4 ms·

Someone always makes this comment every time illegal immigration is mentioned as if the law is the final word on what is just. And then they’ll complain about s

Someone always makes this comment every time illegal immigration is mentioned as if the law is the final word on what is just. And then they’ll complain about someone going to prison for being a whistleblower or pirating movies or cheer on the protestors in Hong Kong.

anilakar 7y ago
Where I live, work permits are so easy (or automatic through the virtue of being in Schengen area) to get that illegal immigration basically does not exist, so the whole idea is vague at best to me.
- learc83 7y ago
  Where in the Schengen area does illegal immigration basically not exist?
  - gdhbcc 7y ago
    Vatican for example
    - cco 7y ago
      Are they in the Schengen? A quick Google says no, but maybe it is somehow inherited from Italy?
      - hk__2 7y ago
        They aren’t in the Schengen area but they have open borders with Italy, which itself is in the Schengen area. Schengen or not, it doesn’t really make sense to talk about immigration in the Vatican since there’s no nationality and the Vatican can’t even issue visas.
  - TomMarius 7y ago
    Czech Republic
- angry_octet 7y ago
  If you are in Europe, how can you not be aware of undocumented refugees from North Africa and Syria? What you are saying is completely delusional.
  - martin_a 7y ago
    And how would those be identified by a facial recognition system? I don't see your point here.
    - angry_octet 7y ago
      Well, it would be technically challenging, but it's where people surveillance is going. There are several versions of the problem: 1- For face f, is f a member of F_known? (From national ID cards etc.) Assume this gives an answer [0.0 - 1.0]. 2- Is f a member of F_suspect? Where F_suspect is a database of face imagery associated with potentially illegal activity or refugee migration. Not that these faces could be from video surveillance (from a border region, train station, migrant camp) or scraped from war zone images e.g. jihadi propaganda, YouTube video of regime critics, talking politics on HN, video of protests in other countries, etc. 3- Not matching anything, and hence also requiring investigation. All of these have errors, which generally go up as more people are added to the training database. Apparently some ethnicities (okay, black people) are often trained for poorly. This will likely result in 'over-servicing' of some ethnicities. If local police get a hit for someone going through festival security and detain them on the basis of face recognition software, what is the legal basis for that? Police would say that they had 'intelligence' but can they explain the basis for it? Is this not essentially maintaining dossiers on people who have not committed any crime? They have no evidence a crime has been committed but instead they are essentially running a police checkpoint and saying "Papers!". These are the mechanisms of the Stasi. One can argue that police should be able to detain those with outstanding warrants. I have no problem with that, except that when police take photos of citizens it is hard to know what is done with those photos. Ironclad legislation requiring they not leave the device or be stored on anything except ephemeral storage would be a good start, along with civil and criminal penalties for non compliance and direct individual responsibility and penalties for the chain of command. Without a rigorous push back, America will become like China and the UK, where your face must be shown, and it will be recorded and tracked 24/7. Of course in America it will probably be via a company, and police forces will have a subscription, which lowers their fees the more faces the capture.
- empath75 7y ago
  That is not the case in the us, and moreover there are people who have lived in the us since they were babies or small children, and have families and careers or even served in the military who are still at risk of deportation to country they don’t remember and where they don’t even speak the language well or at all.
luqmanbadar 7y ago
You are absolutly right
infinitezest 7y ago
I didn't see anything in OP's comment about whistleblowers, pirating or HK.
- paganel 7y ago
  Saying that people should go to prison because they happen to illegally be in a country that’s not theirs is in the same realm of bad things as what the mainland Chinese are trying to do now in HK.
  - taxidump 7y ago
    Illegal immigrants are not sent to prison unless they committed additional crimes, usually they are deported and sent back to their respective countries.
    - jjeaff 7y ago
      Right. Not prison ... "detention centers". In which they will be held against their will sometimes for months or years and at times with even fewer rights than a traditional prisoner might get.
      - empath75 7y ago
        With their infant children.
otterley 7y ago
Perhaps existing law isn’t perfect, but ignoring it isn’t an answer to it; otherwise there’d be no point in having any laws at all. Our laws are supposed to codify what we collectively believe are the boundaries of individual and collective action for the common good. And we have constitutional means to change them when we conclude we need to do so. If you want to practice civil disobedience, it can sometimes effectuate change, but it doesn’t always work — especially not immediately — and you have to be willing to be punished in the meantime.
BurningFrog 7y ago
The proposal here is to make a new law. When people argue both that laws are bad, and we need a new law to improve society, I wonder if they're really thought things through.

anilakar 7y ago

Where I live, work permits are so easy (or automatic through the virtue of being in Schengen area) to get that illegal immigration basically does not exist, so the whole idea is vague at best to me.

learc83 7y ago
Where in the Schengen area does illegal immigration basically not exist?
- gdhbcc 7y ago
  Vatican for example
  - cco 7y ago
    Are they in the Schengen? A quick Google says no, but maybe it is somehow inherited from Italy?
    - hk__2 7y ago
      They aren’t in the Schengen area but they have open borders with Italy, which itself is in the Schengen area. Schengen or not, it doesn’t really make sense to talk about immigration in the Vatican since there’s no nationality and the Vatican can’t even issue visas.
- TomMarius 7y ago
  Czech Republic
angry_octet 7y ago
If you are in Europe, how can you not be aware of undocumented refugees from North Africa and Syria? What you are saying is completely delusional.
- martin_a 7y ago
  And how would those be identified by a facial recognition system? I don't see your point here.
  - angry_octet 7y ago
    Well, it would be technically challenging, but it's where people surveillance is going. There are several versions of the problem: 1- For face f, is f a member of F_known? (From national ID cards etc.) Assume this gives an answer [0.0 - 1.0]. 2- Is f a member of F_suspect? Where F_suspect is a database of face imagery associated with potentially illegal activity or refugee migration. Not that these faces could be from video surveillance (from a border region, train station, migrant camp) or scraped from war zone images e.g. jihadi propaganda, YouTube video of regime critics, talking politics on HN, video of protests in other countries, etc. 3- Not matching anything, and hence also requiring investigation. All of these have errors, which generally go up as more people are added to the training database. Apparently some ethnicities (okay, black people) are often trained for poorly. This will likely result in 'over-servicing' of some ethnicities. If local police get a hit for someone going through festival security and detain them on the basis of face recognition software, what is the legal basis for that? Police would say that they had 'intelligence' but can they explain the basis for it? Is this not essentially maintaining dossiers on people who have not committed any crime? They have no evidence a crime has been committed but instead they are essentially running a police checkpoint and saying "Papers!". These are the mechanisms of the Stasi. One can argue that police should be able to detain those with outstanding warrants. I have no problem with that, except that when police take photos of citizens it is hard to know what is done with those photos. Ironclad legislation requiring they not leave the device or be stored on anything except ephemeral storage would be a good start, along with civil and criminal penalties for non compliance and direct individual responsibility and penalties for the chain of command. Without a rigorous push back, America will become like China and the UK, where your face must be shown, and it will be recorded and tracked 24/7. Of course in America it will probably be via a company, and police forces will have a subscription, which lowers their fees the more faces the capture.
empath75 7y ago
That is not the case in the us, and moreover there are people who have lived in the us since they were babies or small children, and have families and careers or even served in the military who are still at risk of deportation to country they don’t remember and where they don’t even speak the language well or at all.

luqmanbadar 7y ago

You are absolutly right

infinitezest 7y ago

I didn't see anything in OP's comment about whistleblowers, pirating or HK.

paganel 7y ago
Saying that people should go to prison because they happen to illegally be in a country that’s not theirs is in the same realm of bad things as what the mainland Chinese are trying to do now in HK.
- taxidump 7y ago
  Illegal immigrants are not sent to prison unless they committed additional crimes, usually they are deported and sent back to their respective countries.
  - jjeaff 7y ago
    Right. Not prison ... "detention centers". In which they will be held against their will sometimes for months or years and at times with even fewer rights than a traditional prisoner might get.
    - empath75 7y ago
      With their infant children.

otterley 7y ago

Perhaps existing law isn’t perfect, but ignoring it isn’t an answer to it; otherwise there’d be no point in having any laws at all. Our laws are supposed to codify what we collectively believe are the boundaries of individual and collective action for the common good. And we have constitutional means to change them when we conclude we need to do so. If you want to practice civil disobedience, it can sometimes effectuate change, but it doesn’t always work — especially not immediately — and you have to be willing to be punished in the meantime.

BurningFrog 7y ago

The proposal here is to make a new law. When people argue both that laws are bad, and we need a new law to improve society, I wonder if they're really thought things through.