I think we're well past the point of stopping these dystopian practices given the government has already collected this data. They're merely using it how they want. If you go through customs as a US citizen, you don't even need to hand over your passport: they just scan your face now.
Calling out these practices is good, but the time to stop this would've been after 9/11 and the ensuing terrorism hysteria (Patriot Act, FISA, etc..) which gave three letter agencies the go-ahead to do whatever they want.
1) Vague threats to leak/expose Congress members' personal matters who craft legislation against them. Chuck Schumer (a sitting US senator) admitted on live TV that the intel community has "six ways from Sunday" to get back at you.
2) Blatant disregard for the law by "just following orders", see anecdotes about Michael Hayden, a former CIA director.
3) Data storage, backup, and classified systems. Decades of collection probably means this data is scattered in many places which could give these agencies a chance to retain data "accidentally" or put up roadblocks due to high level clearances being required to work with these systems.
Going forward it would be nice if we stopped letting these mobs grab power but it's too late, so maybe the effort should be focused on using tools like this to our advantage. Surely there must be some value to the populous to track their oppressors and those that control them - have you considered building a citizen-powered system so you can watch the watchers?
Today, tools created by US intelligence make the data collection trivial, but more importantly, the data analysis is trivial as well.
Watch in what way? And would it matter seeing as they have the full force of the government behind them anyway?
It's always amazed me how well this works when they are scanning you with the same 2015-era cheap logitech camera I have.
Then after the flight takes off, an updated list is sent again to USCBP.
So when you walk up to USCBP, they already have a list of people they expect to see within an hour of the flight landing. The match is much easier at that point.
It all falls apart at land or sea border crossings. Requirements are quite different and travel outside continental US but with zone like the Caribbean are treated differently than travel outside that zone.
As such your immigration record can get messed up if you say exit via land border to Canada as there is no exit record to match up with entry. Many people have gotten email about overstays because of this.
>go take a flight >demand your photo be taken >"as far as I know it's mandatory" >"I assure you the image is deleted" >"fingerprints derived from the image, what are those" Thanks TSA for logging the facial parameters of 200 million citizens, I'm sure that invasion of privacy helped your basic mission, to screen passengers for planes
Consider now that precedents for the Judicial being ignored are well underway.
We have an incompetent authoritarian in office right now. A mere slice of competence and we'd already be worse-than-1984.
And we should condemn the overreach on its own terms and by its own moral failings and not just wave it away with a both-sides-ist "They're merely using it how they want".
Bad things are bad and we should say they are bad. Because at the end of the day every government is possessed of terrible power and the only reason any of them don't get worse is that we vote for the people who aren't bad.
https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/privacy...
It would appear the software returns a lot of “potential matches” with propensity scores and demographic and recording information and it’s up to the agent to make the final determination.
It’s more a tool to find potential matches rather than a program that pops up and says “this is who this person is”
This is just something the type of people who end up in government try every year despite the fact few people want it.
Both (sweeping away due process for mass deportation, and eliminating restrictions on law enforcement and surveillance in the name of “law and order” generally) were both major promises of Trump’s 2024 campaign and things that he made steps toward limited by institutional forces (courts, political resistance including in some cases from old-line Republicans, etc.), which Trump and the MAGA movement derided as deep state traitors, during his 2017-2021 term.
Kind of surprising to see someone who describes themselves as ex-MAGA who is surprised that the GOP under Trump supports these things.
This is pretty off topic obviously but I see this due process claim a lot and I am assuming I’m missing some kind of fundamental legal concepts. And that wouldn’t be surprising because I have no legal background.
If a person is not a citizen, and they’ve overstayed whatever limit there is to staying while not being a citizen, and if the action taken is to remove the person from the country - what role does due process play?
Proof of citizenship seems like it should be a pretty cut and dried thing to determine. It shouldn’t require a court proceeding should it?
If the accusation was like theft or murder and/or the action taken was imprisonment or fines, that would be a different story.
But this is like being escorted out of a movie theater if you can’t present your ticket.
It makes me question all sorts of things when people get what they were promised and then complain they got it.
It’s either indifference (mostly due to ignorance) or outright opposition?
The billionaire party owns both political parties; they shuffle the front-people to give the illusion of choice. In reality they get what they want. George Carlin spoke eloquently about this.
What you say may be true and we will see what comes in the future, but dont for a moment believe that all these things are due to the current, nor that previous was fighting to stop it.
