3 ms·
I'm playing around with a thought experiment in my head and would like your opinions. Considering this topic in comparison to getting a warrant for a criminal'
by Consultant32452 9y ago
I'm playing around with a thought experiment in my head and would like your opinions. Considering this topic in comparison to getting a warrant for a criminal's cell phone location. Here's some considerations:
1. What is the status of an illegal immigrant who might get queried? There's two categories of illegal aliens. The first is unlawful entry (people hopping the border), this is a crime. Then there's unlawful presence, or outstaying your visa, this is a civil infraction. If ICE knows enough about this person to specifically query this database for them, surely there must be a bench warrant or something? I genuinely don't know this.
2. Unlike the cell phone location warrant, it appears this will not require a warrant. This to me is THE problem. If they were required to get a separate warrant for every query, then I would likely not have much concern.
3. ICE is not creating a database itself, but purchasing the ability to query commercially available data. This distinction possibly matters legally. Does it matter ethically?