ICE is using facial-recognition technology to quickly arrest people | Hacker News Reader

ICE is using facial-recognition technology to quickly arrest people

wsj.com

228 pointsKnuthIsGod197 comments

In the Civil Rights era, segregationist states' police would systematically[0] stop and fingerprint black people, without individualized suspicion, to see if they were in criminal fingerprint databases. There's nothing new under the sun. Biometrics are centuries old; the tech we're talking about here is merely evolutionary, not something qualitatively new and different in human terms. The debate we're revisiting, safetyism vs. liberty, is old and well-trodden. And of course the part where these degrading searches are clearly targeted at minorities based on their appearance and skin color is of no novelty whatsoever.

[0] https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/394/721/ ("Davis v. Mississippi (1969)")

When China did this, this was seen as a terrible violation of rights....

Now that we do this hundreds of times a day, it has become routine.

This is still not fully supported by law. It is becoming normalized indeed, especially by the current admin. Let's hope this is not going to become widely used or that it doesn't stay permanently, eg. it gets at least restricted to some type of crime by future administrations.

It won’t be restricted until the people push against it to a point where it becomes too politically expensive to not restrict.

Ah, what's good is law when the branch^W [after rereading about it, executive power is given to one] person tasked with executing laws is... lawless?

The notion that future administrations won't be offshots of the current regime (again, why do you think laws regarding democracy, like fair elections, will be upheld?) is also too hopeful.

Happy new year!

Not supported by law where? I’m unaware of any legal proscription of this practice in the USA, and the Journal article makes no such claims, either.

(IAAL but this is not my primary field of expertise, and this is not legal advice.)

Indeed.

And the latest admin is only a string in the ever increasing use of such tech.

It should be illegal, but people are deluded if they think it started here.

There are many unresolved gray areas around what exactly the 4th amendment permits in the way of what United States v. Knotts called "dragnet-type law enforcement practices". Knotts suggested they might not be permitted, even if they were made up of permissible individual parts, but didn't elaborate. More recent case law has held, for example, that cell phone companies turning over large quantities of records is a 4th amendment search requiring a warrant, even if they do it voluntarily (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpenter_v._United_States). Most other types of dragnets haven't been litigated enough to have solid caselaw on their boundaries afaik.

I don't know if it's likely a court will do anything about this particular program, but from what I've read I don't think 4th amendment scholars think this area is at all settled.

From what I understand, this isn’t so much a “dragnet” operation involving combing through mass quantities of records on demand; it’s more like “this person is in public in my field of view, and I want to know who they are.”

More importantly, though, the cases so far have focused on the investigative activity that follows once a suspect has been identified. Here, we’re talking about de-anonymization: identifying one or more individuals who occupy a public space. AFAIK, the Court has never established a reasonable expectation of privacy of one’s identity in public. That will be a steep hill to climb.

I don't have to identify myself to police where I live. That's why, in my opinion, this is an unreasonable use of technology. I'm not sure what qualifies under the fourteenth but force-ably identifying me when I don't want to be and not required to seems unreasonable.

In the U.S., current law holds that for a law enforcement officer to stop and request identification, the officer needs at least some sort of articulable basis for doing so (Terry stop). The key word here, though, is “stop.” Electronic surveillance of a public space, though, involves stopping nobody. It’s not clear to me that passive identification involves either a “search” or “seizure” within the traditional meaning of the 4th Amendment. We’ll see what the courts think, though.

Not supported by law where? I’m unaware of any legal proscription of this practice in the USA

Using facial recognition on people without their consent is illegal in a growing number of states.

Facebook lost a class-action lawsuit about this and I (and many other people) got a check for a little under $500.

It was a settlement, not a “loss” in any legal sense. It sets no legal precedent, and no future plaintiff can cite it.

> The settlement, announced Tuesday, does not act as an admission of guilt and Meta maintains no wrongdoing.

https://www.texastribune.org/2024/07/30/texas-meta-facebook-...

While you are correct that some states do regulate facial recognition, all they can do is regulate their own law enforcement and private entities doing business there. They cannot regulate the federal government (ICE and CBP are federal agencies).

Law is expensive.

But china is safe and clean and nice, so it might be worth it. Anyway we got no privacy anymore, cameras are everywhere and we all captured on someone hard disk, so might as well take advantage of the benefits that comes with this technology

China is not "safe, clean and nice" for everybody.

>"When China did this, this was seen as a terrible violation of rights.... Now that we do this hundreds of times a day, it has become routine."

Normally questions like this would be labeled as whataboutism, false equivalence etc. One rule for thee, another one for me.

Personally I think we (The West) are heading to disaster. I really missed older times before 9/11

  whataboutism

This is the default response whenever HN commentators have no other way to say "china bad".

How is pointing out this inconsistency whataboutism? It might be reasonable to ask if it's a strawman since it seems reasonable to wonder if perhaps the people against what the Chinese are doing might also be against what ICE is doing.

Regardless, it's quite relevant to point out that at this point two of the world's superpowers are actively engaging in this. Claiming that the technology won't be used this way - that people are just fearmongering - clearly doesn't hold water. (Not that it ever did, but now we've got concrete evidence.)

>"How is pointing out this inconsistency whataboutism? "

It is not, I said it is usually labeled as one here

America is not the West. There are a lot of things wrong in my country but we don't worship Jesus nor billionaires.

China is already doing abominable things; how people react to additional surveillance is always related to what the state is actually doing with that information.

So a system that supports the abduction of polital rivals (an actual human rights violation) is not the same as a system that supports the lawful arrest of someone breaking a law that's accepted as part of a democracy.

I also think the scale of investment plays a part, the investment in surveillance in China is absurd. Its a significant number of people (per capita) that do nothing but monitor people. These new systems are rather cheap; so much so that they feel a whole lot more inevitable.

In both systems the law is being carefully followed to support inhumane goals

ICE and USBP are quite famously breaking many laws.

Unfortunately ICE has somewhat broad powers that allow them to enforce Federal laws that local LEOs cannot get away with.

This should be challenged in a court.

Some say unfortunate, others say fortunate. It's a luxury belief to want to let people walk across the border and have no repercussions. Enforce the border, get all the illegals out.

Everyone in this country regardless of their status is still guaranteed due process by the Constitution. The Venezuelans and Abrego Garcia sent to CECOT was done without due process and in violation of a Federal Judge's orders. Not to mention CECOT is a horrible prison.

I think it's cruel and inhuman to deport people already here unless they're engaged in criminal activities. Most of them are hard working people who gave up everything to flee bad circumstances in their home countries. We're a nation of immigrants.

You want the border secure, fine (I would prefer immigration reform since we have a large country and tons of economic opportunity migrants fulfill). But don't be so cruel as to support what ICE is doing to hard working people who have established lives here. Most of them are not criminals.

You believe laws were not followed in the case of deportations and seem to be angry about that but simultaneously you want the laws, that demand deportations of illegal aliens, to not be followed. Do you notice any irrationality with this position?

Unfortunately for them they are technically criminals by entering illegally. They all knew they were taking a calculated risk by coming here, some made it, some did not.

Agreed on the reform, we are in a pendulum stage now where the previous admin let too many in without reform (The first 3 years) and how it's gone too far the other way.

Overstay and unlawful presence are civil offenses, not criminal. Vast majority of undocumented people overstay visas and entered legally.

Asylum seekers are being abducted and deported to countries they have no ties to. It's perfectly legal to cross borders without inspection to seek asylum.

They are still deportable crimes. You cannot walk into a country and never leave just "because".

And no, the vast majority are not overstays. Less than half are overstays that came here legally [0]. So 58% crossed the border illegally.

Asylum seekers have been coached on what to say to claim asylum. Few are seeking asylum at all. The system is obviously being abused when these people vacation back to their home country that was so "dangerous" they claimed asylum.

[0] https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R47848

Again, this is the purpose of ICE with broad Federal powers.

Why didn't the previous administrations change it? Perhaps next time they will?

This is suicidal empathy. Mercy for the guilty is cruelty for the innocent.

I think it's cruel and inhumane to let millions unvetted into our neighborhoods, schools, and communities.

It means less jobs for American young people. It means loss of culture and shared spaces. It means your kids can't play with their neighbors because they don't speak the same language.

It's weakness and we need to stop rationalizing it.

Would you want these people as your neighbor? Not speaking English? How about your whole town?

It's cruel. The modern left does not care about Americans, only the foreigners who can't build a safe and prosperous country of their own.

I admit I didn’t expect this pushback against America’s corrupt current regime which is obviously morally bankrupt. But, by the letter of the law and the function of the court system they are acting with complete impunity within what they have been permitted to do to the detriment of people everywhere.

> In both systems the law is being carefully followed to support inhumane goals

I’m not sure it is though, there are plenty of headlines about judicial orders being disregarded. This last few weeks it has been the required release of the Epstein papers, though that has been railroaded by a conveniently timed attack on a neighbour.

There are plenty of other examples.

Why do we need to give free stuff to every person that wades across the southern border?

What is our legal or moral obligation to eviscerate our already-limited social safety net for outsiders who, by and large, do not contribute to them?

You are free to die on the cross and spend your income this way, but how is it "humane" to use violence (taxes) to reappropriate the fruits of my labor for your special interests?

Bc these immigrants as a whole contribute more to the federal state and local tax base than they take out, it’s super simple. I guess you don’t like the economy.

Another artful legal vs. illegal conflation - citation needed. I have no doubt in my mind folks coming in on H-1B and O-1 visas contribute more than they take out: nobody is disputing that.

When an illegal immigrant making $2/hr under the table cuts his hand off at a meat packing plant, who pays the hospital bill? How many tax dollars does this one incident wipe out?

Vastly less than the tax dollars for all the foreign military interventions including the latest adventure in Venezuela, if you're really worried about wasting tax dollars.

A universal healthcare system would cover everyone in the country when it's needed. The US is a massive, highly developed economy, no reason we couldn't fund that.

US foreign "policy" is part of why you call them shitholes, then you wonder why they come there.

ICE does not care about "lawful arrests". Like common, that is not their thing.

> is not the same as a system that supports the lawful arrest

That is not the system that the US has had since 2025, and the executive has made it very clear that it is not the system that it wants the US to have.

Meanwhile, SCOTUS has made it very clear that nothing this executive does will have any consequences for it.

Rule of law is a fairy tale when ICE can snag anyone they want off the street and throw them into some CECOT torture pit.

Rule of law is a fairy tale when the executive disregards direct judicial orders.

Democracy is when you get abducted and sent to CECOT because some shitty AI face app said so

Democracy is when the useful idiots cheer on the abductions/renditions with full-throated support, relishing in the spectacular human suffering of others as if two wrongs make a right. But those pounds of flesh are merely being chummed at them by the same exact corporate-government propagandists that shipped their jobs to China in the first place, now promising naked fascism as a way of somehow putting things right when it's really just the next step of the ongoing destruction of their country. But I'm sure when they start to wake up to the grave error they've made (ten+ years too late), their egos will protect themselves with cognitive dissonance while the machine throws them some new scapegoats to distract themselves with.

That's a totally wrong way to think about it, akin to "I have nothing to hide so why not let the government look into all my communications"

> abduction of political rivals

Couldn’t have timed it better, we just pulled off the most high profile abduction of a geopolitical rival in history.

> we just pulled off the most high profile abduction of a geopolitical rival in history

We literally did the same thing in 1989 [1]. Russia planned to do it to Zelensky when they first invaded.

None of this makes it okay. But it's hyperbolic to say it's unprecedented, even in U.S. history.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_invasion_of_Pana...

The US literary attacked a country and captured its leader. They always have a double standard.

Literary? Haha

I can't even ask for forgiveness for this diabolical.

> When China did this, this was seen as a terrible violation of rights

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere" [1].

Beijing showed the way. We followed their path. Both are at fault.

[1] https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham....

> Beijing showed the way. We followed their path.

lol, just like China invented social credit scores which are for social control and definitely not like US credit scores which are just good business sense

Edit: to be clear I am saying this from a US centric viewpoint. China is catching up but they’ve been behind us for over a century tech wise and the US has been really good at pioneering new forms of injustice. I’m laughing at the idea that we were trailing behind them on learning new for handling their population

> like China invented social credit scores which are for social control and definitely not like US credit scores which are just good business sense

…yes. You don’t get your credit score dinged because you tweeted something naughty. You can be a felon with perfect credit.

Brah, some employers in the US check your credit score to make sure you are trustworthy enough.

Your credit score can be checked in multiple other situations that have nothing to do with you taking on debt, but still somehow your debt factors into the decision.

If you think there is no social control as part of this system, then you are just blind to the system you grew up in

> some employers in the US check your credit score to make sure you are trustworthy enough

Sure. They’re evaluating your creditworthiness. What they’re not measuring is your political coherence or social “goodness.”

The closest thing we have to a social score is a criminal record.

Does the chinese system go farther than the US one in control? yes

Does the US system that gets used to influence your behavior also social control? yes

You should read up on China's credit score. There are a lot of misinformations about it online. In effect, it does little more than the US credit scores that inspired it.

> You should read up on China's credit score

I could really say the same to you. Emphasizing original sources, not summaries.

> In effect, it does little more than the US credit scores that inspired it

“Little more” does a lot of heavy lifting here.

The nuclear bomb was inspired by the explosive power of TNT.

I’m often not a fan of the Chinese government’s practices, but I think the parent is right here personally. I think Wikipedia does a nice job discussing it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_credit_system#Misconcep...

Thank you.

It is infuriating to see my fellow countrymen criticize another system so heavily, when we are living under a largely similar system.

Especially after finding out that the current credit score system was only adopted in 1989, so it’s just another yoke millennials and younger have to live with, that our forefathers got to start their adult life without having to deal with

Would you share an example of a Chinese citizen's social credit score having been dinged because they posted something naughty online?

Let me quote the CEO of ycombinator.

>You're thinking Chinese surveillance

>US-based surveillance helps victims and prevents more victims

https://xcancel.com/garrytan/status/1963310592615485955

American capitalists are ideologically driven hypocrites.

Are we allowed to criticize Garry Tan here?

Yep, it's converging to the same system...

In China government is controlled by chosen members of the ruling party who become wealthy through it;

In the US the government is controlled by billionaires who become powerful through it.

Neither is a "government by the people" nor a "democratic people's republic" and both are enacting more and more similar policies.

We like to think surveillance is something you can turn on for one problem and turn off afterward. In practice, that never happens. Once the machinery is in place, it stays and looks for new work. Tools justified today by "illegal immigration" won’t stop there. They drift into credit scoring, health insurance pricing, hiring and firing decisions, school admissions, housing access, travel permissions, banking, welfare eligibility, and even which online accounts are allowed to exist. Not because anyone set out to build a dystopia, but because systems, once built, naturally expand to whatever can be measured and enforced.

As Benjamin Franklin put it: those who give up essential liberty for temporary security deserve neither. The tradeoff rarely feels extreme at the time. It feels reasonable. By the time it isn’t, there’s no way back.

That first sentence of yours really struck a chord with me. I tried to think of other examples:

Cars — essential for leveraging time to travel longer distances and carrying multiple passengers and heavy loads; ens up being used by one person to drive three minutes to get coffee.

Guns — to quickly précis a … complex topic: good guys, but also bad guys.

Electricity — power generation goes up decade after decade, but so too does consumption with wasteful consumption going hand in hand with productive consumption.

As you might be able to tell, I think the answer to the question “how do we stop technology X from destroying us?” lies in licensing and regulation enacted through legislation.

clothing i think is a big one. Once the poster-child of industrialisation, now results in millions of tons being thrown away each other at a massive environmental cost.

I think those examples miss an important distinction. Cars, guns, and electricity are consumer technologies. They’re widely distributed, regulated, and constrained by market forces and law. Individuals can choose how to use them, and misuse is at least partially visible and contestable.

Surveillance is different. It’s inherently centralized and asymmetrical. By design, it gives one side - the state or large institutions - persistent visibility into everyone else, with little reciprocity. You can regulate how it’s used on paper, but the power imbalance remains.

It’s closer to nuclear technology than to cars or electricity. I can’t build a nuclear weapon or possess fissile material, not because it’s inefficient, but because some technologies are considered too dangerous to be broadly accessible. Mass surveillance belongs in that category. Once it exists, citizens don’t get to opt out, and meaningful oversight tends to lag far behind capability.

Licensing works when the technology is decentralized. With surveillance, the risk isn’t misuse at the edges - it’s concentration at the center.

> I think the answer to the question “how do we stop technology X from destroying us?” lies in licensing and regulation enacted through legislation.

In the golden age of the 90's we were able to ban CFCs, but I'm skeptical we could do that today. We no longer have that political ability, and I doubt we will get it back any time soon.

Indeed, that's true. Payment for autism, originally intended for sick children, now a Somali scam. Veteran's disability, originally a means to allow people who were injured while serving the country, now a way for a desk-jockey to receive an annual stipend.

Any mechanism, once built, seeks to expand its scope. Until it delivers mail ;)

There is a gradual chilling effect of self-censorship to mass surveillance and loss of anonymity. When you know you are being watched, you change your behavior. You don't visit the "wrong" protest, you don't meet with the "controversial" whistleblower, and you don't seek out the "unpopular" doctor. Total surveillance creates a "soft" totalitarianism where citizens police their own movements to avoid falling into a "high-risk" algorithm, even if they've done nothing illegal. At its extreme, such societies end up with no outliers, no more of "the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels." (Steve Jobs). Safety and compliance at all cost.

The peer-reviewed consensus of this in psychology describes a three-step internal process of Anticipatory Anxiety, Risk Aversion and Self-Censorship [1]. The Conforming Effect (Conformity Theory) has been measured in studies such as those by Jonathon Penney (2016/2021), where use of Wikipedia data and search traffic shows a statistical drop in "sensitive" searches (e.g., about "terrorism," "human rights," or "health") immediately following news of government surveillance. [2]

[1] Surveillance as a Socio-Technical System: Behavioral Impacts and Self-Regulation in Monitored Environments, https://www.mdpi.com/2079-8954/13/7/614

[2] Chilling Effects: Online Surveillance and Wikipedia Use, https://lawcat.berkeley.edu/record/1127413?v=pdf

Yup, I agree. And this is why I think mass surveillance isn’t just another technology to regulate. The chilling effect isn’t misuse; it’s the default: continuous, opaque observation changes behavior by itself. Because it’s centralized and unavoidable, people self-censor and conform; you don’t need arrests once everyone assumes they’re being scored.

We don’t yet have long-run examples of fully algorithmic surveillance societies, so the outcome isn’t certain. But if these dynamics scale, the risk is trading experimentation for legibility. Problems get hidden, metrics look clean, and warning signals vanish. When real stress hits, responses are late and blunt - overcorrection, cascading failures, accelerated exit. Stability holds until it doesn’t.

I think especially heinous is the use of Zero-Knowledge (ZK) Proof technologies where a centralized attestation authority (e.g. government agency) verifies compliance, and the verifier (e.g. business needing to prove compliance) relies on the ZK cryptographic proof of compliance without revealing the individual. This revocable privacy can unmask the real identity in the case of asserted "suspicious" activity. This is the current direction of mainstream technology, and all it serves to accomplish is a normalization of loss of privacy and anonymity.

Tech-minded folk will clap like trained seals, as second-option bias takes over, when someone big on the fediverse suggests implementing ZKP algorithms to comply with identity attestation laws.

It's sad, but not surprising, to see. We'll design the most secure systems with the new shiny just to confirm whether the government believes you should be able post on Reddit or not.

>Total surveillance creates a "soft" totalitarianism

And every step of the way the enablers will defend it on the grounds of "well you still technically can do the thing if you're willing to put up with some absurd risks or jump through some insane and impractical hoops specifically designed to be non-starters for many/most."

Your comment should offend far more on HN than it will.

Heck, drop into any comment section about transportation infrastructure or environmental policy (or a few years ago public health policy as well) and there's all sorts of evil mustache twirling going on about how to use basically the same sort of technologies to deploy state violence in pursuit of some goal and they are either unable or unwilling to think a few steps ahead see that what they're advocating for will over time if not quickly lead to dark places as policy and priorities change incrementally.

As I'm concerned the people who are happy to peddle this stuff when it suits them are just as complicit as the people who are cheering for it right now when it's being used for "obviously bad" things.

>As Benjamin Franklin put it: those who give up essential liberty for temporary security deserve neither. The tradeoff rarely feels extreme at the time. It feels reasonable. By the time it isn’t, there’s no way back.

This quote is like a lightening rod for exactly the kind of people I'm talking about.

This specific point is addressed in a famous 1995 anti-technology essay by Ted Kaczynski.

Specifically paragraphs:

127. A technological advance that appears not to threaten freedom often turns out to threaten it very seriously later on. ...

128. While technological progress AS A WHOLE continually narrows our sphere of freedom, each new technical advance CONSIDERED BY ITSELF appears to be desirable. ...

129. Another reason why technology is such a powerful social force is that, within the context of a given society, technological progress marches in only one direction; it can never be reversed. ...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/unab...

Who ever said facial recognition wasn't going to threaten freedom? None of those points feel at all relevant or substantive to the topic of discussion

Most of people have no idea and are totally ok with being tracked 24/7

You have been citing the unabomber in multiple comments now and are writing manifesto sized wall of text comments, beware of where the line is.

I don't think this is a useful framework for understanding these issues. What you are saying can, in essense, boil down to "any law enforcement is bad". ICE and its inhumane practices are just symptoms of an increasingly authoritarian administration that receives sufficient mandate from the population to push for increasingly authoritarian practices. The tools are just that, tools. The situation will keep getting worse until the population gets sick of it enough to push the wannabe autocrats out of power (and not replace them by other wannabe autocrats), and have the new administration dismantle these tools. Easier said than done, I know.

I think we're finally seeing the culture that's been present in law enforcement forever playing out to its logical end. The solution is pretty close to "all law enforcement is bad". We're seeing that the people most prone to violence and abuse seek out positions of power in law enforcement. Basically anyone who wants to be a cop should not be allowed to be a cop.

We can blame autocrats while also blaming the complicit tools. In Grand Rapids, Michigan yesterday the local police arrested the organizer of a protest against the invasion of Venezuela while she was on camera interviewing with the local news for "obstructing a roadway" (marching in a lane with other lanes open to traffic) and "disobeying a lawful command".

When we have local beat cops colluding with national secret police and suppressing dissent, we have a very serious problem and are running out of options very quickly.

I usually fall in the "all law enforcement is bad" part of the population too. But I don't think law enforcement in any society has ever not attracted these type of people you describe. I believe the "culture that's been present in law enforcement forever" you describe is completely unchanged.

To me, the more interesting question would be: why is law enforcement getting away with so much as of late? And the answer ties back to the current administration and the signicant part of the population behind them. If so many americans weren't cheering on ICE and cie., none of this would fly and it would blow over almost immediately. You get authoritarianism when authoritarian thinking wins. Authoritarian thinking wins when complex socio-political and socio-economical reasons I don't care to go into today.

The main thing I'm trying to say here, I guess, is that I reject the slippery slope fallacy ("get age verification today, get 1984 tomorrow"). If you want to fight authoritarian practices, find their source and fight that instead (the "how" is left as an exercise to the reader).

Whats really scary is that ICE is now working with a myriad of other bodies such as FBI, meaning they all get used to using this tech.

> the agency has greenlighted a contract for a tool that can scan subjects’ irises

Where does the initial iris data come from? Is this actually collected now?

everywhere

DOGE

One likely source: https://techcrunch.com/2024/10/17/sam-altmans-worldcoin-beco...

Probably from the airport scanners and cameras I see everyone gleefully sticking their faces in. A savings of several minutes per flight!

Is this common? Airport scanners are usually face scanners. Iris scanners are almost always for employees with access to critical areas, not for travelers. I know Doha and Singapore airports use iris scanners at the security check. It's probably a growing trend, haven't seen any in the EU, is it already common in the US?

There used to be a scheme in the UK - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iris_Recognition_Immigration_S...

Iris scanners are not hard to implement from a few meters in a controlled environment like immigration.

I would assume Iris scanners are normal - but I couldn't find anything to corroborate that for immigration control in NZ (legally they can, and I thought the equipment did, but I couldn't verify).

The normal TSA pre-check lines make you scan your face too. They used to read "images are deleted after use" but I didn't notice that message last time I went through security. So likely it's being used by ICE now.

The customs line have been doing much more rigorous face scanning for a while now.

TSA allowed to opt-out of this photo the last time I flew. You may also opt-out of the body scan. Nobody does.

I have a bridge to sell anyone who thinks those are deleted after use.

I bet the airports are additionally recording gait using overhead cameras.

> Where does the initial iris data come from?

Visa photos. DACA applications [1]. Basically anyone who trusted the government at any point in the past.

It won't catch cartel members. But cocaine seems to be the one thing whose price this administration has driven down [2].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deferred_Action_for_Childhood_...

[2] https://www.wsj.com/world/americas/mexico-drugs-cartel-osegu... "Cocaine prices have fallen by nearly half to around $60 to $75 a gram compared with five years ago"

> "Basically anyone who trusted the government at any point in the past."

Over one million Afghanis voluntarily gave America their iris biometrics; now the Taliban has that data. US military negligently failed to secure it. Lists of American collaborators' biometrics and everything.

https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/taliban-afghanistan-biome... ("Taliban likely to have access to biometric databases of Afghan civilians who helped US" (2021))

We've been building a turn key police state for the past 25 years.

Depending on the crime, most people would agree that face/gait recognition is warranted, for example in case of murder or rape.

The difference here is that some people consider "illegal immigration" to be more like a misdemeanor, others consider it to be something much more serious.

> Depending on the crime, most people would agree that face/gait recognition is warranted, for example in case of murder or rape

That's the problem with dragnet surveillance. People are okay with it for extreme cases. And then the scope creeps.

Free or secure. You can't have both. And you usually can't even have just the latter.

> And then the scope creeps.

Agreed and wanted to add. If it exists, can do the job, and the person in charge is aware of it, then it will inevitably be used. There's no such thing as "only for certain situations" unless there is a large inherent cost to using it outside of the proscribed scenario.

If you mandate the placement of fireman's axes by every door, at some point someone is going to use one of them to commit murder or vandalism or some other crime. There is effectively nothing that can be done to prevent that other than choosing not to mandate their placement.

> " others consider "

laws are knowable. readable. Opinion on them does NOT matter.

Laws don't exist in a vacuum, in practice governments decide how to implement and to enforce them or not.

We have a court system specifically meant to interpret the law, and a tiered appeals process for when one of the courtroom parties disagrees with that court’s interpretation.

Quick, does the First Amendment allow the government to place any restrictions on speech? The words are right there for the reading and knowing, so that should be a simple question, surely?

gait recognition is a pseudoscience.

> others consider it to be something much more serious.

We have limited funds for social safety nets for our own citizens: how is it not "serious" that we would deplete them on folks who are willfully and intentionally breaking our rules for financial benefit?

My guy, stop with this false point. You're smarter than this.

Deep down you know it's not true and it's not being used this way.

Clean yourself and your soul.

What about it is false?

- Illegal immigrants make the choice to come to the United States for financial enrichment: jobs, handouts. Are you disputing this?

- The United States has a notoriously weak social safety net relative to other countries: this is not a disputed fact.

- We do not have an unlimited amount of resources: sorry, this is reality, not socialist fantasyland.

- Most US citizens do not cover their overall per capita government tax expenditures: illegals certainly don't.

Illegal immigrants are absolutely a net-negative financial, quality-of-life drain on society at large.

They pay into social security when they have a job just like anyone else.

If it's weak social safety net then why would the immigrants choose this country for financial benefit? You're contradicting yourself right in the next bullet point.

They came here for the American Dream, which is about finding a new life free from oppression against all odds. It's what this country is built on. There's nothing more patriotic than welcoming the oppressed with open arms and helping them build a new life. It's what happened when your ancestors came to this country.

> They pay into social security when they have a job just like anyone else.

Really? None are paid under the table? Who pays their ER bills when they break their arm while performing illegal farm labor, for instance?

> If it's weak social safety net then why would the immigrants choose this country for financial benefit? You're contradicting yourself right in the next bullet point.

Because it's better than from wherever they came? These goals aren't incompatible. Jobs are reason enough, free shit is icing on the cake.

> They came here for the American Dream,

Breaking the law in the process, and pissing on everyone who bothered to obtain it legally.

> It's what happened when your ancestors came to this country.

My ancestors weren't given free shit upon arrival - you can have a welfare system or open borders, not both.

no citizens are paid under the table?

who pays bills of citizens w/o insurance that are rushed to the emergency room?

> My ancestors weren't given free shit upon arrival

you sure about that?

We're all the same people, stop hating.

> no citizens are paid under the table?

Proportionately far fewer, obviously? What? Are you going to honestly try and argue in good faith that per capita, people already breaking laws with no legal means to work are paying taxes at the same rate? Either way: it doesn't matter!

> who pays bills of citizens w/o insurance that are rushed to the emergency room?

Guess what? - and this might be a hard pill to swallow: we don't owe foreigners anything.

Your argument distills down to: "there are some citizen lawbreakers, too, so a few more shouldn't hurt!"

> you sure about that?

Social security among other things didn't exist, so, yeah, I am very sure about that.

> We're all the same people, stop hating.

Not wanting to finance unskilled lawbreakers at the expense of my own people is not "hate" - sorry!

> we don't owe foreigners anything

This isn't true, it's a pillar of the USA to harbor refugees and welcome immigrants. It's our entire history. It's our entire identity.

> Proportionately far fewer, obviously

I dont think so. There's a lot of people in this country, far more citizens than illegal immigrants.

> Not wanting to finance unskilled lawbreakers

capital punishment for every crime if you dont have a degree? what are you arguing?

yes, the argument is immigrants and citizens aren't different. we're all people

> This isn't true, it's a pillar of the USA to harbor refugees and welcome immigrants. It's our entire history. It's our entire identity.

All of these dreamy tales are from before the New Deal for a reason.

> I dont think so. There's a lot of people in this country, far more citizens than illegal immigrants.

The word "proportionately" means something: if you believe that the same percentage of illegal immigrants pay taxes as legal citizens, you are definitively wrong. Legal immigrants probably pay taxes at a higher rate (by systemic design), but there's simply no way this is true for border hoppers.

> capital punishment for every crime if you dont have a degree? what are you arguing?

Deportation is not capital punishment!

My point was "your people" are financing unskilled lawbreakers with or without immigrants. Also "your people" are immigrants.

> financing unskilled lawbreakers with or without immigrants

So why invite more?

> Also "your people" are immigrants

Stop conflating legal and illegal immigrants: this strategy doesn't work as well in writing.

dont act like you care about laws

> Deportation is not capital punishment!

And how well do deported people fair? Sometimes they'll be returned to dangerous situations they were fleeing, sometimes to impoverished areas, sometimes even to prisons. I'm guessing some do end up dead. Even for those who manage, some might never see family members again.

Legally, you're required to pay taxes even if you're getting underpaid. Many undocumented people use ITINs. Your whole argument is based on false assumptions.

Gosh golly gee, someone who decided to break the law to enter wouldn't possibly break other laws for their own benefit, would they!?

I don't care if "many" people do anything: if they are here without status, they should be removed post haste.

> Illegal immigrants are absolutely a net-negative financial, quality-of-life drain on society at large.

I mean - source? Or are we just talking out of our asses?

Just intuitively, most immigrants pay taxes because they work regular jobs. And they're exempt from most social safety nets, too. How are they a net negative? Aren't we, basically, exploiting them, and not the other way around?

I live in Texas, and looking around, I'm gonna tell you right now it's not fatass white people pouring pavement or building homes. It's laborers who, I'm assuming, may or may not have immigrated illegally from Latin America and may or may not be paid a fair wage.

> most immigrants pay taxes because they work regular jobs

Source? Or are we just talking out of our asses? "Most" means something.

> And they're exempt from most social safety nets, too

Emergency rooms, census, etc. all still apply.

> How are they a net negative?

- Remittances directly take money out of our economy

- Per capita, as with most citizens, they cannot and do not pay their percentage of the government tax burden

- Free use of our social safety nets - ERs, many local government services, schools, etc.

- No community ties: if an illegal immigrant messes up, they can just move on the same way they came in.

- Directly stress an already-strained housing supply (inb4 'they do construction so they increase the supply!')

> Aren't we, basically, exploiting them

Yes! This is bad and needs to stop: by exploiting them (slave labor), we're additionally harming our most vulnerable part of the population - our own unskilled/impoverished workers.

> I'm gonna tell you right now it's not fatass white people pouring pavement or building homes

Because they are being undercut by illegal labor with no protections and lower wages? How is "we need slave labor!" a valid argument?

I don't think slave labor is good or desirable, but I do think that, obviously, that's not exploitative for the slaver. The slaver is not the one being exploited in that relationship.

I just don't see how they're a strain on us, like, at all. And I actually live in Texas. Yes there's a lot of theories and conjecture, but I think most of it is, frankly, made up.

It's trivial, truly trivial, to eradicate illegal immigration for good. Just make a law where if you hire an illegal immigrant, your executives go to jail. The problem would solve itself expiditiously.

But the GOP would never propose anything close to that, because they don't want to reduce illegal immigrantation. They don't. It's one of their greatest vectors of exploitation and one of the few factors that makes some red states economically viable.

So, if you're operating under the assumption ANY of this is for the purpose of reducing illegal immigration, you've been conned.

It’s not just facial it’s also gait recognition too.

Mostly gait probably. I wonder if there are any hacker techniques to scramble gait, like putting wooden planks or plastic parts inside clothes

I remember reading that early systems could be defeated entirely by putting a pebble in your shoe, but I’m sure they’ve improved a lot since.

The UK once had a ministry specialized on that /s

gait recognition is a pseudoscience. this is also obvious from the way it is used: to fabricate a pretext to detain undesirables.

IIRC that's exactly what a character did in either Person of Interest or Mr. Robot

(I have a very hard time to distinguish both in my memory since they were so similar in their themes)

does rock in shoe work? That's the only way i've heard

> It’s not just facial it’s also gait recognition too

Source? Where would they get the fingerprints from?

Hypothetically speaking couldn't you collect it from any security camera in an area where you have positive ID on people? Airport security comes to mind.

With all the trade in personal data in the US I assume it's only a matter of time before places like grocery stores start selling it.

Why stop at just gait though? Geometric fingerprinting of various body parts is also possible. Palm geometry readers have been commonplace for a long time.

> couldn't you collect it from any security camera in an area where you have positive ID on people? Airport security comes to mind

Going out on a limb and guessing illegal migrants aren’t going through airport security.

That's just one that comes to mind. Anywhere that has positive ID would work. Which if we account for data brokers can potentially include anywhere you use a credit card. (Yes that will not be a perfect 1 to 1. Obviously that doesn't really matter in practice. LE is used to dealing with lots of noise.)

But suppose there's no hit. That's a hit in and of itself. Someone just needs to have the idea to have the software that ICE agents use flag anyone who fails all recognition methods (facial, gate, etc) because it means they haven't been through an airport, haven't crossed a border in a legal manner, don't have a passport, and don't show up with any of the data brokers.

Plenty of people overstay their visa. And then we have the administration changing the rules to make people that were legal, suddenly not.

Fingerprints?

Wrong appendages, unless I don't know what "gait" means

What’s the general term for the specific characterization of a personal identifier? We use “fingerprint” for browser identification, for example.

Oh, fair enough haha given the context I did not consider that definition of it

Perhaps "profile" might work?

Every grocery store self checkout has cameras on the whole area as you walk up, then cameras on your face, and then pretty good self identification via your payment card/rewards.

Home Depot was already selling at least some of this to Meta in 2023 https://strategyonline.ca/2023/01/26/home-depot-found-to-hav...

Totalitarians on one side convince their side, that it's totally fine and desirable to ignore the law and let millions of illegal immigrants in. Then then totalitarians on the other side convince their side it is necessary to ignore the law and introduce wide sweeping surveillance to undo it. Congratulations, both sides cooperated while hating each other because they are easy to play dummies.

For anyone still in denial, america is fully a fascist, authoritarian state. WE ARE NO LONGER A FREE COUNTRY.

As if they needed an excuse.

What could go wrong?

Soon the chant will be "USSA! USSA! USSA!"

It's not the technology. The American people voted for this. That is the real discussion you should have. Why do Americans want fascism?

> Why do Americans want fascism?

Americans don't want to expend their tax dollars on folks willing to break the law for financial gain.

This is a very shortsighted and frankly dumb argument. You would give up constitutional rights, to allow an unchecked police force, to arrest anyone they want, to save a few tax dollars?

So stupid.

All his replies in this thread are this false kneejerk boomerism.

Sad, sick people. No empathy. No heart.

"No empathy" - how about not wanting to fund criminal enterprises using the tax dollars of hard-working Americans? Who has empathy for them - the people financing this "charity?"

Why is importing unskilled foreigners the hill to die on?

not all foreigners are unskilled

How many engineers and doctors are wading across the Rio Grande?

How many of these supposedly "gang banger illegal immigrants" being detained by ICE are here legally and not criminals?

I don't really care, and this isn't a valid retort.

Why should some be allowed to skip the line? If they are skilled, H-1B, O-1, etc. visas should be obtainable.

There's no implicit right to migrate wherever one chooses regardless of the laws of that country, sorry!

The right to travel is a basic human right, whether any particular government recognizes it or not. People have been migrating to make a better life for themselves since humans have existed. Your ancestors did it, my ancestors did it. Good luck sweeping back the tide.

> Good luck sweeping back the tide.

$170B should make a big dent! Southern border encounters are way down: I think it's working!

And how much do you think illegal immigration is costing tax payers for medical care in comparison?

Exactly, none. Illegal immigrants get no federal health care by law.

Dont bother, the user arguing doesnt care about laws, he cares about hurting immigrants for the sake that they're immigrants

Neither are any of your replies. Btw it's nearly. 70% are non-criminal and here legally. ICE's own data.

Criminality doesn't factor into my calculus at all: if you are here without status, you will be removed.

Criminal removals should be expedited, no doubt, but even visa overstays should be met with prompt deportation.

they're here with status and going to concentration camps

A popular technique is to conflate illegal immigrants with legal ones for the benefit of argument.

Removals of those with legal status should be corrected! I can simultaneously agree with you on this point and believe that all illegal immigrants should be removed! - this is actually the most fair and just solution to those who bothered to wait in line and follow the proper procedures!

> A popular technique is to conflate illegal immigrants with legal ones for the benefit of argument.

Yes, I'm not. The Administration is.

Removing people is cruel. I doubt most deserve it, in fact I know most don't. Deport the actual criminals, sure. That's not what is happening today.

Ideally there is no "line." Proper procedures should be easy. If people are crossing the rivers and crawling through razor wire to get here then the policies make it too hard to enter the country. There's also a good excuse of being afraid of authority. So if they did cross the border improperly (not a criminal offense, btw), I would still like to hear them out and get them documented. Fine them, like the law says.

> If people are crossing the rivers and crawling through razor wire to get here then the policies make it too hard to enter the country

This is an opinion.

> not a criminal offense, btw

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1325

You were saying?

> Fine them

The law also says "jail them" - let's just deport them and save the cash.

> Civil Penalty

Traffic ticket makes you a criminal? Deport you for speeding?

> The law also says "jail them" - let's just deport them

How about we follow the law. You're the one that cared so much about lawbreakers. Stop being cruel.

> Traffic ticket

Maybe read or ask an LLM to summarize part (a) for you? Civil penalties are in addition to the criminal ones - reading can be tough, I know.

why dont we just kill them instead of deporting them it's cheaper? since we dont care about laws

> not wanting to fund criminal enterprises using the tax dollars of hard-working Americans?

Please stick to the point and tell us - if this is your concern then why are you cheering on the large-scale openly criminal enterprise ? The total criminality and total cost of illegal (illegible!) immigrants is dwarfed by the current regime trashing our Constitution, trashing our economy, ballooning the debt, and trashing our standing as world leader, all to put our wealth in their own pockets. So please again, tell us, if this is really your actual concern why are you continuing to cheer support for the absolute worst offenders? Because they pointed at some outgroups and told you to distract yourself with them? Try having some self-respect.

Yawn. My concern goes far beyond monetary cost, given that political districts count illegal immigrants for purposes of representation (census) and that birthright citizenship exists.

By encouraging illegal immigration ("sanctuary cities"), you can "buy" depressed wages for the portion of society in need of the most help, House seats, electoral votes, and voters at the expense of the nation's citizenry at large.

You were narrowly driving focus on "tax dollars". I was referencing costs beyond the monetary - the corrosive effect on what had remained of the rule of law, and consequently on individual liberty. The fish rots from the head - you can't throw away these things while imagining such actions are necessary to save them.

> political districts count illegal immigrants for purposes of representation (census)

> you can "buy" depressed wages for portion of society in need of the most help, House seats, electoral votes

Your first sentence implies that the problem is representation of such areas going up. Your second sentence implies that the problem is representation of such areas is going down. Which is it? Because really, it feels like this is the minimally-defensible remnant of the nonsense trope that illegible immigrants are voting - essentially handwaving implying "bad people" are responsible for creating our bad outcomes, rather than the reality that our political candidates are a race to the bottom and that our government has become wholly bought by corporate interests (open season under Trump). Reassigning a few House seats is rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic - we're going to be paying for this Trumpist tantrum for decades, assuming we can even right the ship afterwards.

(also I will note that you have tacitly agreed that the current regime is a massive criminal enterprise stealing our "tax dollars" and accumulated national wealth)

I think you're making the mistake that any of their points are cogent or intended to function as proper arguments. It's just bullshit chaff to make you waste time, and provide a patina of legitimacy for the fact that they really just want the US to be an ethnostate and will adopt whatever policy stance is convenient to that end. Note how at the start they're complaining about tax-dollar spending, and then later in the thread they hit you with "My concern goes far beyond monetary cost, the problem is really [SOME_OTHER_BULLSHIT]". There's no consistency; it's just sound and fury, signifying nothing.

I am aware of this. I just don't see what else to do.

1. I actually believe in many of these lofty ideals that are being dishonestly abused by the fascists.

2. Discussing things in terms of abstract ideals is a Schelling point that at least creates a chance for people from disparate tribes to find common ground.

3. There are other people reading along that might be swayed by the disingenuous chaff standing unquestioned.

4. I'd say it's going too far to write off most people spouting this nonsense as fully consciously aware of a contradictory agenda they keep hidden. I'd say it's more like they bought into feel-good nonsense posed as opposition to the blue head of the authoritarian hydra, and then basically haven't examined it too hard. And I'd say much of the opposition groupthink framed in terms of directly clashing overt values doesn't help either. So I think it's valuable to point out the glaring hypocrisy even if many of them have learned to revel in it.

the last election speaks otherwise

> Americans don't want to expend their tax dollars on folks willing to break the law for financial gain.

Then why do they keep electing the lackeys of those people into office.

The American people are idiots.

You'll spend way more tax money to haul them across the border than you would to just print them a permit to live and work in the community they've been contributing to for years. Every study ever conducted on the issue has concluded that undocumented immigrants contribute far more to the economy than they consume in public welfare dollars. You've let the actual tax dollar parasites pawn the blame on a scapegoat because you're addicted to being angry.

> You'll spend way more tax money to haul them across the border than you would to just print them a permit to live and work in the community they've been contributing to for years

At the expense of legal immigrants who bothered to do it the right way.

Law enforcement isn't free, unfortunately.

> Every study ever conducted on the issue has concluded that undocumented immigrants contribute far more to the economy than they consume in public welfare dollars

Some of these studies exist for legal immigrants, cite the one making this case for illegals?

Do these "studies" account for second-order effects on housing, local job markets, etc.?

> Do these "studies" account for second-order effects on housing, local job markets, etc.?

Yes everything improves. Displaced workers find new jobs, markets and economies expand, etc. etc.

> At the expense of legal immigrants who bothered to do it the right way.

This is just nonsense, immigration isn't a zero-sum game.

> Some of these studies exist for legal immigrants, cite the one making this case for illegals?

Google it, I'm at work

edit: had a lull, here you go https://www.epi.org/publication/unauthorized-immigrants/

The money quote:

> If we examine just the net fiscal impact of unauthorized immigrants, even this is positive, despite the fact that lacking work authorization also means being trapped in low-wage work and being unable to adequately assert one’s labor and employment rights. A prime reason the net contribution is, nonetheless, positive is that many unauthorized immigrants pay income taxes and have Social Security taxes withheld yet are generally ineligible for government benefits and services.

> At the expense of legal immigrants who bothered to do it the right way.

How come it is at their expense? The end result is a growing economy which benefits everybody.

Some Americans. Trump won a plurality, not the majority vote, for those who bothered to vote. His approval rating is somewhere between 36% and 41% depending on the poll for the last several months. It's clear a decent number of the 77 million who voted for him didn't think he would behave the way he has in his 2nd term.

They didn't take Project 2025 or his alliance with the tech bros seriously. They didn't listen to former Trump officials who warned a second term would be a revenge tour and he would surround himself with loyalists and sycophants without anyone to hold his worst impulses in check. They didn't realize people like Stephen Miller would have such influence over his decisions. They didn't believe that Trump had such disregard for the rule of law and would actually prefer to rule like a king.

But people have been waking up to the new reality. Even some MAGA like MTG and podcasters like Rogan.

Just a reminder that DHS just posted on Twitter for the holidays about how much of a paradise the US will be after 100 million "deportations".

And that we don't have close to 100 million immigrants.

That the "kavanaugh stop" allows them to detain you on he basis of skin color or accent.

And that a driver's license with Real ID is no longer sufficient "papers".

That would be implementing remigration, meaning deport all the non-white folks. Never mind that whites are immigrants too and aren't indigenous to the Americas.

I don't understand how the American public allows this administration to get away with half the shit it says and does. Every week is a new scandal.

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