ICE tells legal observer, 'We have a database, now you're a domestic terrorist' | Hacker News Reader

ICE tells legal observer, 'We have a database, now you're a domestic terrorist'

reason.com

179 pointsheavyset_go24 comments

We know what's next after this: they start using intel to blackmail activists into silence. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO) Worked for the SS, worked for the KGB, worked for the FBI, it'll work for ICE.

Just wait until they switch us to the deutchemark.

Bitcoin doesn't work properly without power or network access extending over days though.

Blackmail them with what? It's the ICE agents who are wearing masks, because they know their life will be ruined once people discover who they are and what they've been up to.

Dig into their past, find indiscretions they can lean on. When you can't win the argument, discredit the messenger.

Even if a person has no indiscretions, everyone has a weak point. A significant other, child, friend, job, boss, bank, etc.

It's even easier today, as it doesn't even need to be true. Most people don't care about the aftermath, just about the headline.

Everyone is guilty, we just haven't proven it yet.

> Blackmail them with what?

With murder or deportation or harassment.

Sure, but then why do they have to wait? ICE agents who want to threaten legal observers can just do it to their faces - as we've seen, even if they murder legal observers the Trump regime will have their back. I think most don't want to do that, whether out of cowardice or an understanding of what's coming once their leaders are brought to justice.

But there aren't that many of them. But if you make the populace afraid in advance, that's cheaper than deploying a batch of goons to every major city.

They are continuously moving the goalpost. They don't know themselves what they are gonna get away with for the time being. But they will iterate themselves to whatever is the line - or don't stop if there isn't any.

so extortion, not blackmail

Folks in tech built that for them knowing the purpose.

And those people have no qualms about doing so. We all know this. It's not like it was built in a skunk works type of back room of some unnamed branch of the gov't agencies. The conversations about the use of these tools have been ongoing for a long time.

Your comment reads as if you're trying to imply some sort of shame on those that built it. I'm guessing that instead of shame, pride is being felt on their part in the play.

We’ve seen it documented before that they do indeed have a facial recognition database. Good news is it doesn’t seem all that reliable so who knows who is being labelled.

https://huggingface.co/papers/2508.18265

Link saved for posterity:

https://reason.com/2026/01/23/ice-tells-legal-observer-we-ha...

Anyone else remember the Lerna.js license drama 8 years ago?

https://github.com/lerna/lerna/pull/1616

The right complains that "fascist" gets thrown around on by the left so much the terms loses meaning, but soon you'll be able to say the same about "domestic terrorist".

This has been a tough nut to crack, conversationally. My strategy lately has been to flip tue script: Do you think Fascism is bad? How do you define it? What would Trump need to do for you to consider him a fascist.

Its interesting to see at what point and how people try to wiggle out. Its a fun one because common counters of eg "Biden is a communist" are so easy to disassemble, ie im happy to define communist, agree it would be bad, agree we should fight against it, provide specific examples of things Biden could do to fit a communist description, etc.

It helps so far to help the right at least admit to their biased world view. not change it, but at least sort of see it.

Colonialism is finally coming back home?

Who is a "terrorist" in the eyes of the US gov't has always been their political enemies, never themselves or their allies.

At this point, it's simply an empty accusation that has been so ingrained into the American psychy over generations, that it can cheaply be used to justify incredible violence against enemies of the state. Even justify invading entire countries even on faked evidence, remember the "war on terror", "weapons of mass destruction", calling Maduro a "narcoterrorist"? It's a term of propaganda, same as it ever was. Only difference now is it's more obvious as this administration doesn't seem to care if the mask is slipping.

Calling foreign governments or own citizen 'terrorist' has always been two very different stories.

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