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It's been fascinating watching the party of "small government" turn into one that supports ever expanding powers of a three letter agency whose job is supposed
by hypeatei 11mo ago
It's been fascinating watching the party of "small government" turn into one that supports ever expanding powers of a three letter agency whose job is supposed to be patrolling the border. It's like a new 9/11 Patriot act moment, except it's only one side supporting it this time.
- arealaccount 11mo agoI don't know what you mean by "turn into" it's always been that way
- hypeatei 11mo ago"turn into" is referring to the mask off nature of it all. Before, they might be a little embarrassed or pretend they still stand for those principles. But all I've seen are conservatives explaining why it might be technically allowed or straight up cheering it on.
- mrguyorama 11mo agoNo, they still insist, while building a stasi, that they are the party of small government. The people who voted for them and are still cheering them on are insisting that they voted for and are getting small government! They are divorced from what words mean
- codegeek 11mo agoThere is nothing small Govt anymore. Both parties are the same when it comes to extending Govt's power (just for different reasons). It is just a talking point now.
- smallmancontrov 11mo agoState's Rights (to own slaves) vs No State Rights (to shelter slaves) is probably the most infamous example, and it's from a while ago.
- pnw 11mo agoNone of this is new. The article states that CBP got authorization to track license plates in 2017 and concerns about law enforcement use of ALPR date back to at least 2010. The ACLU sued the LAPD in 2013 on ALPR.
- spicyusername 11mo agoI mean, the last 20 years is only ~8% of the history of the U.S., so all things considered those changes are pretty "new".
- pnw 11mo agoSure, but the OP was specifically referring to party politics and this is a bipartisan issue.
- peterashford 11mo ago"detaining those with suspicious travel patterns" is new
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- potato3732842 11mo agoNo it is not. The DEA has been doing that since at least the 2nd Bush admin and probably would've been under Clinton or Bush 1 had the tech existed at the time.
- nawgz 11mo ago> this is a bipartisan issue Where the instance upthread and your instance both occurred under the same president? lol
- dragonwriter 11mo agoThe particular manner in which it is being used can be different even if the fact that is being used by CBP is not.
- vlovich123 11mo agoThe party of small government is a slogan. It’s the same party that expanded domestic FBI surveillance, expanded intelligence agencies and lots of other things. It’s also the party that is intimately interested in what private citizens do in their bedroom (sodomy and condom laws) and what medical decisions doctors and patients can undertake.
- csours 11mo agoI really wish we had a (lower case) republican or conservative party in the US. I hope we survive this fear driven over-stimulated era of politics.
- riffic 11mo ago-
- xenophonf 11mo agoThat's easy to say when you aren't the one under pressure.
- more_corn 11mo agoOr one of the 200M people in the blast radius.
- BetaDeltaAlpha 11mo agoThat sounds like a recipe for chaos and famine akin to Russia in the early-mid 90's
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- petsfed 11mo agoOr worse still, Russia in the early-mid 1920s. The Reds very nearly lost the civil war to the Whites, not because of any battlefield victory, or even a concerted propaganda effort. Instead, it was because for a lot of people, they'd take going back to the old rotten monarchist system that got them into this mess, if meant they could just stop starving to death while party operatives came and took all their food away.
- Animats 11mo ago> for a lot of people, they'd take going back to the old rotten monarchist system that got them into this mess, if meant they could just stop starving to death while party operatives came and took all their food away. That describes Russia under Putin. Putin considers his regime to be a continuation of Imperial Russia. He's brought back the Imperial Eagle, the Russian Orthodox Church as an arm of the state, considers himself to be the next Peter the Great, and says that his goal is to extend Russia to its traditional boundaries, out to at least the edge of Poland and the Baltics. Communism was a historical accident which has now been corrected.
- riffic 11mo agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Wilhoit_(composer) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Wilhoit_(composer)
- ahmeneeroe-v2 11mo agoVery similar feeling to watching the liberal/progressive party fangirl the FBI and the intel community edit: in reality the times have changed and so has the country and the parties. All of these pre-2008 stereotypes are stupid and not useful anymore.
- kelipso 11mo agoSeriously. Where were all these people when the Democrats overreached into every aspect of our lives? Apparently the only criticism is an accusation of hypocrisy for calling themselves the party of small government. Nothing wrong with the actions themselves apparently! Lol.
- hobs 11mo agoPlenty of people complained and wanted all government overreach to stop - this is an even more dire situation, propped up by people who directly lied and said they were not interested in this (which they obviously are, and they are liars.) Why are you complaining about people's concerns instead of the actual problems created by those in power?
- kelipso 11mo agoBecause it feels like theater for party politics instead of genuine concern. I expect these people to go quiet when Democrats come into power and start doing the same things.
- hobs 11mo agoThe same things? You mean effectively making money laundering legal, crashing the government and starving the poor, ending health care benefits, stealing directly from the coffers, pardoning sex pests and criminals as they continue to commit crimes, ramp up terrorist action against american cities, drop bombs on boats with no justification, roll back our environmental protections to invest in dead end energy projects, double down on crony capitalism, make it so corporations either bend the knee by directly giving money to the president or have their business ended with tariffs, and generally do everything they can to rob us blind and you say "oh it's all the same!" The president is sending the troop into cities on made up offenses, he's posting to social media shitting on american citizens, he's doing death threats on sitting politicians, this is not the same you absolute twat. It's a silly claim made by unserious folks.
- frumplestlatz 11mo ago[flagged]
- JumpCrisscross 11mo ago> If you create a problem like this by essentially opening the border and failing to enforce the law, the necessary corrective action is going to have to be a lot heavier than if you’d just patrolled the border in the first place Deportations are lower than under Obama, despite ICE having Saudi Arabia's military budget. The resources are very clearly being spent on something other than immigration enforcement. Whether that's an authoritarian agenda or simply corruption is still, in my book, to be seen.
- dragonwriter 11mo ago> Whether that's an authoritarian agenda or simply corruption Its both a floor wax and a dessert topping.
- newfriend 11mo ago"Deportations" is an ambiguous term, which may or may not include people turned away at the border and actual categories like Removals, Returns, and Expulsions.
- JumpCrisscross 11mo ago> "Deportations" is an ambiguous term It is. Which means the numbers are generally able to be fluffed. The fact that ICE isn't even bothering to do that communicates that they're not focussing on nor being held to it. > which may or may not include people turned away at the border You don't need to blow the military budget of most of the world's militaries [1] to do this, nor build "a surveillance system stretching into the country’s interior." [1] https://www.newsweek.com/immigration-ice-bill-trump-2093456 https://www.newsweek.com/immigration-ice-bill-trump-2093456
- ahmeneeroe-v2 11mo agoAgreed. I think it's important to remember the lack of real "mass deportations now" when you see two things: 1) low Trump approval rating. Likely due to lack of following through on these promises (rather than disapproval of the promises themselves) 2) protests against deportations. Why do dems simultaneously crow about their superior deportation numbers while condemning current efforts as heavy handed and cruel?
- EnPissant 11mo agoPretty sure Republicans always supported defending the border from drug trafficking and illegal immigration.
- peterashford 11mo agoEveryone supports that?
- lesuorac 11mo agoGary, Indiana does not have a border with a foreign country so why do CBP need to monitor drivers there?
- EnPissant 11mo agoIt’s a logistics chokepoint for drugs coming across the southwest border into the Chicago area.
- lesuorac 11mo ago> It’s a logistics chokepoint for drugs coming across the southwest border into the Chicago area The ? You mean to say you're supporting a checkpoint in Indiana to catch drugs that came from Mexico? Fix the checkpoint in Texas then if it's leaking drugs to Indiana ...
- EnPissant 11mo agoIt's not a checkpoint, it's surveillance. Presumably CBP is not stupid and that surveillance is providing value they can not otherwise get only in Texas.
- lesuorac 11mo agoThey've been at these programs for decades; if they were effective we wouldn't be in a drug epidemic At some point you have to cut your losses and accept that the only benefits were the politicians Flock donated to. I'm not saying you have to abolish CBP. I'm saying they should be protecting the border and this ain't it.
- JohnTHaller 11mo agoIt's the same as the Republican slogans of being the party of "fiscal responsibility" despite under-performing the Democratic party in nearly all financial metrics and constantly blowing up the deficit or being the party of "family values" while having leaders and 'respected' voices who are the complete opposite.
- wlesieutre 11mo agoDon't forget "states' rights"
- b112 11mo agoWhile you're not wrong, not sure it applies here. This is an all-party thing: Started about a decade ago to fight illegal border-related activities and the trafficking of both drugs and people, it has expanded over the past five years. Some of the lawsuits (cited in article) to fight this, and illegal pull overs, go back years. Really? It shows how this tech can be used in ways you don't like, when your party is no longer in power. How whatever laws you pass, surveillance you enact, powers you give, aren't just for you. But also your political adversary.
- potato3732842 11mo agoStarted 25yr ago when some dudes with poor aviation skills caused the checkbook to open up and the war on drugs was still going strong. And even then it was smoldering for a long time before that. A good "start" point is probably the creation of the FBI.
- pfannkuchen 11mo agoSmall government without control of who comes in is borderline anarchy, and they never claimed to be for anarchy. Small government internally requires border controls, and if the border controls failed in the past do you expect them to just shrug? I can see disagreeing with them, easily, I just don’t see obvious hypocrisy like you are suggesting.
- praptak 11mo agoSmall government without [big thing I happen to like] is [bad thing] therefore it's okay to make the government big in [the aspects I like] and I don't see any hipocrisy in that.
- ActorNightly 11mo agoIts been proven many times over that the majority of "illegal" immigrants, whether they come US and either overstay their allowance, or manage to skirt by on refugee status, are all predominately doing it for financial reasons, willing to work jobs for lower pay that Americans will never do, which is a huge benefit for economy. This idea that border control somehow failed is a lie sold to you by republicans. Also Trump killed the CBP funding bill in early 2024 that would have addressed a lot of issues.
- newfriend 11mo ago> willing to work jobs for lower pay that Americans will never do, which is a huge benefit for economy. Pushing wages down for low-skilled work is possibly good for the economy, but it's very bad for low-skilled American workers. > This idea that border control somehow failed is a lie sold to you by republicans. There are millions of illegal aliens in the US. From 2021 to 2024, several millions more entered the US. > Also Trump killed the CBP funding bill in early 2024 that would have addressed a lot of issues. Conjecture. Trump was not in office in 2024. That bill may or may not have addressed some issues, while also creating new issues or making things worse.
- ActorNightly 11mo ago
- CGMthrowaway 11mo agoYour comment feels unsubstantiated. What do you mean by that? Or do you just mean the current government has Republicans at the top. Can you share data on how people of one party are supporting ALPR and the other are against it? I was looking for a public poll on this question and couldn't find one. edit: Why am I being downvoted?
- hypeatei 11mo agoPolling this year consistently shows that Republicans support all the actions being taken with respect to immigration under this admin. Sorry I don't have any links handy at the moment, but you can see it in this thread: "too many people crossed under Biden, look what you made us do!"
- CGMthrowaway 11mo agoI don't see anything in the article that says anything about immigration. From the info provided, this is about suspicious behavior ID'ed via ALPR, and they don't specify suspicious of what. That seems very broad and something a reasonable person would expect many people of all parties to be wary of, not just people of one party.
- hypeatei 11mo ago> I don't see anything in the article that says anything about immigration Article starts with: "The U.S. Border Patrol is monitoring millions of American drivers nationwide"
- CGMthrowaway 11mo agoWhere does it say immigration? You know USBP is bigger than immigration right? Drugs, weapons, currency, illegal goods, etc. Even the largest cateogry of enforcement activity, illegal entry/removal - is itself much bigger than "immigration" which I take it to be people who want to live in the US or seek asylum. Within illegal entry you have: Terror watchlist Recycling deportees (commuting to/from construction job sites in Phoenix or coming from Tijuana to do sex work in US) Ultralight pilots dropping meth in fields Smuggled minors (custody disputes) Chinese nationals on the run from China Mexican wildlife/hunting violators Archaeological and horticultural looters stealing from Sonora Desert Dryback US citizens pretending to be aliens to get a free ride on ICE flights to Houston US citizen gotaways
- BeetleB 11mo agoThe same party that gave us the Patriot Act? They've not been "small government" since forever.
- colejhudson 11mo agoHard to blame this squarely on the Republicans. Access to private license plate readers was granted under the Biden admin, and no doubt each of the last four administrations played some part. To me, the CPB and ICE are looking more and more like an American Gestapo.
- ActorNightly 11mo ago> Access to private license plate readers was granted under the Biden admin, Nope. Nice try tho. The "both sides bad" argument used to work, not anymore.
- FireBeyond 11mo ago> Access to private license plate readers was granted under the Biden admin Apropos of anything else, this access was granted in 2017, and Biden might be surprised to learn he was President then, not Trump.
- darknavi 11mo agoIf you're interested in some reflection on that, What's the Matter with Kansas? (2004) by Thomas Frank explores some of this, but centered around Kansas. Pretty interesting (and frustrating) stuff.
- hyperliner 11mo ago[dead]
- supportengineer 11mo agoThe logical conclusion of all this oppression is that everyone will just stay home, and go out no more than necessary, and spend no money that isn't absolutely necessary. Is that a win for the oligarchs?
- fhdkweig 11mo agoIt is for the ones that do deliveries. I never looked up the numbers, but my gut feeling is that Amazon did well during the pandemic.
- SilverElfin 11mo agoWell at least post 9/11 unconstitutional escalation required legislation and the creation of agencies like the DHS and TSA. Now, a political culture that is willing to break norms and abuse technicalities is silently expanding powers to the max, and that’s far more insidious. But maybe it’ll result in a strengthened democracy in the long term if new laws or amendments are passed to contain this problem.
- potato3732842 11mo agoPepperidge farms remembers when it took a constitutional amendment to ban booze.
- cogman10 11mo ago> except it's only one side supporting it this time. I wish. Very early on in this Trump admin there was a bipartisan bill passed which greatly expanded the capabilities of ICE to deport [1]. Democrats have been well aligned with the republicans when it comes to immigration policy. You'll find few that will actually criticize the actions of ICE/DHS. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laken_Riley_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laken_Riley_Act
- wffurr 11mo ago156 Democratic congressmen voted no on that bill.
- cogman10 11mo ago46 voted yes. And just a few months prior democrats tried to pass this [1] [2]. Which only failed because Trump didn't want Biden to be able to show a "tough on the border" stance. Again, you'll find few democrats that have a stance on the border that contradicts the Republican stance. There are a few, but most are just staying silent. The only reason they vote against these sorts of bills is because of pure partisanship, not out of some ideology alignment. [1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/4361/text?s=3&r=1&q=%7B%22search%22%3A%22S.+4361%22%7D https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/436... [2] https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/senate-hold-election-year-showdown-vote-immigration-border/story?id=110469665 https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/senate-hold-election-year-sh...
- Dig1t 11mo ago[flagged]
- chasd00 11mo ago> ICE raids started and 25% of the school kids didn't show up to school. Which indicates that likely 25% of the population is illegal. you're downvoted but this is a very real thing, especially at the elementary school level. My kids had regular classes in first/second grade taught in Spanish because they were the one single English speaking student in the room (this was fixed when my wife and I found out). The level of illegal immigrants in schools goes down over time as they drop out. My son is now 16 and a sophomore in HS, SEM Magnet, and in a class of about 100-125 he knows maybe 10 that have told him they're here illegally. /Dallas public schools
- bdangubic 11mo ago> border enforcement and deportations are what we want. this is not what “we want” - this is what ruling party wants you to think and obsess over while they pillage and make your life otherwise miserable. the same young votes voted for Biden in 2020 knowing very well what the immigration policy would be (and they were as bad as it gets the first two years)
- convolvatron 11mo agoone that we can solve without turning the US into a single-party police state
- Scubabear68 11mo agoTo be fair, the current Republican Party bears almost no resemblance to the "classic" Republican Party of....10 years ago. The Newt and the Tea Party started the slide, normalizing hatred and bombast and FU-politics, and MAGA perfected it. Whether you love it, hate it, or are indifferent, what you are dealing with now are not really Republicans. They are MAGA-folks. They should really rename themselves the Solipism Party. Nothing matters but the current state of your own head. And yes, I know parties change and evolve with the times, but I would argue this time is very different.
- masklinn 11mo agoThe current Republican Party is the exact same as 10 years ago, just further along. 10 years ago was basically Trump 1. And 10 years before that was GWB starting the endless wars with an admin outright denying reality. Which Reagan also did. And of course Nixon literally broke into the opposition party’s.
- sleepybrett 11mo ago.. 10 years ago. Yes it fucking does, it's just become more brazen. Those are the motherfuckers that passed the patriot act and then reupped it over and over.
- Scubabear68 11mo agoObama and the Democrats were surprisingly heavy on surveillance and curtailing rights during Obama’s Presidency. So you can include them in the “reupped it over and over”.
- greedo 11mo agoThat's why all of these efforts to corrode civil liberties needs to be fought and contested by both sides. Otherwise the ratcheting effect makes if impossible to reclaim these liberties.
- potato3732842 11mo agoEvery US administration at least as far back as Woodrow has done nothing but expand the surveillance state. Like you can make the argument that occasional weirdos like Ike, Clinton and Hoover didn't really do anything to expand on that front and just kept the status quo and let them run themselves but there has never been any substantial rollback in at least 100yr. And as bad as the executive is the legislature is no better.
- OhMeadhbh 11mo agoMeh. I think political parties in the states are really there just to make money. Why else would the dems keep pelting you with adds for $5? I think both parties are saying whatever they need to say to convince people to give them cash. The number of people who care about privacy seems smaller than the number of people who want to be entertained by politicians, so it's unlikely to change anytime soon.
- throwway120385 11mo agoI've talked to some of these people at the local level and they really believe what they're saying. So I don't really buy your explanation.
- OhMeadhbh 11mo agoAbsolutely. Anecdata is easier to understand.
- shitware_vendor 11mo ago[dead]
- John23832 11mo agoAn interesting fact is that "the border" technically extends 100 miles from any actual border. Guess how many major metros are in that area. https://www.aclu.org/news/immigrants-rights/your-rights-border-zone https://www.aclu.org/news/immigrants-rights/your-rights-bord...
- ncr100 11mo agoTo the GOP, lying (in stated intentions "small gov", et al) aligns with their core values: GOP is the party of capitalism (free-market, laissez-faire). Capitalism is the pursuit of self-interest and the profit motive. And when the opportunity permits, this creates an ethical incentive structure for lying to be deployed for tactical gain.
- thewebguyd 11mo agoYou can't even call the GOP the party of capitalism either. The party that took a 10% stake in Intel to at least partially nationalize it. The party of tariffs, the party of special interest tax loopholes giving taxpayer subsidies to fossil fuels, real estate, and agriculture, the $400 million equity stake in MP materials. Sure sounds like they are picking winners and losers, the antithesis of free market capitalism.
- ncr100 11mo agoThis is factually accurate! It's going to be one party, or the other, in my opinion .. a party that is more overtly favoring the business- / owner-class. And today it happens to be GOP. The fascinating / interesting part to me is how Lying, a socially-unfavorable trait, is overtly deployed more and more often by a specific political party. And so it reinforces, in my mind, the "Post-Truth Era" labeling by some political scientists, for today. Where society itself is complicit in accepting the GOP, I assume because it feels good to "win", while the GOP gratuitously lies. Their leader, Trump, is re-explained by his supporters, "what he meant when he called for the execution of other Government leaders was ..." and similar such intentional misdirection / lying. As a tactic, it's remarkable to me how Lying is successful. I expect to see more of it, from popular and even unpopular business leaders, going forward, perhaps enabled by increasingly capable automated information generation technology like AI & (mis)info-spreaders like social-networks.
- Lammy 11mo agoThere's no need to partisanize this. Why would you immediately turn off half of your possible audience when speaking about an issue that affects everyone equally? San Francisco is covered in Flock cameras just like the ones pictured top-right in the article, and you won't find a more-Democrat-leaning place. One cannot analyze and act on data that does not exist: https://www.flocksafety.com/blog/sf-takes-historic-step-to-solve-crime-with-400-lpr-cameras https://www.flocksafety.com/blog/sf-takes-historic-step-to-s...
- throwway120385 11mo agoFlock is sort of a new kind of animal in the LPR space. Before that there were a lot of LPR companies out there but none of them were providing data in such a way that law enforcement could do what it's doing. LPR has been in use for tolling and for parking enforcement for decades now. It's the same kind of shell game Ring has been running by putting surveillance cameras on everyone's house and then selling access to law enforcement.
- ajross 11mo ago> There's no need to partisanize this. On the contrary, the only way to drive change in a democracy is via partisanship. Demanding we all adhere to an artificial both-sides framing is manufacturing consensus for the status quo. Politicians only change their positions if they think they'll lose votes because of it. Also, obviously, because the analysis in this case is clearly wrong. This is a 100% partisan issue. Period. There are good guys and bad guys in the story, and if you won't point out who they are you're just running cover for the bad guys.
- Lammy 11mo ago> Politicians only change their positions if they think they'll lose votes because of it. And you won't convince any of that party's voters to care about location privacy enough to make it a vote-changing issue if you open your argument by criticizing their party (which, yes, almost universally sucks) instead of talking about the actual issue, which is location privacy.
- api 11mo agoThe party of small government thing hasn't been true for a long time, if it ever was.
- Spooky23 11mo agoThe only thing fascinating is that anyone believed any of that crap. Everything that Trumpists are doing was peddled in the 1990s by such distinguished figures as Newt Gingrich and Rudy Giuliani. Usually with a nauseating appeal to "rule of law". The "surprise", and "this behavior may be the path to authoritarianism" stuff in the NY Times makes it hard to read without an eyeroll.
- potato3732842 11mo agoThis shit comes in waves. Before it was peddled in the 90s it was peddled in the 70s. In the 50s you had the same stuff as well.
- neilk 11mo agoIt has never been about small government. You can just look at the Republican record on deficit spending or military funding to dismiss that. “Small government” was just an acceptable way to say you were for reducing benefits to people deemed undeserving. There are people who called themselves Republican who started to believe their own propaganda, but it’s never been an empirical fact in the modern era that Republicans acted to reduce government spending in toto.
- burnte 11mo agoThey were never for small government, they just want it crippled enough that it can't regulate them but can still be used against other people.
- frumplestlatz 11mo agoThe “party of small government” has always seen protection of sovereignty and borders as exactly one of the few things a government should actually do.
- beeflet 11mo agoThe republican party has never represented "small government"
- an0malous 11mo agoIt’s always been tribal, because they suddenly don’t care about government debt, elite pedophile rings, foreign aid, and endless wars either
- 0xDEAFBEAD 11mo agoThe US has a 2-party system. Those parties will tend to be very loose and ideologically diverse coalitions almost by definition. There is an interesting philosophical issue around these accusations of "distributed hypocrisy". It would be one thing if you were pointing to a particular individual who took an inconsistent position. But if two loosely affiliated individuals disagree, that's not necessarily hypocritical. Even a single individual may change their mind on an issue over time.
- philipwhiuk 11mo agolarge government, small support.
- stronglikedan 11mo agoExcept these have been around long enough for both parties to have done something about it, so it's de facto supported by both parties.
- tempodox 11mo ago> … agency whose job is supposed to be patrolling the border. They are patrolling the border. The border between desired and undesired citizens. Nobody lifted a finger when “the privacy violations are only used against the bad guys”. Now it looks like it’s your turn to be declared the bad guy.
- phendrenad2 11mo agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_fallacy