i...
5. The new administration is seeking to deny the validity of birthright citizenship. The implication of that would be that you are now required to have one or more parent's birth certificates in addition to your own, and probably several other documents.
5a. How many people carry their birth certificate around with them? 5b. What happens if the ICE agent conveniently loses your papers? Ooops.
Due process doesn't mean a full trial. At its most fundamental level, it simply means having a fair process. Of course there's a whole set of case law behind determining what is fair, and a lot of that depends on the type and severity of the case.
But what happens if all that fairness and case law is ignored? Without due process (such as a hearing with a judge), how do you prove you're a citizen? Who do you even present your evidence to? How can you even gather your evidence if you're locked away in a cell?
When people argue for due process (which is a constitutional right), this is what they're arguing for. They're arguing that a single government employee should not be able to deport them without a fair process. Which is a constitutional right for all people (not just citizens), per the 14th amendment.
Detention of indefinite duration followed at some arbitrary time by removal, often to a country to which the subject has no previous connection, does not speak the language, and in which they have in some cases no access to the necessities of life (and in some cases where they are subsequently imprisoned in a prison that the operating government proudly claims “no one who goes in ever gets out” by agreement between the US government and the foreign country) is in no way less serious than imprisonment and fines (indeed, it often is literally imprisonment, and in some cases it has been a very swift death sentence.)
You need due process even for outsiders.
It’s either indifference (mostly due to ignorance) or outright opposition?
It makes me question all sorts of things when people get what they were promised and then complain they got it.
Frankly tried reading his stuff, and it becomes gibberish. At one point he calls his political philosophy Jacobitism, which was a real ideology at some point, but it bears no connection with anything else bearing the name.
He’s basically just repackaged Thomas Carlyle with some interesting personal anecdotes.