7 ms·

Why exactly have ICE been given limitless power? Facial recognition is at best right more than half the time, but many studies have shown it to be consistently

Why exactly have ICE been given limitless power? Facial recognition is at best right more than half the time, but many studies have shown it to be consistently faulty leading to many wrong ID's. What is the point of a database with incorrect biometric data connected to a person?

fishmicrowaver 1y ago
Guarantee Palantir is 'mitigating' those concerns before anyone has them by having a 'process' and 'guardrails' in place, so everyone can convince themselves this is a great thing to do. The decision makers won't even be around by the time a substantial enough number of people are harmed to incur blowback, and by then, people will have gotten rich/promoted.
- XorNot 1y ago
  You Americans are really going to have to get over trying to blame corporations for all your problems, or expecting them to fix all your problems. This is a problem from your government, by your government, that you voted for - one way or another. Pretending this problem is originating from anywhere else except the political choices you're making as a nation is denying reality.
  - djcannabiz 1y ago
    I agree with you, but I think this ignores the structural factors caused by corporations that lead to the election of this government in the first place (multinational corporations lobbying for NAFTA and the resulting deindustrialization of america).
  - analog31 1y ago
    >>> your government, that you voted for - one way or another No, I didn't, not one way, nor another. I might have had a share of influence over policy in certain statewide elections, but not in most other elections.
  - whoooboyy 1y ago
    I think you are right, but not thinking deeply enough. You point at the government, and the voting that led to it. 100% that's a step in the root cause chain. But we cannot stop there, and needs ask why. There are structural forces that lead to this government, some of which are corporate. Fox and MSNBC exist to extract wealth from polarization, and have every incentive to drive wedges between us. Meta and X likewise get paid for optimizing engagement and hate drives engagement. It's not all corporations, but they contribute to structural forces we're have to unwind as we also try to fix the government side too.
  - jordanscales 1y ago
    I did not vote for this. Some of my neighbors voted for this because they were pushed over the edge by inflammatory social media algorithms, some stayed home for similar reasons. Corporations absolutely have an effect on all of this, you can bet they'd save time and money by focusing their efforts elsewhere if they thought it was pointless.
  - spwa4 1y ago
    Americans? This is being rolled out all over the west, and was already pervasive everywhere else. China uses "subtle" cameras but there's just so many that you can't help but constantly see them around any city center, although I think I actually prefer them hiding the cameras (certainly better than London atm) Note that all the facial recognition is being done by governments, which is the entity everyone suggests using to protect against facial recognition. https://etias.com/articles/eu-biometric-border-checks-begin-today-for-non-eu-travelers https://etias.com/articles/eu-biometric-border-checks-begin-... https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gp7j55zxvo https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gp7j55zxvo (under the control of the executive) https://www.politico.eu/article/how-facial-recognition-is-taking-over-a-french-riviera-city/ https://www.politico.eu/article/how-facial-recognition-is-ta... (under the control of the executive) https://www.biometricupdate.com/202405/police-in-germany-using-live-facial-recognition https://www.biometricupdate.com/202405/police-in-germany-usi... https://www.reuters.com/technology/italy-outlaws-facial-recognition-tech-except-fight-crime-2022-11-14/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/italy-outlaws-facial-reco... The important part about the Italian "ban" is, as with most privacy laws in the EU, the government bans facial recognition for companies, and explicitly allows the government to use it for everything they do) This is common in the EU. For example, the GPDR guarantees that your medical data isn't used by companies. That sounds great! Except for the exceptions: insurance and health care providers are exempted, courts (even foreign ones) are excempted (and so a judge can subpoena your private medical information for divorce or custody cases), the police is exempted, youth services is exempted, ...
  - caconym_ 1y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC
  - impossiblefork 1y ago
    The thing though, is that the US government and the successful companies are strong connected. Networks of companies support political candidates, so there really isn't a true separation between the government's actions and the will of these corporations.
  - baq 1y ago
    see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatocracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatocracy
AtlasBarfed 1y ago
Because half of American voters want fascism.
- righthand 1y ago
  Not even close to half.
  - animitronix 1y ago
    Yeah well maybe the rest should get off their ass and vote then chief
    - wat10000 1y ago
      A third are for it. A third are against it. A third just don’t care.
    - righthand 1y ago
      Yes that’s a valid emotional criticism, I’m more worried about normalizing authoritarianism and fascism by saying “half support it”. We’re already sliding down because we’re lazy privileged Americans. IMO, stating that half agree signals an okayed complacency. There are emotions (half support) and then reality (less than 30% of Americans). The emotions got us into this mess about misdemeanors at the federal level. The authoritarians want you to say: “50% of people love this, give up already.” When the truth is that 28% of people voted for Trump in 2024. He has lost a percentage of that support through his actions since January. Don’t help them normalize this through emotion. Say it’s “half” is negotiating with fascists.
  - whoooboyy 1y ago
    Note the parent said "voters" not people. Of the people who voted, yes, nearly half voted for this. You are correct it's a small minority of the populace, but not of voters.
- ndsipa_pomu 1y ago
  Are there really that many unbelievably stupid people?
AlotOfReading 1y ago
What is the point of a database with incorrect biometric data connected to a person? Accuracy is irrelevant. Even if facial recognition as a technology was adequate, it certainly wouldn't be in whatever random lighting conditions are present in the real world after going through the image processing pipelines of inconsistent phone hardware. The point is domination, and the app is simply one means to that end. They'd find another if they had to.
TrackerFF 1y ago
Because who's going to stop them? What happens right now is this: ICE can run loose and do whatever they want. If some judge finds their activities illegal, they can block ICE from doing the illegal things. But...who's going to stop them? Not the DOJ. Stephen Miller has said that ICE have "federal immunity". The keen observer will of course know that there's no such thing as "federal immunity", so a charitable way to interpret that statement is that no-one federal will go after them. So what about states, and local police? Sure, they could start arresting them, but then again, Miller et. al have warned the states about not interfering, threatening with going after LEO's etc. with federal charges if they do so. The long story made short is that they can (and will) keep doing illegal shit until someone stops them, and that's not going to happen as long as Trump is POTUS. DOJ and ICE leaderships has explicitly said that their workers should just ignore the law and courts.
- empath75 1y ago
  Yeah I don’t think people understand how bad it is. ICE are a lawless secret police force with loyalty only to trump and they are actively and intentionally recruiting racists and fascist and fast tracking them through regardless of background. Right wing gangs like the Proud Boys are actively funneling their members into it. Their budget right now is larger than the Marine Corps and a lot of their members are looking at unemployment or prison time if the democrats get back into control of the government. Think about what they are likely to do during the mid terms if they are told to monitor election sites. They are a gang of dangerously brutal violent thugs operating with complete impunity.
  - nozzlegear 1y ago
    To your point, this article¹ recently analyzed records from the Federal Procurement Data System and found that ICE has boosted their weapons spending by 700%: > Most of the spending was on guns and armor, but there have also been significant purchases of chemical weapons and “guided missile warheads and explosive components.” I'd really like to know why ICE needs guided missile warheads to do their job. (Edit: pointed out below, this is a purchase category that includes distraction devices like smoke grenades – they're thankfully not buying actual warheads.) At this point, I'm confident that ICE could kick down my door and blow my white, midwestern, US Citizen ass away where I sit on this couch, and none of them would ever see the inside of a courtroom. ¹ https://popular.info/p/ice-boosts-weapons-spending-700 https://popular.info/p/ice-boosts-weapons-spending-700
maxerickson 1y ago
Removal of administrative restraint is different than limitless power. I think it remains to be seen how broader US society responds to the approach being taken. Hard to say how close the Senate will be next year.
- burnt-resistor 1y ago
  "Plenary authority" of the "unitary executive" is manifested as acceleration of power by continuous, overwhelming lawlessness to normalize deviancy with a feckless Congress and supportive supreme judiciary.
mindslight 1y ago
> Why exactly have ICE been given limitless power? To act as the domestic enforcement arm for Trump's autocratic fascism red in tooth and claw, the culmination of what everyone not drinking social media Kool-aid has been saying for the last 10 years. Yet a third of our country chose to aggressively reject these concerns because throwing the Constitution in the trash "owned the libs", which was the only concrete policy they had left after decades of being led around by the nose by the corporate state.
wat10000 1y ago
Every authoritarian needs secret police. ICE happens to be the perfect agency for Trump to use for this, because immigration is such a hot issue for his base, and immigration law provides some nice loopholes in constitutional guarantees. For example, deportation is a civil action, not criminal. That means that to exile you from your home the government does not need to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt, does not need to provide you with legal representation if you can’t afford a lawyer, and the procedure takes place in an administrative court. There have been numerous cases of small children representing themselves in deportation proceedings. And this was all before the current administration. The point of a bogus database is to give them cover for arresting, imprisoning, and deporting anyone they wish to.
quickthrowman 1y ago
> Why exactly have ICE been given limitless power? > What is the point of a database with incorrect biometric data connected to a person? The answer to both questions is ‘to cause fear among the [immigrant] population.’
fzeroracer 1y ago
ICE is, essentially the perfect cover agency. Your average Fox News-addled American will see criticisms of ICE and immediately jump to its defense, because obviously that means you want immigrants to take over our country or you hate our borders or you hate the law etc. You can even look back through various HN threads on some of the various crimes ICE has committed in the past year and see this common byline. The fact that Americans are getting caught in the dragnet, having their possessions and lives destroyed, getting sent to secret jails or being assaulted for merely being in the same zipcode as an ICE agent doesn't matter to them. It's all about inflicting harm on people they dislike, and if ICE is harming someone then obviously it's because it's they did something bad. It's pretty dire circumstances. ICE was always close to a paramilitary organization, it just took Trump to actually fund it and push it over the edge.
- tdeck 1y ago
  This is not untrue, but it's also worth pointing out that democrats have been active participants in making ICE the dangerous, unaccountable, overreaching agency that it is. Nothing was meaningfully rolled back under Biden. And in Congress they didn't even block the massive funding increase for ICE earlier this year (instead Chuck Schumer urged his caucus to vote to end debate). This is in fact one of the most distressing parts of the situation. Most people conceive of getting off the couch to vote in the midterm as the absolute height of their potential power to stop this. Phone banking for some blue dog in the midterm isng going to cut it in this situation. Meanwhile the "opposition" has decided to lay low rather than risk their (checks notes) low 30% approval rating by taking a stand on anything (except funding genocide) for most of this year. Every institution is being steamrolled, gutted, corrupted, and weaponized faster than we can keep track, and folks are trying to make themselves believe if we just vote hard enough this will all end in 2-4 years like it was a bad dream rather than an ongoing play-by-play descent into fascism.
  - SpicyLemonZest 1y ago
    The opposition is right this second taking a stand on funding the entire government! I don't understand how this narrative keeps spreading when it's so transparently untrue.
beej71 1y ago
Legal Eagle just did a video about this. When you get Constitutionally screwed over by federal agents, you basically have zero legal recourse (unlike with state and local police).
anigbrowl 1y ago
Why exactly have ICE been given limitless power? To keep everyone else in line. Americans are so programmed to defer to aw enforcement that they will watch the most blatant abuses carried out right in front of them with little other than hand-wringing. Immigration status is just the excuse, compliance is the goal. What do you think is going to happen at the next election? ICE doesn't even need to intimidate people at polling places, just the rumor that hey are doing so will be enough to scare many citizens away from voting in person. They could vote by mail, but no doubt you're aware that the President ad his party constantly impugn the validity of such votes. How much do you trust them to uphold and abide by the voting process? We've already seen what happens when they get a result that's not favorable to them.
- SpicyLemonZest 1y ago
  We've seen what happens when they get a result that's not favorable to them, and it resulted in them leaving office anyway while hundreds of their supporters went to prison for years. Trump did break them out, and I'm sure that's given some of them nasty ideas, but I'd encourage them to reflect on what the maximum penalty for treason is if they try again.

fishmicrowaver 1y ago

Guarantee Palantir is 'mitigating' those concerns before anyone has them by having a 'process' and 'guardrails' in place, so everyone can convince themselves this is a great thing to do. The decision makers won't even be around by the time a substantial enough number of people are harmed to incur blowback, and by then, people will have gotten rich/promoted.

XorNot 1y ago
You Americans are really going to have to get over trying to blame corporations for all your problems, or expecting them to fix all your problems. This is a problem from your government, by your government, that you voted for - one way or another. Pretending this problem is originating from anywhere else except the political choices you're making as a nation is denying reality.
- djcannabiz 1y ago
  I agree with you, but I think this ignores the structural factors caused by corporations that lead to the election of this government in the first place (multinational corporations lobbying for NAFTA and the resulting deindustrialization of america).
- analog31 1y ago
  >>> your government, that you voted for - one way or another No, I didn't, not one way, nor another. I might have had a share of influence over policy in certain statewide elections, but not in most other elections.
- whoooboyy 1y ago
  I think you are right, but not thinking deeply enough. You point at the government, and the voting that led to it. 100% that's a step in the root cause chain. But we cannot stop there, and needs ask why. There are structural forces that lead to this government, some of which are corporate. Fox and MSNBC exist to extract wealth from polarization, and have every incentive to drive wedges between us. Meta and X likewise get paid for optimizing engagement and hate drives engagement. It's not all corporations, but they contribute to structural forces we're have to unwind as we also try to fix the government side too.
- jordanscales 1y ago
  I did not vote for this. Some of my neighbors voted for this because they were pushed over the edge by inflammatory social media algorithms, some stayed home for similar reasons. Corporations absolutely have an effect on all of this, you can bet they'd save time and money by focusing their efforts elsewhere if they thought it was pointless.
- spwa4 1y ago
  Americans? This is being rolled out all over the west, and was already pervasive everywhere else. China uses "subtle" cameras but there's just so many that you can't help but constantly see them around any city center, although I think I actually prefer them hiding the cameras (certainly better than London atm) Note that all the facial recognition is being done by governments, which is the entity everyone suggests using to protect against facial recognition. https://etias.com/articles/eu-biometric-border-checks-begin-today-for-non-eu-travelers https://etias.com/articles/eu-biometric-border-checks-begin-... https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gp7j55zxvo https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gp7j55zxvo (under the control of the executive) https://www.politico.eu/article/how-facial-recognition-is-taking-over-a-french-riviera-city/ https://www.politico.eu/article/how-facial-recognition-is-ta... (under the control of the executive) https://www.biometricupdate.com/202405/police-in-germany-using-live-facial-recognition https://www.biometricupdate.com/202405/police-in-germany-usi... https://www.reuters.com/technology/italy-outlaws-facial-recognition-tech-except-fight-crime-2022-11-14/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/italy-outlaws-facial-reco... The important part about the Italian "ban" is, as with most privacy laws in the EU, the government bans facial recognition for companies, and explicitly allows the government to use it for everything they do) This is common in the EU. For example, the GPDR guarantees that your medical data isn't used by companies. That sounds great! Except for the exceptions: insurance and health care providers are exempted, courts (even foreign ones) are excempted (and so a judge can subpoena your private medical information for divorce or custody cases), the police is exempted, youth services is exempted, ...
- caconym_ 1y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC
- impossiblefork 1y ago
  The thing though, is that the US government and the successful companies are strong connected. Networks of companies support political candidates, so there really isn't a true separation between the government's actions and the will of these corporations.
- baq 1y ago
  see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatocracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatocracy

AtlasBarfed 1y ago

Because half of American voters want fascism.

righthand 1y ago
Not even close to half.
- animitronix 1y ago
  Yeah well maybe the rest should get off their ass and vote then chief
  - wat10000 1y ago
    A third are for it. A third are against it. A third just don’t care.
  - righthand 1y ago
    Yes that’s a valid emotional criticism, I’m more worried about normalizing authoritarianism and fascism by saying “half support it”. We’re already sliding down because we’re lazy privileged Americans. IMO, stating that half agree signals an okayed complacency. There are emotions (half support) and then reality (less than 30% of Americans). The emotions got us into this mess about misdemeanors at the federal level. The authoritarians want you to say: “50% of people love this, give up already.” When the truth is that 28% of people voted for Trump in 2024. He has lost a percentage of that support through his actions since January. Don’t help them normalize this through emotion. Say it’s “half” is negotiating with fascists.
- whoooboyy 1y ago
  Note the parent said "voters" not people. Of the people who voted, yes, nearly half voted for this. You are correct it's a small minority of the populace, but not of voters.
ndsipa_pomu 1y ago
Are there really that many unbelievably stupid people?

AlotOfReading 1y ago

What is the point of a database with incorrect biometric data connected to a person? Accuracy is irrelevant. Even if facial recognition as a technology was adequate, it certainly wouldn't be in whatever random lighting conditions are present in the real world after going through the image processing pipelines of inconsistent phone hardware. The point is domination, and the app is simply one means to that end. They'd find another if they had to.

TrackerFF 1y ago

Because who's going to stop them? What happens right now is this: ICE can run loose and do whatever they want. If some judge finds their activities illegal, they can block ICE from doing the illegal things. But...who's going to stop them? Not the DOJ. Stephen Miller has said that ICE have "federal immunity". The keen observer will of course know that there's no such thing as "federal immunity", so a charitable way to interpret that statement is that no-one federal will go after them. So what about states, and local police? Sure, they could start arresting them, but then again, Miller et. al have warned the states about not interfering, threatening with going after LEO's etc. with federal charges if they do so. The long story made short is that they can (and will) keep doing illegal shit until someone stops them, and that's not going to happen as long as Trump is POTUS. DOJ and ICE leaderships has explicitly said that their workers should just ignore the law and courts.

empath75 1y ago
Yeah I don’t think people understand how bad it is. ICE are a lawless secret police force with loyalty only to trump and they are actively and intentionally recruiting racists and fascist and fast tracking them through regardless of background. Right wing gangs like the Proud Boys are actively funneling their members into it. Their budget right now is larger than the Marine Corps and a lot of their members are looking at unemployment or prison time if the democrats get back into control of the government. Think about what they are likely to do during the mid terms if they are told to monitor election sites. They are a gang of dangerously brutal violent thugs operating with complete impunity.
- nozzlegear 1y ago
  To your point, this article¹ recently analyzed records from the Federal Procurement Data System and found that ICE has boosted their weapons spending by 700%: > Most of the spending was on guns and armor, but there have also been significant purchases of chemical weapons and “guided missile warheads and explosive components.” I'd really like to know why ICE needs guided missile warheads to do their job. (Edit: pointed out below, this is a purchase category that includes distraction devices like smoke grenades – they're thankfully not buying actual warheads.) At this point, I'm confident that ICE could kick down my door and blow my white, midwestern, US Citizen ass away where I sit on this couch, and none of them would ever see the inside of a courtroom. ¹ https://popular.info/p/ice-boosts-weapons-spending-700 https://popular.info/p/ice-boosts-weapons-spending-700

maxerickson 1y ago

Removal of administrative restraint is different than limitless power. I think it remains to be seen how broader US society responds to the approach being taken. Hard to say how close the Senate will be next year.

burnt-resistor 1y ago
"Plenary authority" of the "unitary executive" is manifested as acceleration of power by continuous, overwhelming lawlessness to normalize deviancy with a feckless Congress and supportive supreme judiciary.

mindslight 1y ago

> Why exactly have ICE been given limitless power? To act as the domestic enforcement arm for Trump's autocratic fascism red in tooth and claw, the culmination of what everyone not drinking social media Kool-aid has been saying for the last 10 years. Yet a third of our country chose to aggressively reject these concerns because throwing the Constitution in the trash "owned the libs", which was the only concrete policy they had left after decades of being led around by the nose by the corporate state.

wat10000 1y ago

Every authoritarian needs secret police. ICE happens to be the perfect agency for Trump to use for this, because immigration is such a hot issue for his base, and immigration law provides some nice loopholes in constitutional guarantees. For example, deportation is a civil action, not criminal. That means that to exile you from your home the government does not need to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt, does not need to provide you with legal representation if you can’t afford a lawyer, and the procedure takes place in an administrative court. There have been numerous cases of small children representing themselves in deportation proceedings. And this was all before the current administration. The point of a bogus database is to give them cover for arresting, imprisoning, and deporting anyone they wish to.

quickthrowman 1y ago

> Why exactly have ICE been given limitless power? > What is the point of a database with incorrect biometric data connected to a person? The answer to both questions is ‘to cause fear among the [immigrant] population.’

fzeroracer 1y ago

ICE is, essentially the perfect cover agency. Your average Fox News-addled American will see criticisms of ICE and immediately jump to its defense, because obviously that means you want immigrants to take over our country or you hate our borders or you hate the law etc. You can even look back through various HN threads on some of the various crimes ICE has committed in the past year and see this common byline. The fact that Americans are getting caught in the dragnet, having their possessions and lives destroyed, getting sent to secret jails or being assaulted for merely being in the same zipcode as an ICE agent doesn't matter to them. It's all about inflicting harm on people they dislike, and if ICE is harming someone then obviously it's because it's they did something bad. It's pretty dire circumstances. ICE was always close to a paramilitary organization, it just took Trump to actually fund it and push it over the edge.

tdeck 1y ago
This is not untrue, but it's also worth pointing out that democrats have been active participants in making ICE the dangerous, unaccountable, overreaching agency that it is. Nothing was meaningfully rolled back under Biden. And in Congress they didn't even block the massive funding increase for ICE earlier this year (instead Chuck Schumer urged his caucus to vote to end debate). This is in fact one of the most distressing parts of the situation. Most people conceive of getting off the couch to vote in the midterm as the absolute height of their potential power to stop this. Phone banking for some blue dog in the midterm isng going to cut it in this situation. Meanwhile the "opposition" has decided to lay low rather than risk their (checks notes) low 30% approval rating by taking a stand on anything (except funding genocide) for most of this year. Every institution is being steamrolled, gutted, corrupted, and weaponized faster than we can keep track, and folks are trying to make themselves believe if we just vote hard enough this will all end in 2-4 years like it was a bad dream rather than an ongoing play-by-play descent into fascism.
- SpicyLemonZest 1y ago
  The opposition is right this second taking a stand on funding the entire government! I don't understand how this narrative keeps spreading when it's so transparently untrue.

beej71 1y ago

Legal Eagle just did a video about this. When you get Constitutionally screwed over by federal agents, you basically have zero legal recourse (unlike with state and local police).

anigbrowl 1y ago

Why exactly have ICE been given limitless power? To keep everyone else in line. Americans are so programmed to defer to aw enforcement that they will watch the most blatant abuses carried out right in front of them with little other than hand-wringing. Immigration status is just the excuse, compliance is the goal. What do you think is going to happen at the next election? ICE doesn't even need to intimidate people at polling places, just the rumor that hey are doing so will be enough to scare many citizens away from voting in person. They could vote by mail, but no doubt you're aware that the President ad his party constantly impugn the validity of such votes. How much do you trust them to uphold and abide by the voting process? We've already seen what happens when they get a result that's not favorable to them.

SpicyLemonZest 1y ago
We've seen what happens when they get a result that's not favorable to them, and it resulted in them leaving office anyway while hundreds of their supporters went to prison for years. Trump did break them out, and I'm sure that's given some of them nasty ideas, but I'd encourage them to reflect on what the maximum penalty for treason is if they try again.