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> “ICE officials have told us that an apparent biometric match by Mobile Fortify is a ‘definitive’ determination of a person’s status and that an ICE officer ma
by hexbin010 1y ago
> “ICE officials have told us that an apparent biometric match by Mobile Fortify is a ‘definitive’ determination of a person’s status and that an ICE officer may ignore evidence of American citizenship—including a birth certificate—if the app says the person is an alien,”
This is "computer says no (not a citizen)". Which is horrifying
They've just created an app to justify what they were already doing right? And the argument will be "well it's a super complex app run by a very clever company so it can't be wrong"?
- sleepybrett 1y agoYou mean 'clearview ai' says no.
- rgsahTR 1y ago> They've just created an app to justify what they were already doing right? This was also one of the more advanced theories about the people selection and targeting AI apps used in Gaza. I've only heard one journalist spell it out, because many journalists believe that AI works. But the dissenter said that they know it does not work and just use it to blame the AI for mistakes.
- whearyou 1y ago[flagged]
- convolvatron 1y agowell, given that the current US regime has been dancing around the notion that criticism of the state of Israel should be _illegal_. Such criticism has already been used as the pretense to detain and deport legal residents. Combined with the popular notion that law enforcement should be digging around in people's social media accounts to ascertain if they are a member of the 'enemy within', some people might be legitimately concerned about posting anything that casts doubt on the morality of the current conflict in Gaza.
- ilegitmadethisw 1y agoI remember when those articles would get posted here and people would get mass flagged when they brought up the fact that the same tech the Israelis used in their genocide would end up stateside. Good times
- dsngizfiggot 1y ago[dead]
- JKCalhoun 1y agoSince your account is 17 minutes old, I have to assume you have been lurking for some time to "remember when…" on HN. I am happy though that we are starting to seem more of this kind of content on HN. I understand that these political (?) posts can descend into finger-pointing and trolling. And that is too bad since I think we should not have blinders on in these rather unsettling times. I will say that I remember when posts like this one were very quickly flagged when they hit the front page. I am happy to see that more and more people are finding them (unfortunately) relevant.
- throw-the-towel 1y agoThis is probably a throwaway account. (Also, its username reads, shall I say, suspicious.)
- zoklet-enjoyer 1y agoI lurked on HN for YEARS because I didn't even realize it was a message board haha. I had subscribed to the RSS feed and read the links but not comments. I thought it was just hacker news, as in a news aggregator.
- dsngizfiggot 1y ago[dead]
- dngzafigot 1y ago[flagged]
- bko 1y agoIt's better that the alternative which is humans. Unless you think enforcing laws or ever having the need to establish identity should never take place
- dngzafigot 1y ago[flagged]
- estimator7292 1y ago[flagged]
- jMyles 1y agoHumans are great at identifying each other. As the internet matures (and ease of long-distance communication obviates the need for massive nation states), we can constrain state authority to geographic batches small enough that people are known to one another.
- watwut 1y agoIt is not better if it ends up harrasing and harning more people and is unaccountable. You can eventually punish humans abusing power. Cant do that wuth software designed to be abusive.
- sennalen 1y agoIt's humans. This is like TSA's fake bomb detectors with nothing inside the plastic shell
- bko 1y agoYou think the person at the TSA that gets paid 40k a year is better at facial recognition than a computer?
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- snovv_crash 1y ago
- roywiggins 1y agoThe alleged facts are worse than an AI simply making mistakes: https://www.972mag.com/lavender-ai-israeli-army-gaza/ https://www.972mag.com/lavender-ai-israeli-army-gaza/
- horisbrisby 1y agoThe trouble here is "ICE officer may ignore" ignoring that selectively on a Republican Senator is a civil rights violation of everyone you didn't ignore it on.
- hexbin010 1y agoWell, these ICE thugs being told to do what they are doing is the actual trouble. Let's not shrink that Overton Window so small it can't be seen
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- GarnetFloride 1y agoJust like IBM said, a computer can't be held responsible for its decisions. Management's been doing this for a long time to justify layoffs and such. This is just the next step.
- roywiggins 1y agoIBM wasn't held responsible either: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust
- EA-3167 1y agoA lot of people and companies ultimately got away with that, because of either necessity or the manufactured perception of necessity. It's an important lesson about selective enforcement, and just how extreme the cases it can be applied to. From traffic laws to genocide, it's all negotiable for the powerful if there are benefits at stake.
- lostlogin 1y agoI went to the Siemens museum in Erlangen. Their history of work on medical imaging is on display and it’s good. The awkward ‘Siemens and the holocaust’ section was so pathetic.
- lb1lf 1y agoIf this kind of thing interests you, you could do a lot worse than picking up Edwin Black's 'IBM and the Holocaust'. Turns out IBM had a rather... Uh, pragmatic attitude towards the uses the nazi regime found for IBM equipment.
- EA-3167 1y agoIn a bleak sense I suppose I can understand, it's not as though they can have a big, "By the way, we greedily assisted the Nazis with the worst act of industrialized murder in modern history, profited from it, were never held to meaningful account, and we're still successful," room. And examples such as "de-Baathification" in Iraq show that even the best-intentioned actions can have wide-reaching and truly devastating unintended consequences. I won't pretend that I have some neat and clean answer to any of this, but there's a persistent sense of moral outrage that feels earned around all of this.
- matthewdgreen 1y agoI mean, how did you expect them to build this? The goal is clearly to build an infrastructure that can be easily used to persecute US citizens, so you can’t let details like actual proof of citizenship get in the way.
- lisbbb 1y agoAll that tech is already persecuting people in China. It's up to us to hold the line here. I kind of gave up after the L3 got those Naked Body scanners into the airports based on the "underwear bomber" that was probably a false flag operation. We can always hope for a mostly peaceful downfall of the state, like when Hungary finally shed its communist government, but most likely it will be a shooting war at some point. It is the nature of humanity--peace, freedom, and prosperity are exceptional, not the rule. Incidentally, I was reading about the Lincoln County War recently and realized it was a microcosm for all the kinds of corruption that we see on display nationwide today. The rings controlled commerce and any upstarts were facing brutally low chances for success and would be snuffed out if they became a threat.
- bokchoi 1y agoThe movie "Brazil" seems more real every day.
- jMyles 1y agoI don't know whether I can trust your take on this. Have you got a 27B-6?
- nemosaltat 1y agoDON'T SUSPECT A FRIEND, REPORT HIM
- bko 1y ago[flagged]
- jMyles 1y ago> If I was in the country legally I would want the best technology to confirm i am the person I say I am. I'm in the country legally, and I don't care at all how often that is confirmed or by whom. > What's the alternative? Human beings eyeballing a license a few seconds? The alternative is dispensing with the notion that some people are illegal and must be purged, or even that this a legitimate function of government. As long as the state can feign incompetence (let alone launder it with a facial recognition app), this power can easily grow to arbitrary executive authority. I have no problem with faces being recognized; that's a normal part of living in society. Computers doing it is just a bit more efficient, as you point out. The trouble comes when the state uses it as a liability limiter for their crimes.
- Detrytus 1y ago> The alternative is dispensing with the notion that some people are illegal and must be purged, or even that this a legitimate function of government. That's not an alternative at all. Countries are built by certain groups of people (citizens), based on some underlying principles, culture, values. To preserve that, citizens have the right to decide what kind of people they want to let in. Immigrating to US is a privilege, not a right, as it should be. There's nothing wrong with deporting illegal aliens as long as due process is followed (which I agree is not the case with ICE under Trump, but that's a separate discussion).
- cptroot 1y ago> which I agree is not the case with ICE under Trump, but that's a separate discussion I find it hard to keep these discussions separate. If there is no humane way to deport illegal aliens in the volumes ICE is attempting, surely we must push back and say "stop". This facial recognition app is a farce, designed to give a veneer of correctness to racial profiling, and ICE must be prevented from using it.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- BeFlatXIII 1y agoPeople will read stories like this and still say domestic terrorism is wrong.
- CamperBob2 1y agoNot the people doing it, though. They proudly call themselves "domestic terrorists." [1] It's OK when they do it, you see. 1: https://xcancel.com/ProjectLincoln/status/1912490669806858510 https://xcancel.com/ProjectLincoln/status/191249066980685851...
- LogicFailsMe 1y agothey are super cereal!
- _DeadFred_ 1y agoYes. This give them 'good faith' coverage in the courts. It has always been this way. If you include enough broken bureaucratic processes, checklists, paperwork, outside expert 'best practices' (outside experts just being cops from other agencies/jurisdictions or who are members of cop 'associations') then it moves from malice to 'good faith. they did the best they could within the system they operated'. Yes you have a right to a speedy trial, and it's just 'unfortunately' our system kept your in jail for a weeks to months, during which you lost your job, maybe your car, maybe your housing. It's all just 'unfortunately' and due to 'the system' we have to accept you being locked up for weeks/months meets the 'speedy trial' requirement. That timeframe was a 'good faith' attempt, sadly we sadled ourselves with all these things that meant we couldn't meet it.
- im3w1l 1y ago> > “ICE officials have told us that an apparent biometric match by Mobile Fortify is a ‘definitive’ determination of a person’s status and that an ICE officer may ignore evidence of American citizenship—including a birth certificate—if the app says the person is an alien,” When they decide that someone is in the US illegaly using the app... what happens? Is the person apprehended? Driven straight to the border? Taken into custody while more data about them is gathered?
- pbhjpbhj 1y agoYou seem to be under the mistaken belief that this is a legal process. This is all so contrary to the established laws of the USA legal system that the Trump's military will not even show their faces. There's no "custody", these people aren't being afforded the Constitutional, legal, or human rights. This is internment by militarised fascist gangs. "Officer", ha. These are people given a gun and told to go out and brutalise others. There not performing an office of state, they're far outside the law. All, it seems, to try and force those who support democracy to step out of line so Trump/Vance and their handlers can have more people killed and claim civil war is getting in the way of having elections.
- refurb 1y agoThat’s not true at all. If the computer says you’re in the US illegally, but you have documents that say you are a US citizen, then you are put in custody until the discrepancy can be resolved. It really depends on whether or not there is a standing deportation order for that person. If not, then it’s a lengthy process where you appear in front of a judge who may release you (yes, low risk aliens are still being released) or held in custody until the trial is held. If you have a standing deportation order, and your identity is confirmed, then yes, you may be deported quite quickly. No due process is being denied. If you have a standing deportation order, you can be deported.
- nerdsniper 1y ago> No due process is being denied. Readers are likely to interpret this generally and it may act as a lightning rod - the statement may need some qualifiers to define what is not denying due process.
- georgemcbay 1y agoThe existence of the app is horrifying but the real problem is if an ICE agent violates your rights, you can't really sue them (I mean, you can sue them but it will just get thrown out of court because of their sovereign immunity and the fact that the current Supreme Court would never grant you a Bivens action for anything Trump's ICE did to you). As long as they can claim that whatever they did to you is part of their official duties (which, again, good luck expecting the current federal government to take your side on this even if the ICE officer clearly oversteps their duties) only the federal government/DOJ can prosecute them for misconduct, which also obviously won't happen under the current administration.