5 ms·
ICE denies having a protester database. A letter to Congress sheds more light
- zthrowaway 5mo ago[flagged]
- herbst 5mo agoIs that the case? Did they also have some kind of untrained police force (ice) doing the dirty things? From here in Europe it looks like that shithole of country completely lost their mind. But who knows what is real anymore
- wat10000 5mo agoTrumpers refuse to believe that the issue is not the deportations themselves, but the abuses and murders that accompany them.
- Izkata 5mo agoICE is decades old, so yes.
- mothballed 5mo agoYes, pre-Trump I was brutalized by DHS at the border including strip searched, cavity searched, medical bills racked up in my name and imprisoned based on a completely fabricated tale by DHS. I posted my story on HN and a few other places and I was mocked and told in so many words I deserved it and I had probably lied about the back-story. The only people that would believe it was my own family. The ACLU and all the lawyers I contacted declined the case or ignored it. After Trump I told the same story and suddenly everyone believed it. Everyone. Suddenly all the lawyers that ignored me and declined the case were saying "why didn't you seek damages." It was there all along. It got worse with Trump in charge, but the truth is, you all just didn't believe us when it happened under Biden. The true stories of the abused weren't believed and taken seriously by many of the people who do now until it was politically convenient.
- pandaman 5mo agoNot only ICE exists since Patriot Act created DHS, but before that the same organization was called INS. If you watch 80s-90s police procedurals you can spot when someone's on the show's staff had their gardeners/housekeepers busted in an immigration raid and there is an episode, where the characters need help from illegals, who are first afraid of them being "La Migra" but after reassuring that they are dealing with the "real" police who does not care about immigration at all, open up and help to fight crime with their insightful observations.
- wnevets 5mo ago> Where was all the outcry when Obama and Biden were deporting way more per year than Trump is? It sounds like you are saying you believe Trump is weaker on border security than Obama & Biden.
- notaustinpowers 5mo ago"The enemy is both strong and weak." - Ur-Fascism, 1995.
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- superkuh 5mo ago>Department of Homeland Security officials have repeatedly denied having a database tracking U.S. citizen protesters or a database of "domestic terrorists", even as anecdotes like what happened to Pantos and Williams suggest federal agents are collecting observers' information in some capacity. The real list of domestic terrorists is the DHS employee payroll for ICE and CBP. The DHS's list of people who observe them is not standalone, they say they integrate it into existing databases, and this is their strongest claim. But it's just obfuscation, the intent, that they maintain a list of normal people who observe them so they can terrorize them has been confirmed.
- kgwxd 5mo agoWelcome to the list.
- aiisascam 5mo ago[dead]
- red-iron-pine 5mo agoposting a sardonic comment like that? also list.
- virgildotcodes 5mo agoReplying to a sardonic comment - believe it or not, list.
- ccvannorman 5mo agoPosting a level 3 meme comment? Straight to list.
- throwway120385 5mo agoWait a minute, are we the baddies?
- chasil 5mo agoI think that we should have a Schengen Area of the Americas, but observing the problems that this has caused the E.U. (Brexit), a proper implementation would require a much more controlled and gradual approach. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schengen_Area https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schengen_Area Edit: It would be most pleasant to delete this comment. Drat.
- wongarsu 5mo agoBut Britain was never in the Schengen area. One of their many "we are an island, we are different" privileges
- mothballed 5mo agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_of_Free_Association https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_of_Free_Association is somewhat similar
- wat10000 5mo agoWhat's the connection between Schengen and Brexit?
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- hinoki 5mo agoTo give more context: The UK is not and has never been in Schengen. I guess GP is taking about free movement of EU citizens, but that has nothing to do with Schengen.
- pbhjpbhj 5mo agoSchengen Area has open borders with a common visa policy. >free movement of EU citizens, [...] has nothing to do with Schengen. Did you mis-speak? One of the things leading up to Brexit was politicians claiming we couldn't police our borders without getting out of the EU. That was of course false. Almost the opposite in practical terms. Presumably, if UK were to return to the EU we would do so without our past veto, and as part of Schengen. That makes it less desirable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schengen_Area https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schengen_Area
- oakinnagbe 5mo ago[dead]
- brianwmunz 5mo agoWhenever I would talk to people about the importance of privacy in data and online activity, people would always say something like "I don't care, I've got nothing to hide. I'm not some weird pervert." And yeah I'm not either but this kind of stuff is why it's important. Fascism thrives on knowledge of the people it wants to oppress.
- troyvit 5mo agoIt's trite, but saying you don't care about privacy rights because you have nothing to hide is like saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say.
- giancarlostoro 5mo agoJust correct them more blatantly: I dont care about the fourth amendment, I have nothing to hide.
- josefritzishere 5mo agoThat's very well said... quotable even.
- troyvit 5mo agoYeah and I called it "trite" because I thought it was well worn at this point and that is b.s. on my part that I regret. I first heard this from Edward Snowden: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2015/may/22/edward-snowden-rights-to-privacy-video https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2015/may/22/edward... and I don't think he's trite at all.
- bluGill 5mo agoI'm not doing anything I should have to hide. However I am doing some things that I would have to hide elsewhere, and there is no particular reason to believe those things will remain things I don't have to hide.
- mrtesthah 5mo ago
- jmbwell 5mo agoI just caught myself thinking Pantos shouldn’t have answered the phone. Not in a blame the victim way, more in that never answering the phone is just good opsec at this point. The phone, the door, just don’t talk to a cop without a lawyer. They don’t come to you to be helpful to -you-. Except in this case in a broader sense, we know about something we wouldn’t have otherwise
- adiabatichottub 5mo agoIf somebody calls you like this, immediately ask them for their name and supervisor in the calmest, most business-like tone you can muster. A good tactic is to tell them you can't talk just this second and ask for a name and number you can reach them at to discuss the matter further. If they're going to try to dox you then you should try to dox them right back.
- guywithahat 5mo ago[flagged]
- mothballed 5mo agoIf DHS has probable cause that they've violently attacked an officer why aren't they bringing that to a judge and jury rather than some secret list?
- guywithahat 5mo agoBeing put on a terror watch list doesn't mean you've assaulted an officer, it means they have reason to believe you're a risk of committing an act of terrorism, which is a reasonable concern for DHS agents. Assuming the man in the article isn't a literal terrorist, LARP'ing as a terrorist is dumb and it doesn't seem unreasonable that he'd be at risk of getting put on a watch list.
- adiabatichottub 5mo agoObserving and recording law enforcement is generally not illegal, however threatening it might feel to them. It's unfair to compare that to an event where protesters broke into a government building, damaged property, assaulted law enforcement, and made violent threats against elected officials. As to the generosity of letting people know they might be added to an official list, it seems more calculated to intimidate than to inform.
- itqwertz 5mo agoThere are always personal risks when you engage with society at a political level. If you see a police stop on the highway, should you pull over and record to observe? Could this stop make you a person of interest, or at least a known nuisance, to the average law enforcement agency? Would footage of interactions between the detained driver, police, and yourself be of interest on social media? Does the U.S. government possess a vast well of data of each citizen's interactions on communication networks? Let's be honest here - what was this person's intentions? A quick Google search of "Xenia Pantos" shows details about this person's life and practice that would place them a political/social enemy of the current U.S. administration's voting base. My advice is to treat all interactions with the government as neutral at best, and to avoid any reason for them to target you. If you decide to become a political, expect some negative attention from the opposing side, especially if that opposing side is in power. The ideal world where a citizen exercises their rights crumbles into brutal reality the second one of these interactions being observed becomes physically contentious or violent.
- wbl 5mo agoI, unlike you, live in a democracy and expect the government to not send goons to intimidate opponents.
- voakbasda 5mo agoWhere do you live? I would like to go there, because you are definitely not describing the US that I live in.
- raincom 5mo agoGovernment has a monopoly on violence. It is just that the developed world hasn't seen the abuses perpetrated by the enforcers of the government.
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- itqwertz 5mo ago
- josefritzishere 5mo agoHistory tells us fascists do not respect the law, or their opposition, and are not interested in honest discourse. It's self-evident that those who wish to rule through force don't feel bound by rules of order, or intellectual honesty. In short... they're going to lie and you should expect it.