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ICE is getting unprecedented access to Medicaid data
- commiefornia 1y ago[dead]
- duxup 1y agoThis just seems like a power grab to empower federal level personal thugs for the executive branch. Most of these departments have rules about how they use our data. ICE now gobbles it all up and can use it without rules by a department that operates with little regard and lots of exceptions to typical protections for citizens afforded by the constitution. The majority in SCOTUS does not seem to care (it’s ok as long as their guy does it). Whatever rules we thought there were seem to be out the window because someone magically moved data or ICE got to do it or so on ...
- micromacrofoot 1y agoIndeed seems this way. Also consider the recent budget bill increased ICE's budget 3X and it's now more funded than the entire federal prison system. This is roughly on the level of post Pearl Harbor internement of Japanese people, with potential to grow larger.
- strnjrloops 1y ago[dead]
- wlesieutre 1y agoGetting access to Medicaid data for public health research is a giant pain in the ass with layers upon layers of red tape and IRBs and training about how you are allowed to handle it.
- fnordpiglet 1y agoOnly if it’s done in compliance. There was been little to show this administration follows the constitution, laws, or judicial orders let alone regulation. Especially when it comes to Stephen Miller there’s a significant “move fast and break the law” effort knowing judicial or legislative remedy can take a long time and is not assured given the penetration of captured justices and congressional independence. Especially in something like this where you have to establish standing, do discovery, etc, it’s an uphill battle to ensure compliance and the out of compliance stuff happens behind closed doors. With most of the federal government oversight functions either gutted or entirely captured by politically partisan sycophants, I would not hold my breath expecting any boundaries or relief. This is what a real deep state looks like. “He who smelt it dealt it” seems to be a natural law.
- wlesieutre 1y agoYes, I am assuming that ICE is not being held to the same (or any) standards and this is a real heap of bullshit
- nonethewiser 1y ago>Getting access to Medicaid data for public health research is a giant pain in the ass with layers upon layers of red tape and IRBs and training about how you are allowed to handle it. Can you contextualize this comment? Are you saying it shouldnt be so difficult? Or that the government should have to jump through the same hoops? Or?
- wlesieutre 1y agoSee previous reply to sibling comment
- dmix 1y ago> lots of exceptions to typical protections for citizens afforded by the constitution Almost the entire US constitution applies to non-citizens in the country, with some small exceptions like voting and holding public office.
- phkahler 1y agoSince medicade wasn't established by the constitution, how do resident aliens get coverage? Maybe they do, maybe they don't. I'd like to know.
- wombatpm 1y agoIf you want to go back to people dying in the streets because they are poor I guess that’s OK. But at some point it affects the health of everyone.
- aceazzameen 1y agoThey also pay US taxes. They should benefit from those taxes like everyone else.
- phkahler 1y agoSome do.
- const_cast 1y agoIf we're talking about federal Medicaid, no, they don't. That's citizens only. Some states like California extend the benefits of medicaid - but that's done with state funds. That's a states rights issue, not a federal issue.
- TimorousBestie 1y agoYou’re technically correct, but in the last few decades a great deal of legal scholarship has gone into convincing the relevant parties that this isn’t so.
- Joeri 1y ago(it’s ok as long as their guy does it) You put that between parentheses as if it was just a detail, but it is the fundamental question that nobody is talking about: what happens after their guy is gone? Are they really ok with president AOC getting all of Trump’s powers? Or do they secretly hope democracy in the U.S. comes to a halt?
- moogly 1y ago> Or do they secretly hope democracy in the U.S. comes to a halt? Hope? They're working on it. And they're not being particularly secretive about it.
- jpadkins 1y agocan you share some of these plans to halt democracy?
- input_sh 1y agoSure thing! If you go to Trump's official store (ridiculous statement on its own for a sitting president), you'll find a whole lot of "Trump 2028" merch. I personally can't think of many ways to be more blatant than that.
- jpadkins 1y agoIt's a joke to upset progs and commies. Looks like it is working as intended.
- TheOtherHobbes 1y ago[flagged]
- jahewson 1y ago[flagged]
- 1y ago
- cosmicgadget 1y ago> The majority in SCOTUS does not seem to care Well plain 'rules' are going to be firmly within the executive's discretion to change. So what you need is statutes. Statutes might not help much though, due to the immunity/pardon hack. And we may even be seeing SCOTUS reexamine if the president is bound by statute. This is fine.
- michael1999 1y agoI think HIPAA always had a carve-out for LE. Trump is lawless, but this might not be. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44606965 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44606965
- onlyrealcuzzo 1y ago> The majority in SCOTUS does not seem to care (it’s ok as long as their guy does it). I doubt they'd care if a democratic president wanted to do the exact same thing... Their job isn't to be benevolent. Their job is to determine what is ACCORDING to the laws. The reality is, many legal protections only apply to US citizens - and it is EXPLICITLY for these reasons that they do. The Privacy Act of 1974 applies only to citizens. The Patriot Act opened up a can of worms ripe for abuse that will probably never be sealed. The executive branch can almost get away with murder by saying, "Well, we thought they were a terrorist, so..." Which does appear to be the defense they're trying to set up, saying anyone in any, way, shape or form related to Mexican gangs is a terrorist. The Supreme Court doesn't really seem to be exceptionally awful. They're obviously bias, and have been for a very long time, if you look at how they vote. But the larger problem is that we have bad laws. It's not the Supreme Court's job to override laws passed by congress because they're terrible or anti-American. It's our job as voters to start caring about what matters.
- jewayne 1y ago> I doubt they'd care if a democratic president wanted to do the exact same thing... Of course they would. They literally blocked Biden's student loan relief, calling it unconstitutional. These people are not there because they are exceptional legal scholars or because they established themselves as outstanding judges in their previous appointments. The six majority justices are there to help their side wield power, pure and simple. And they understand that part of that job is making it difficult for the other side to wield power. Because only their side is legitimate, you see. > The Supreme Court doesn't really seem to be exceptionally awful. The are exceptionally, extremely, extraordinarily awful. When the DC circuit court ruled on presidential immunity, legal scholars across the land pointed to the ruling as the probable last word, given how sterling the ruling was. Many were shocked that the Supreme Court even took the case up afterward. After all, what more was there to say? To have the SCOTUS overrule two centuries of established precedent in making the entire Executive branch above criminal law shocked just about everyone - this entirely for the purpose of keeping a single man out of jail. > It's not the Supreme Court's job to override laws passed by congress because they're terrible or anti-American. That is exactly their job, if said laws are unconstitutional.
- lr4444lr 1y ago> Most of these departments have rules about how they use our data Yes, but law enforcement agencies can typically be granted access for investigations, so long as the information is used only for such investigations. This is how CSAM distributors are hunted down. They don't literally need to amass evidence for each and every suspect and then get a warrant: they have a legally recognized enforcement directive, and so can perform surveillance of information sources where that people breaking those laws can be caught. Or in this case, they may have imperfect information on a variety of actual suspects, but not enough to find them or build a case. Medicaid data may provide those clues.
- loourr 1y agoThe inevitable end of all government compiled lists of people
- mlinhares 1y agoIts the other way around, authoritarian governments will now compile even more and larger lists of everything they can possibly get from their citizens. North Korea would be proud of what this administration is doing.
- bl0b 1y agoI think they meant 'end' as in the 'ultimate destination' rather than 'conclusion'.
- skybrian 1y agoTrump getting elected wasn’t inevitable. There were unusual events during the 2016 election campaign that could have resulted in a different outcome if their timing had been different.
- giantg2 1y agoWhat they're saying is that government lists get abused. That's true no matter who is in power.
- leptons 1y agoSorry but both sides are not the same.
- ilikecakeandpie 1y agoYep. Anyone saying that they are is being intellectually dishonest and likely trying to feel better about doing nothing
- orthecreedence 1y ago
- dfilppi 1y ago[dead]
- kevingadd 1y agoI don't understand why ICE would need access to Medicaid data. You need to be a citizen or lawful permanent resident to access that program, not to mention all the other additional criteria. The idea of illegal immigrants somehow bypassing all the checks and balances successfully en masse feels a little silly to me. Just a quick check of the official website to try and get onto Medicaid in WA state shows that it requires a social security number and citizenship information: https://www.wahealthplanfinder.org/us/en/health-coverage/get-started/steps-apply.html https://www.wahealthplanfinder.org/us/en/health-coverage/get...
- joshuaheard 1y ago[flagged]
- ktallett 1y agoWhat bastards?! How dare they help keep those migrants that are essential for many key jobs in the US healthy?!
- jvanderbot 1y agoOnly an uncharitable reading of GP would find some implication that this is wrong (or right). Just impartial commenting on how benefits are indeed available to non-citizens.
- netsharc 1y agoHim using the word "illegal" makes me doubt the impartiality... To play language cop, "undocumented" would be more neutral...
- burningChrome 1y agoLegally speaking, if you enter the country without entering through a port of entry? That is actually ILLEGAL. Therefore, its not a stretch to use the word "ILLEGAL ALIEN". Just for reference: 8 U.S. Code § 1325 - Improper entry by alien Improper time or place; avoidance of examination or inspection; misrepresentation and concealment of facts Any alien who (1) enters or attempts to enter the United States at any time or place other than as designated by immigration officers, or (2) eludes examination or inspection by immigration officers, or (3) attempts to enter or obtains entry to the United States by a willfully false or misleading representation or the willful concealment of a material fact, shall, for the first commission of any such offense, be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than 6 months, or both, and, for a subsequent commission of any such offense, be fined under title 18, or imprisoned not more than 2 years, or both.
- cheesehands 1y ago[flagged]
- ktallett 1y agoYou may be on the wrong side here.
- cheesehands 1y agoThe current administration won the national, popular vote.
- saubeidl 1y agoThe Nazi Party also came to power through democratic means.
- ktallett 1y agoThe popular vote doesn't mean right.
- cheesehands 1y agoWhat does? The word of God? Your opinion? Please share.
- ktallett 1y agoLet's not bring religion into it, but I am sure you are aware of leaders who were voted in that were/are unsuccessful or made horrific decisions or choices. Israel right now have leaders that wish to wipe out another group of people entirely, it doesn't make them right because they won the popular vote.
- const_cast 1y agoIn this scenario, very basic human decency and a simple understanding of cause and effect. Will this have the consequences you hope for? Probably not. This isn't going to save anyone any money, and I don't think you have to be Albert Einstein to deduce that. Sometimes you're just... wrong, and that's that.
- monero-xmr 1y ago[flagged]
- jepj57 1y ago[flagged]
- mlinhares 1y agoMost of the time when you submit paperwork for someone that is applying for a VISA here you'll provide information from a citizen/permanent resident, so they likely want to find the person that helped/sponsored your paperwork so they can get to you. Might be a good way to find bogus Medicaid fraud and strip you from your permanent residency or citizenship or just say you're abetting a criminal (someone living here illegaly), there are plenty of uses for this data if you're evil enough.
- buckle8017 1y agoWell you gotta be a citizen for Medicaid, so they shouldn't find anything interesting. Right? /s
- lcfcjs6 1y ago[dead]
- ch4s3 1y agoStates can have supplements for non-citizens that don't use federal dollars and several do.
- buckle8017 1y agoNobody believes those programs isolate state and federal funds effectively. At the very least they're using federal funds for administrative costs.
- hcurtiss 1y agoIt’s not all state dollars though. There’s a Medicaid match for ACA expansion populations. The OBBB reduces that match by 10% for states that expanded the population to include unauthorized immigrants. In Oregon, to maintain that program Oregonians are going to have to pony up hundreds of millions more per year. Much of the country is fine with that.
- cosmicgadget 1y agoOh good, so they are raiding databases that predominatly contain personal information on people they aren't looking for.
- adgjlsfhk1 1y agoFrom TFA: > Medicaid, state and federally government-funded health care coverage for the country’s poorest, is largely available only to some non-citizens, including refugees and asylum seekers, survivors of human trafficking, and permanent residents. Some states, like New York, provide Medicaid coverage for children and pregnant people, regardless of their immigration status. States report their Medicaid expenditures and data to the federal government, which reimburses them for some of the costs. The Trump admin is aggressively deporting refugees and asylum seekers who entered legally.
- ktallett 1y agoNo government agency should get access to any private data without the appropriate protocols in place. Even more so considering the many issues surrounding ICE and their actions already, this will not improve things. Let alone the moral problem of trying to deport people which have been used by American companies for cheap labour to build the nation they want and supposedly are. Now of course that is ignoring the ludicrous view that undocumented migrants are the key issue, as opposed to so many other home made issues in the US, such as unfair wealth disparity, and a lack of fundamental basic rights for citizens.
- apwell23 1y ago[flagged]
- Aurornis 1y ago> unprecedented does't necessarily mean illegal or nefarious. Right, it means at a new level which has never been seen before. Which is accurate. The headline didn’t claim illegal nor nefarious. The headline is accurate in a literal sense.
- apwell23 1y agoyes but top 2 comments are this > ICE now gobbles it all up and can use it without rules > No government agency should get access to any private data without the appropriate protocols in place. And my own comment above is downvoted for some reason.
- kccoder 1y ago> And my own comment above is downvoted for some reason. Perhaps because you're defending, and assuming good faith behavior, from an organization which is committing violations against your fellow man on a daily basis?
- apwell23 1y agoi was going to respond to your comment but then i saw your comment history. yikes.
- anigbrowl 1y agoProbably because it was hypocritical. Conservative media is 99% ragebait, and when it comes to illegal immigration it's 99.9 ragebait, as are many public statements by the administration. Consider, for example, the regular claims that the US is being 'invaded' as if this were some military emergency.
- apwell23 1y ago
- jasonlotito 1y agoThe amount of precedent being set here for big government and overreach is amazing. I'm not really surprised though that Conservatives and other small/limited governemnt people worked to enact this massive overreach of power.
- sumeno 1y agoThe GOP is not a party of small/limited government people. It's a party of people who want absolute control and use the language of small/limited government to gain power.
- gosub100 1y agoBoth parties are the same. Democrats want to make it illegal to protect myself from a violent attacker, enact legislation designed to block poor people from starting businesses, buy votes by promising handouts. They are both filthy and dirty and serve corporations.
- kashunstva 1y ago> Both parties are the same. That is absolutely not true. They occupy very different philosophical spaces and have very different proclivities for extrajudicial acts. > Democrats … buy votes by promising handouts Didn’t Mr. Musk do something akin to this in Wisconsin? > Democrats want to make it illegal to protect myself from a violent attacker. I couldn’t speak for every elected Democrat but few, if any, stake out a position anywhere close to what you wrote.
- ted_bunny 1y agoThey still function as Good and Bad Cop for capital in a lot of ways.
- micromacrofoot 1y agoThey're both status quo loving elites, but to say they're both the same is complete nonsense. The scale of these ICE camps is something we haven't seen for nearly 100 years. The level of access given to Musk and DOGE is absolutely disgusting. The storming of the Capitol was embarrassing.
- ck2 1y agoImagine 7000 people per day being "disappeared" for the next 1200 days (peak covid was 3000 deaths per day) This country is going to get really horrific, really really fast https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/gop-gives-ice-massive-budget-increase-to-expand-trumps-deportation-effort https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/gop-gives-ice-massive-budg... > Tom Homan, as well as Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller have made very clear that they intend on spending the billions in this bill. Tom Homan said this week that they want to arrest 7,000 people every day for the remainder of the administration
- marcusverus 1y ago[flagged]
- saubeidl 1y agoMay I familiarize you with the Madagascar Plan? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madagascar_Plan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madagascar_Plan The Nazis were claiming they'd deport the Jews at first. It never goes directly to death camps, it's baby steps of normalization. > "But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes. That’s the difficulty. If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked—if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in ’43 had come immediately after the ‘German Firm’ stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in ’33. But of course this isn’t the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D. - Milton Meyer, They Thought They Were Free - The Germans, 1933 - 1945
- ck2 1y agoThe "one neat trick" the Nazis did was first declaring all Jews illegal immigrants that was what opened to door to every creeping horror next then they took away healthcare because they were illegal immigrants then they took away the right to have jobs because... they they limited where they could exist/shop/times of day in public because... THEN they got to the concentration-camps THEN they got to "well too many and bullets are too expensive/tedious, let's build gas ovens" All it takes is "othering" a group of people by any characteristic and the majority of the rest of the population says "well that's not me so not worried" Right now in America there thousands of people WITH GREEN CARDS (legal status) sitting in our concentration-camps, no criminal records, and they will be there for several months awaiting hearings before being deported. Then you've got the teenage kids who have never lived in any other country that are being held in our concentration-camps and will be deported? To where?
- burningChrome 1y ago[flagged]
- saubeidl 1y agoNot one of those agencies is disappearing people in broad daylight while being masked to hide their identities.
- standardUser 1y agoNo, "panic" is what you feel when the American Gestapo tosses aside your Real ID and throws you in a basement without access to a lawyer.
- burningChrome 1y ago[flagged]
- ypeterholmes 1y agoThey have already detained many citizens. They are not following our standard laws.
- xdennis 1y agoWhen you slash the tires of an ICE vehicle, it doesn't matter if you're a citizen or not, you'll get arrested.
- orthecreedence 1y agoYou mean unmarked vans, driven by plainclothes people with face coverings and no badges? How is anyone to know it's an ICE vehicle and not some random kidnapping, you donkey?
- anigbrowl 1y agoNice well-poisoning, would roll eyes again
- diamond559 1y agoYou still think this is just about immigrants? They are coming for the dissenters next, they will just make excuses as to why.
- hcurtiss 1y agoWhat evidence do you have to believe that’s true?
- throwawaymaroon 1y ago[dead]
- pksebben 1y agothe 1950s comes to mind...
- mrexroad 1y ago… and 2/19/1942. Two thirds of those required to report to camps for internment, per the Executive Order, were US citizens.
- jahewson 1y agoThat was a Democrat president.
- tumsfestival 1y agoWho cares. Doesn't matter who did it, it matters that it happened and you're about to commit the same mistakes again. It matters that you let this slide just because he's your guy.
- pksebben 1y agoFor real. I feel like we need a PSA about how many of us aren't supporters of the opposition just because we don't like 'your guy'. Ronald Reagan was a trash goblin who destroyed our economy to enrich the wealthy. So was Bill Clinton. George Bush was a war criminal who indiscriminately bombed brown people. So was Obama. Hillary Clinton was a huckster con artist who worked for her wealthy friends. So is Trump. Your dichotomy is a trap. There are no good guys because the system itself is rigged in favor of militaristic capitalist oligarchs, which is the actual problem.
- michael1999 1y agoThis sounded like a straight-forward HIPAA violation, but I checked. There's a carve out for LE. You can see the bones of a stronger limit during drafting (as "required" by warrants), but then weakened to allow mere "administrative requests". > Law Enforcement Purposes. Covered entities may disclose protected health information to law enforcement officials for law enforcement purposes under the following six circumstances, and subject to specified conditions: (1) as required by law (including court orders, court-ordered warrants, subpoenas) and administrative requests; (2) to identify or locate a suspect, fugitive, material witness, or missing person; (3) in response to a law enforcement official's request for information about a victim or suspected victim of a crime; (4) to alert law enforcement of a person's death, if the covered entity suspects that criminal activity caused the death; (5) when a covered entity believes that protected health information is evidence of a crime that occurred on its premises; and (6) by a covered health care provider in a medical emergency not occurring on its premises, when necessary to inform law enforcement about the commission and nature of a crime, the location of the crime or crime victims, and the perpetrator of the crime. https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/privacy/laws-regulations/index.html#:~:text=Law%20Enforcement%20Purposes https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/privacy/laws-reg...
- adolph 1y agoAdditionally from the article the data seems limited to identification information and not medical information. Language in the agreement says it will allow ICE to access personal information such as home addresses, phone numbers, IP addresses, banking data, and social security numbers. (Later on in the agreement, what ICE is allowed to access is defined differently, specifying just “Medicaid recipients” and their sex, ethnicity, and race but forgoing any mention of IP or banking data.) The agreement is set to last two months. While the document is dated July 9, it is only effective starting when both parties sign it, which would indicate a 60-day span from July 15 to September 15.
- michael1999 1y agoThat doesn't really help. HIPAA covers anything personally identifiable while held by a covered entity. Their only cover is the LE exception. Just think: If I "only" steal names and address from the psych ward, that's still a breach.
- tracker1 1y ago[flagged]
- tastyfreeze 1y agoThat is the danger of central data collection. I know we like to pretend that federal departments are discrete units. At the end of the day the federal government owns the data. No subpoena needed if your boss already owns the data. You just have to ask nicely.
- autoexec 1y agoThe problem is even worse when that data is in private hands. One of the most common ways the government gets data they couldn't justify subpoenaing themselves is to simply hand over cash to corporations who have already collected that data for other uses. for example: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/08/how-law-enforcement-around-country-buys-cell-phone-location-data-wholesale https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/08/how-law-enforcement-ar...
- nonethewiser 1y agoI've never thought that controls prevented centralizing all our data, but incompetence and just bureaucratic bloat. We are very, very far away from a state where the government doesn't know all about you. Im not sure what we should do about that fact. Im not simply arguing for an inevitable erosion of privacy on one end or soveriegn citizenship, for example, on the other. It's just that you would have to rewind way back. Social security, income taxes, etc.
- udev4096 1y ago[flagged]
- bigyabai 1y ago[This user's PornHub watch history has now been uploaded to pastebin]
- neonate 1y agohttps://web.archive.org/web/20250718155208/https://www.wired.com/story/ice-access-medicaid-data/ https://web.archive.org/web/20250718155208/https://www.wired... https://archive.ph/a9KaW https://archive.ph/a9KaW
- thr0waway001 1y agoIn what world is this not overreach for ICE? It is positively authoritarian. You just know this goes beyond illegal immigrants. This is some Gestapo shit right there.
- nonethewiser 1y agoThe article states that the agreement claims compliance with a 2019 System of Records Notice, which it says allows the data to be used "to assist another federal or state agency." The article notes that a former information security lead from the VA says the SORN needs to be updated for this specific ICE/CMS agreement and has not been. Clearly that fact is a disputed. The ACLU argues that the sharing is only allowed if it contributes to the accuracy of Medicare or Medicaid, administers a federal health benefits program, or is necessary to implement a federally funded health benefits program. Im not sure if this it true (sharing only allowed in these cases) but if so it seems reasonable that detecting fraud would contribute to the accuracy and integrity of Medicaid. Furthermore, ICE does administer a federal health benefits program (IHSC [1]), so the basis for the ACLU's objection really seems unfounded, although the administration doesnt cite this basis and is quite upfront that its about identifying illegal aliens. [1] https://www.ice.gov/detain/ice-health-service-corps https://www.ice.gov/detain/ice-health-service-corps
- jahewson 1y agoThe Gestapo murdered millions. Please don’t throw around such callous and ignorant insults.
- 1y ago
- OrvalWintermute 1y ago[flagged]
- nozzlegear 1y ago"Illegals" can't use full Medicaid, they can only receive emergency care which hospitals are required to give by law. That's what that $4.5B figure is – emergency care, labor, delivery, etc. Furthermore, undocumented immigrants pay billions in taxes each year, including the payroll taxes that fund Medicaid and Medicare. Taxpayers aren't on the hook, because these immigrants are already paying in for services they can't even use.
- OrvalWintermute 1y agoMedicaid & Medicare Fraud is a big deal. https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/09/how-medicare-and-medicaid-fraud-became-a-100b-problem-for-the-us.html https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/09/how-medicare-and-medicaid-fr...
- anigbrowl 1y agoYou know most of that is committed domestically, yes? Here's a famous example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Scott#Fraud_investigation_and_settlement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Scott#Fraud_investigation... The CEO of the company that committed this record-setting fraud became governor of Florida and is now a US Senator.
- jahewson 1y agoSo they can use (expensive) emergency care but also they are paying for (cheap) services they can’t even use? That’s some interesting logic. Clearly they can and do use some of these services.
- nozzlegear 1y agoI'd wager that long-term care such as chemotherapy is much more expensive than one-off emergency services like broken legs or going into labor. > That’s some interesting logic. Say what you mean. > Clearly they can and do use some of these services. I never said they don't – in fact I said the opposite of that.
- dandanua 1y ago[flagged]
- ljsprague 1y ago[flagged]
- thunderfork 1y ago[dead]
- zetanor 1y agoSource?
- know-how 1y ago[dead]
- theyinwhy 1y agoCoupled with 150 billion USD for ICE, the same amount as for the Pentagon, what can go wrong?
- jahewson 1y agoThe Pentagon’s budget is 900 billion per year. That 150bn ICE figure is over 4 years, so 37bn a year. You are wrong by a factor of 24x.
- theyinwhy 1y agoGreat, thanks for correcting the figure, my bad. The news reported 150bn for Pentagon but it appears this is just the money for a few specific projects.
- EasyMark 1y agothey still are giving ICE 4X the money as before to set up a first draft speedrun of a secret police force that can run around grabbing people off the street with no ID, masks on, and tossing them in white vans to imprison them without due process or court hearings and send them to 3rd world nations for indefinite internment. This is likely see if the public will stand against it.
- anthk 1y agoWhen I played Deus Ex back in the early 2000's (now with GMDX 9), the game looked exaggerated, a blend between The X-Files and Neal Stephenson/Gibson. It doesn't any more.
- Terr_ 1y agoI've always felt DX was an ironically realistic vision of 2052 when you consider what the average person would be able to see. Sure, the protagonist sees hidden bunkers with weird science, but the average person? It's hard find work, their votes don't seem to matter, there's no real privacy anymore, and nobody will honor the warranty on the little floor-cleaner robot.
- anthk 1y agoTBH things like EFF and such were a reality, and the devs for sure they were aware, as they knew geeky/nerdy games like Nethack too; and deducing knowledge about free software and digital rights it's trivial. Also, Deus Ex and the Unreal Engine had a GL renderer with worked amazingly great with Wine back in the day, it was one of the best games to run in early 00's. Yeah, the game was propietary and yadda, yadda; but there's the Surreal engine (libre implementation of Unreal1) on the works. Another game on dystopias which looks parodical but it's heavily reality grounded it's Liberal Crime Squad. As an European I know near nil about the USA goverment branches and how the goverment it's built, but that game taught me the process exceptionally well. And, yes, it's a must play giving how current politics are going: https://github.com/Kamal-Sadek/Liberal-Crime-Squad https://github.com/Kamal-Sadek/Liberal-Crime-Squad It has an Augmentation system a la Deus Ex too.
- donatj 1y agoI attended Amazon Re:Invent a number of years ago and one of the keynote speakers was talking about providing medical information to law enforcement - the theory being that if they know you suffer from schizophrenia, for instance, the police would be informed of this and in theory less likely to murder you. I found the whole idea very prone to abuse and posted about it on social media, and the whole thread flew into people fighting about Obamacare… but I still think I was right. The older I get, the more I become a strong proponent of keeping data out of the hands of the people who can murder you without recourse.
- roody15 1y agoI find it interesting that outside of the political headlines the surge in deportations remains lower than that during the Obama and Biden administrations. Not trying to make a political statement here just pointing out oddities between reported data online perception. Note* this data could be inaccurate ? “ Deportation Numbers: While arrests have risen sharply, the administration's impact on actual deportation rates is still being assessed. According to the Migration Policy Institute, the Trump administration is on track to deport roughly half a million people this year, which is below the target of one million annually and less than the 685,000 recorded in fiscal year 2024 under President Joe Biden.”
- EasyMark 1y agothat's because the border is down to like 5% of what it was. Now they have to hunt down people instead of just watching them come across the border and grabbing them by the thousands
- EasyMark 1y ago"We are going to beat the swamp by adding more swamp with a stasi twist" seems to be the motto of the new regime. This isn't what MAGAs or conservatives voted for, but were warned they were going to get.