Hacker News | ICE seeks industry input on ad tech location data for investigative use

ICE seeks industry input on ad tech location data for investigative use(biometricupdate.com)

281 points by WaitWaitWha 2 days ago | 361 comments

viraptor 2 days ago
Since there's quite a few people here working at US companies with access to lots of user data, but they may not have decision making capacity, I just thought I'll link the Simple Sabotage Field Manual, out of context and for no reason at all https://www.cia.gov/static/5c875f3ec660e092cf893f60b4a288df/...
If some data is shared with an external entity, it likely needs to be included in a few usual disclaimers, with at least a few meetings to clarify the exact wording and verification of the legal implications with the right dept and double check how it complies with others data protection rules, and don't forget the audit, and I think this contains a mistake so maybe let's investigate this issue first, and ...
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- account42 1 day ago
  Might I suggest to instead reflect on why you are working in an industry that collects all this data.
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  - direwolf20 1 day ago
    Money!
  - Gud 15 hours ago
    To conduct field sabotage
- frumplestlatz 2 days ago
  [flagged]
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  - amazingman 2 days ago
    We should be able to agree that no entity is authorized to violate the 2nd, 4th, 5th, and 14th amendments of the constitution. Whatever immigration laws you want to see enforced, they do not supersede the constitution.
  - elnatro 2 days ago
    Please, enlighten me a non-American, what laws allow shooting and killing civilians on broad light on the USA?
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    Paracompact 2 days ago
    Some people have absolutist takes on these sorts of things. If the stated purpose makes sense ("stop illegal immigration"), they will dismiss tragedies as routine accidents of an imperfect world. If they have no sense of when exceptions become intolerable and course-correction becomes necessary, then by definition, no amount of evidence will change their mind.
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    xp84 2 days ago
    What if we believe that those shootings are completely unacceptable (probably criminal), but that “have no immigration enforcement and permanently halt deportations” is also unacceptable? The latter seems to be the solution being pushed by one party.
    Like always, the left’s problem is that their proposed solutions read like they were written by teenagers, based on emotions and dismissive of the reasons why their supposed “enemies” disagree with them.
    Most Americans would support having ICE operate perhaps even entirely with nonlethal weapons. That would be a smart thing to push for! And popular too. But the party line is instead “Abolish ICE.” And of course nobody (who isn’t pro-open-borders) trusts that there’s any Democratic plan besides look-the-other-way and maybe amnesty.
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    NoGravitas 1 day ago
    People wanting to abolish ICE are not, generally, calling for doing away with immigration enforcement entirely. The main thing I've seen called for is the abolition of ICE, and the restoration of the pre-DHS Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), not under the DHS, but under the DOJ. I have also seen calls to eliminate the DHS entirely, and separate out the agencies under it to their pre-DHS organization.
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    xp84 1 day ago
    Pardon my skepticism, but what difference would that make to rename or reorganize DHS into a different shape? If you want immigration enforcement to be nicer (which I think I support you on in broad strokes) the correct steps are:
    1. Win elections
    2. Pass laws (or win the Presidency, a cheat code that has been the main way most things get done since ... 2008 or so, and is basically effective unless the "thing" is kinda unconstitutional and SCOTUS is against you. Blame RBG btw for screwing Dems on that last part)
    The reason why we won't get this outcome is that the Democrats stopped being serious about convincing the moderates to get onboard their platform, because they give too much of a platform to the people who just chant slogans like "No person is illegal!" Which, while I get the humanitarian point, reads to me like you'd really prefer that anyone caught here illegally should ethically just be let go, rendering the whole concept of borders, visa applications, green cards, all of that, a big joke on the people who follow the rules.
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    NoGravitas 1 day ago
    > Pardon my skepticism, but what difference would that make to rename or reorganize DHS into a different shape?
    ICE, being under DHS, is part of the US security apparatus. It has a threat-orientation. INS did have an enforcement component, but it was substantially an administrative agency. Immigration enforcement agents should primarily be process servers, notifying people whose papers aren't in order either what they need to do to fix them, or when their court date is.
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    xp84 23 hours ago
    Okay. Out of curiosity, in this arrangement, what should happen when these upstanding individuals, after overstaying their visa by a few years, simply don't show up to court or bring themselves into compliance, because they never intended to? Let's imagine for fun that they live in San Francisco, where the police are bound by local law to hide undocumented immigrants from the Federal government at all costs.
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    NoGravitas 22 hours ago
    When someone doesn't show up for a required court appearance, the court issues a bench warrant, and they may be arrested, among other consequences: https://legalclarity.org/what-is-a-bench-warrant-and-what-ar...
    sham1 2 days ago
    I'll be honest, I don't think I've ever actually heard someone give a reason why the US having open borders would be a bad thing. You are a country of immigrants, and your greatness was built upon that foundation.
    Yet now it's getting undone for seemingly no reason. But I hope that there would actually be one, so please enlighten me and the other commenters.
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    xp84 1 day ago
    > You are a country of immigrants, and your greatness was built upon that foundation.
    This makes a great talking point, but those immigrants eventually assimilated into the culture, and also importantly, they were specifically allowed to come because the US needed more people in order to power its economy. The Chinese came to build the railroad, the Irish and Italians and Germans came over and worked in factories and as police and many other industries. This was badly needed 100 years ago.
    Today most illegal immigrants are uneducated and are either working in the unofficial economy or in service-sector jobs, which depresses wages for everyone with low education. We don't need every restaurant to have an unending stream of desperately poor would-be busboys and dishwashers, or for Uber to have a stream of poor drivers. Or for rich people to have an ample supply of housekeepers paid in cash. All that does is keep wages in the toilet for working people.
    But about open borders, why are so many Latin American countries such bad places to live that so many of their people want to come to the US? Open borders just means anyone can walk right in and bring all of their problems with them, not to mention their drug and human trafficking operations and the criminal gangs that operate them. We already have enough of that as it is.
    No Western country can stay civilized with open borders. Anyone with half a brain can see how it is going in the UK and France, where they are only a bit more "open borders" than the US has been. Thankfully for Americans, Latin-American culture is more compatible with Western culture than Islamic culture is.
    hackable_sand 1 day ago
    There is no defensible reason.
    AndrewKemendo 1 day ago
    Because there is no ethical or logical argument for borders that isn’t pure bigotry and nationalism
    Paracompact 2 days ago
    Years ago, I would have agreed with most of what you wrote. The left, like the right, reacts with emotion and absolutism. No one is above this, so I think it is very important that we frequently assess what would actually change our minds.
    Given the present tide of things, however, I think there's no amount of course-correction back toward the left that would prove excessive. My opinion on this will change as soon as the tide does, and e.g. a leftist president endorses indiscriminate murder of ICE agents, or something equally egregious to what we're seeing in the opposite direction.
    In a more ideological sense, though, I tend to despise the left/right continuum and think it is unhelpful for analysis.
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    throwawayqqq11 2 days ago
    > a leftist president endorses indiscriminate murder of ICE agents
    Comparing the rhetoric today, this might never happen. There are qualitative differences between both political geoups, so grouping them together as a single horseshoe is 'unhelpful for analysis'.
    That said, you cant fully rule out leftist led atrocities aswell and maybe thats the reason why the right is escalating in violent rhetoric, they want this as a self fullfilling prophecy to justify more violence.
    When Kirk was shot, all the "this needs to stop" commentary, as if it was an organized mass phenomenon, was sending shivers down my spine. We all know how the far right envisions stopping this 'mass' violence.
    AlecSchueler 2 days ago
    > "have no immigration enforcement and permanently halt deportations” is also unacceptable? The latter seems to be the solution being pushed by one party.
    What party? What makes it "seem" that way? Could you link to anyone calling for this?
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    nosianu 2 days ago
    Those using memes along the lines of "nobody is illegal" (sometimes "on stolen land" is added)? This is a movement not limited to the US. Here in Europe there is a similar movement, using that same slogan. They don't want any borders or border enforcement at all.
    Merely for illustration, a single example: https://abc7.com/post/protests-expected-socal-part-nationwid...
    > Protesters were seen carrying flags, signs and spraying graffiti on nearby property, including on the U.S. Courthouse sign where it read "No one is illegal on stolen land".
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    kace91 2 days ago
    >"nobody is illegal"
    This is completely orthogonal to the conversation, but I think you misunderstood that slogan. It does not mean “immigration rules must not be enforced”.
    It means differentiating between a potentially illegal action (illegal entry/overstaying) and the person itself. You never talk about an illegal driver, or an illegal drinker, but people talk about illegal immigrants, with the implication that the person itself is illegal.
    It’s subtle but it’s a step towards dehumanizing a person, or making infractions to their rights “count less” in the public eye.
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    AlecSchueler 1 day ago
    > but people talk about illegal immigrants
    Worse than that, we more and more often just see the term "illegals" being used, which completely removes the person from the description.
    AlecSchueler 2 days ago
    The protest you linked wasn't calling for completely open borders. That's also not policy of either of the main parties in the US, as was implied above. I understand "no one is illegal" to be a counter to the use of language like "illegals" to describe the humans involved.
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    xp84 1 day ago
    I get that you can make the argument that they're merely making a semantic point. However, if that side of the debate actually agreed with us that these people shouldn't even be here at all, what difference does it make what we call them? If the side who wants them gone had their way, they'd be gone back home and they'd no longer be in any illegal status in any sense of the word.
    It only matters what we call them, if you want to keep them here forever. I think the present-day recommended term is probably just "immigrant" right? So basically we should call them the same thing we call the people who waited years for their turn and proved that they had a positive contribution to make to our society.
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    NoGravitas 1 day ago
    The term for immigrants without papers is "undocumented immigrant". The largest group of undocumented immigrants are people who entered the country legally, and then overstayed their visas or otherwise violated their terms (usually by working on a tourist or student visa). This is a civil offense.
    AlecSchueler 16 hours ago
    > It only matters what we call them, if you want to keep them here forever.
    You think it makes no difference if we call them "the scum of the earth" or "below human entities" otherwise? Surely there's a line of what rhetoric you would tolerate. This is ours.
    nosianu 2 days ago
    Why do you choose that single example, which I said was just that, and pretend my whole statement hinges on it?
    You are either misinformed, willfully ignorant or lying, and I've had it with this discussion style.
    Yes, people who use "no one is illegal" do also say "no more borders". Not every single one, clearly humans are diverse, but your statement is just false.
    Here a UK example even combining the statements (as I said, the movement is not limited to the US). https://www.jstor.org/stable/community.11073215
    Another example, also showing this is an older movement (2005): https://www.statewatch.org/media/documents/news/2005/apr/int... ("No Borders/No One Is Illegal campaigns")
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    AlecSchueler 1 day ago
    > Why do you choose that single example, which I said was just that
    Because we're looking for people saying borders should be completely opened. An example of people saying something else is irrelevant.
    > Yes, people who use "no one is illegal" do also say "no more borders".
    Ok but the conversation is about people saying the latter. It was you who brought the former into the conversation.
    > Here a UK example
    Which British parties are active in the United States?
    > Another example, also showing this is an older movement
    The claim was that "the left" has no response to emigration issues beyond "open all borders" and that this was the policy of "one party." The existence of an anti-borders movement is again irrelevant to the questions I raised in response to this assertion.
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    nosianu 3 hours ago
    > It was you who brought the former into the conversation.
    Liar! That is mentioned by many throughout this discussion!
    > Which British parties are active in the United States?
    What does THAT have to do with anything??? Why do YOIU suddenly limit this international phenomenon to just the US? I explicitly pointed out that it is older and international and not recent and US-only! If you cannot cope with that information, it is your problem, not mine.
    giaour 1 day ago
    Just because some people who say "no one is illegal" also say "no more borders," that does not automatically mean that the former implies the latter. If that were the case, we could paint everyone who agrees with Nick Fuentes on any point (including, in the extreme, "nice weather we're having today") as a antisemite. The old joke linking dietary choices to Nazism ("You know who else was a vegetarian? Hitler!") is meant to make light of this logical fallacy.
    The grandparent post accurately captured what I have understood people to mean by "no one is illegal" -- it is meant to protest a dehumanizing way to describe a class of people.
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    nosianu 3 hours ago
    > that does not automatically mean that the former implies the latter
    Why do you invent something I didn't say? I know why: People like you, when they don't have any arguments they just go and invent something and pretend like they just scored a point. If you are inventing stuff, you may as well chat with yourself, since you don't care what the other person actually says.
    Also, your argument is arguable at best. What is a border when crossing it without permission is not illegal? So yes, now that you bring it up, I would actually very much argue that one implies the other.
    cassepipe 2 days ago
    Yes some leftists and anarchiste do. Do you really believe the Democrats support that motto ?
    Don't you guys remind us about Obama being "the deporter in chief" every time you are given the occasion ?
    direwolf20 1 day ago
    Then you're engaging in the black and white thinking fallacy.
    schiem 2 days ago
    The irony of this comment is that deportations were higher under Biden than during Trump's first term, which makes it seem exactly like it was "written by teenagers, based on emotions." The administration with the highest deportation rate in the past 60 years was the 2nd Clinton administration.
    triceratops 1 day ago
    > “have no immigration enforcement and permanently halt deportations” is also unacceptable? The latter seems to be the solution being pushed by one party.
    Obama and Biden, famously, deported more people than Trump. And with a substantially smaller budget too. Is this "no immigration enforcement" party in the room with us right now?
    duk3luk3 2 days ago
    You are completely out of touch with what the immigration policy of the last democratic government (Biden 2020) was.
    It was aggressive, it was inhumane, and immigrants were killed despite a massive effort by people from "the left" to feed and clothe people who were detained in open fields or between two border fences without any care being provided by the US agencies detaining them.
    Maybe you are right that nobody who is right-leaning trusts that the US democratic party isn't pro border enforcement and anti immigration, but that's based purely on lies and propaganda.
    cassepipe 2 days ago
    Then shouldn't you blame the party making a absolute shitshow of enforcing immigration out of incompetence and cruelty instead ? (and pressuring a state for its voters roll in the foolish attempt at meddlmeddling with the next election)
    If I want what I believe is a reasonable policy and the enforcers of that policy start doing the worst job ever, it is my duty to call them out, not to call out the opposing side for mostly imaginary reasons.
    Abolish ICE is not a unreasonable take. If the agents working in this agency have become some ultra politicized paramilitary, it makes sense to abolish it and create a new agency altogether.
    UncleMeat 1 day ago
    > The latter seems to be the solution being pushed by one party.
    Is it? I'm not aware of legislation introduced by the democrats, either when they were in power or today, that proposed anything resembling this. There are individual congresspeople calling for ICE to be abolished (which is not the same as having no immigration enforcement) but leadership within the democrats is very clear that they support extremely minor reforms like making ICE agents wear masks less frequently. This is considerably more minor than disarming ICE agents, which you claim would have nationwide support.
    saubeidl 1 day ago
    ICE as an institution is fundamentally evil.
    It's using immigration as a pretext to build an unaccountable group of thugs that disappear people into camps, murder political opponents and surveil the populace (as seen in OP). It's recruiting primarily from far-right militias, regularizing them into a paramilitary force of the regime.
    There is no justifiable reason to have them terrorize an entire city like they have been doing in Minneapolis.
    The brownshirts needed to be abolished in the 1920s, a pinky-swear they wouldn't do the thing they were designed to do wouldn't have been enough.
    The same applies to their modern equivalent.
    actionfromafar 2 days ago
    ICE is being converted into a militia controlled by Trump. So keeping it around may be dangerous.
    decremental 2 days ago
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    account42 1 day ago
    And some people will use tragedies as am argument to just stop enforcing laws at all even when those tragedies are a direct result of people trying to interfere with that enforcement and would have never have happened when people opposing the laws acted in reasonable ways.
    lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 10 hours ago
    > If the stated purpose makes sense ("stop illegal immigration"), they will dismiss tragedies as routine accidents of an imperfect world.
    Indeed, this is the modus operandi, though I'd argue that it doesn't have to make sense but rather be in the political canon. I recall hearing arguments that "some gun deaths are necessary" (in the context of mass shootings at schools) for us to have our "god-given right" to own guns, but the purpose—owning guns for the ability to... checks notes... stand up to entities that can legally commit violence against you—isn't so obviously sensible.
    runsWphotons 2 days ago
    When an officer has reasonable suspicion that a civilian poses a threat to his life, he can shoot them. Once police start shooting they are trained to continue shooting until the target is incapacitated. That's the law. Whether the recent shootings you saw meet that standard is up for debate.
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    Cthulhu_ 2 days ago
    Sure, there's procedures to arresting someone and when they are allowed to shoot, that's all fine. But the danger is that these procedures are not being followed, and that there are no consequences to it.
    That people get killed is a tragedy, but that the people that killed them do not get the proper training, guidance or consequences for their action is a problem.
    giaour 1 day ago
    Beyond the reasonable suspicion of a threat to their life, the officer must believe that: a) the threat is imminent, and b) the threat will reasonably be mitigated by the application of force. An officer cannot, for example, immediately shoot someone who plausibly promises to murder them in 36 hours.
    donkeybeer 2 days ago
    Absolutely, likewise we should shoot ICE officers who come near us because we have strong precedent they are mentally unstable and prone to psychotic bouts of insensate violence. Since we have more than reasonable suspicion of threat to our life.
    runsWphotons 2 days ago
    Also the officer should believe this threat is imminent.
    cassepipe 2 days ago
    Sure but the first was arguably unreasonable and the second one was omg are you f@##%&@ kidding me, didn't you see the video about a peppered sprayed guy on his belly on the ground then not possibly brandishing with no gun since it had just been removed from him ?
    It's fine to make reasonable sounding comments but for the love of God, a bit honesty wouldn't kill you.
    "The party told you to ignore the evidence you see with your own ears and eyes*
    rcakebread 2 days ago
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    decremental 2 days ago
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    frumplestlatz 2 days ago
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    jacquesm 2 days ago
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    frumplestlatz 2 days ago
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    duk3luk3 2 days ago
    Here's a complete refutation of your argument: Pretti did not attempt to "de-arrest" anyone at any point. Nobody, not even ICE, DHS, the White House, or the FBI has argued this.
    Whoever told you this made it up. You should stop listening to whoever told you that. They are lying to you about this, and everything else they have told you is a lie too.
    jacquesm 2 days ago
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  - superb_dev 2 days ago
    It’s so hard to believe people posting in support of ICE aren’t trolls or bots. Are you watching them commit obscene crimes in broad daylight?
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    hdgvhicv 12 hours ago
    Is it really that hard - Trump didn’t get to power on a technicality - 70 million voted for him.
  - _DeadFred_ 2 days ago
    Is that the 'police don't need to identify themselves and should wear face masks' or the 'you aren't allowed to film the police because it interferes with our trying to be a secret police force' laws?
    Or the 'you aren't doing anything illegal but the masked government agents don't like it so they are going to use your biometrics to harass you in whatever ways the feds can make your life more difficult' laws?
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    frumplestlatz 2 days ago
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    elnatro 2 days ago
    Does that law allow killing them by shooting? I suppose that officers need to detain them, read their rights, and put them in court. That’s what I thought was the core of the American Law.
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    account42 1 day ago
    If the officers involved had could reasonably believe that they posed an immediate lethal threat at the time, yes it does. Whether or not that was the case is for courts to figure out after things calm down and all facts have been gathered and not a valid reason to call for the shut down of entire agencies with the intent of stopping enforcement of laws you don't like.
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    nullocator 1 day ago
    Is the immediate lethal threat in the room with us right now? I hope no one ever accidentally believes you're an immediate lethal threat simply for existing, or at least if they do, maybe you'll be lucky enough to not have yuppies on the internet trying to defend your murder.
    Can the officers in any of these incidents even articulate a threat, and how the only remedy was to shoot through the driver side window, or in the back of the head?
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    hdgvhicv 12 hours ago
    > Is the immediate lethal threat in the room with us right now?
    No, it’s on the streets. They have already murdered two Americans on camera.
    mindslight 1 day ago
    The presence of actual patriotic Americans who believe in individual liberty and limited government is an "imminent threat" to the agents' fantasy narrative where they're heroes doing good. Everything downstream of that is rationalization.
    donkeybeer 2 days ago
    Minnesota is a castle doctrine state. Minnesotans have the right to shoot at violent home invaders on their property.
    cassepipe 2 days ago
    under penalty of death ?
    _DeadFred_ 1 day ago
    How many convictions has ICE got under that statute? Seems like if it's really happening, they would have a ton. But wait, they keep losing their cases.
    And citing that statute doesn't address ICE saying on the street they are adding people using biometrics to a database for targeted federal harassment (without any conviction violating the Constitution, if you are, you know, concerned about our nation's HIGHEST laws). Does address ICE using and normalizing secret police tactics of hiding their identities for routine, daily enforcement operations. Doesn't address claiming administrative warrants (able to be issued on the spot by ICE agents Judge Dred style) have the same power as actual Article III judge issued criminal warrants.
  - jamboca 2 days ago
    i want to comment something violently hateful towards you. but at this point I feel bad for people like you. indeed you are already living out some twisted arc of the karmic cycle which results in your life and making this comment. i hope you find help eventually and i wish peace for you.
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    frumplestlatz 2 days ago
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    jamboca 2 days ago
    firstly i dont dont care about you or what you have to think. second escalation is meaningless Lol what is this a boxing gym? we’re on an internet forum
    put simply ice is a violent private militia. and people like you won’t see it until they are knocking at your door. or never. goes back to my first point. you are already living in hell
    nvm this has to be bait Bye
  - BoredPositron 2 days ago
    If you think enforcing the laws is the problem you are ignorant.
  - mindslight 2 days ago
    And yet many more of us care about the centuries-old laws that ICE is violating.
  - hdgvhicv 2 days ago
    Hurrah for the Blackshirts
- cmxch 1 day ago
  Are you sure that not even the most mediocre insider threat program doesn’t have this accounted for? Especially when they’re an industry that knows itself well?
  They will find out. And act accordingly. And your career will end, with the mess cleaned up and billable to you.
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  - viraptor 1 day ago
    > Are you sure that not even the most mediocre insider threat program doesn’t have this accounted for?
    I worked for a big corp. None of this is out of ordinary.
    But yeah, if you need to survive and worry about being fired, you make your own decisions that you'll be able to live with.
  - potsandpans 20 hours ago
    You've obviously never worked in big corpo.
    People unwittingly deploy this whole handbook back to front throughout the entire process of the sdlc.
    It's impressive that anything ever gets done ever.
doctoboggan 2 days ago
Hopefully this is a wakeup call to the software engineers and other employees at those companies - it's no longer a hypothetical future where the tools you are building might be abused, it's today.
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- testfrequency 2 days ago
  If you’re not awake already, you support what’s happening.
  Blind, which I realize is a bit of the wild west, is full of racist anti-immigration/pro ICE hatred. Obviously, you can see where users work/worked, and it’s every company you could imagine.
  The sad reality is that a lot of people will do what they can to support racist agendas, possibly even motivate them to work at certain companies as it feels moralizing to their hateful beliefs.
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  - andsoitis 2 days ago
    > you support what’s happening.
    I don’t know that things are that black and white.
    Do you feel the same about the billions of consumers who buy and use the products these companies make?
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    dns_snek 2 days ago
    No because employees are making the actual thing that inflicts harm while consumers' actions are completely diffused and many steps removed from the harm they cause. That's why ad-tech is so effective in the first place.
    Consumer pays $1.10 for a can of coke, $0.10 of that goes to ad-tech, the consumer watches some coke ads, ad-tech pays $0.05 to the publisher and the consumer receives $0.05 in benefits in the form of "free ad-supported content" (which they already paid $0.10 for).
    The only way for consumers to avoid this is to just stop spending money with any brand that advertises online, which is completely unrealistic and a much taller ask than asking employees to give up their deal with the devil (and work for just about anyone else except big tech).
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    reactordev 2 days ago
    Replace “tech” in this scenario with “ammunition”.
    Does your argument still hold up?
    >”employees are making the actual thing that inflicts harm while consumers' actions are completely diffused and many steps removed from the harm they cause.”
    “employees are making the actual thing that inflicts harm while consumers' actions directly cause deadly harm.”
    I’m not arguing that we shouldn’t be voting with our wallets and supporting these people but your initial argument is flawed. They produce goods precisely because consumers buy them…
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    hamdingers 1 day ago
    > Replace “tech” in this scenario with “ammunition”. Does your argument still hold up?
    Can you explain why you think it wouldn't?
    Tons of principled engineers choose not to pursue opportunities at military contractors, for instance, and this is not widely seen as unreasonable.
    dns_snek 1 day ago
    I didn't say "tech", I said "ad-tech" and "big tech" (meaning ad-tech like Google, not TSMC) which aren't morally neutral like ammunition is. Invasion of privacy and exploitation of private information is an inherent part of their business model.
    lukan 1 day ago
    "The only way for consumers to avoid this "
    Or they could stop drinking coke? But I guess that is too much to ask.
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    account42 1 day ago
    That's what gp said, except Coke isn't the only thing that funds the advertising industry - it's pretty much every product you can buy.
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    cogman10 1 day ago
    It's not perfect, but you can go a pretty long way by prioritizing store brands when possible.
    Stores still fund the advertising industry but to nowhere near the extent that name brand goods do.
    dns_snek 1 day ago
    You can avoid coke but approximately every brand in the supermarket is funding ad-tech. And even if you can find brands that don't, your supermarket is likely funding ad-tech to advertise itself so you can't go to there at all. Maybe you still have a farmer's market but chances are that they're advertising online.
    You can't buy a car or any smartphones you've ever heard of, you won't find an ISP that doesn't advertise online, and good luck finding a decent job without supporting ad-tech.
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    cogman10 1 day ago
    There's a large difference in the magnitude of spending.
    A big chain like kroger, for example, is spending around 10 to 100M. Coke is spending around $5B.
    Avoiding national branded products goes a long way in avoiding contributing to the problem.
    Things don't need to be all or nothing.
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    homeslice69 1 day ago
    Coke is always a discretionary purchase. Basic food staples are not. Kroger relies on national brand advertising to lure people from the perimiter of the store into junk food land.
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    cogman10 1 day ago
    Most (maybe not all) basic food staples have store brand alternatives. Even junk food does. Sometimes (maybe even often) those products are just repackaged version of the name brand.
    If the goal is to decrease money going into advertisement budgets, then the best thing you can do is buy store brand when possible. Even if both products are ultimately made from Nestle corp, the cheaper store brand will send less money into Nestle's pockets which means less money for advertising.
    That's what I mean by "avoiding nationally branded products". A package of "signature frozen peas" will taste just as good as the "birds eye green peas" without sending money to a major company (Looks like all the major companies have spun off their frozen food departments, but at one time this was a Nestle brand. I spent too much time looking into major frozen food brands :D).
    The advertisement budgets for the grocers are simply a lot smaller than that of the national brands across the board. It also doesn't seem (to me at least) to have been really spent on invasive advertisements.
    cindyllm 1 day ago
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    cindyllm 1 day ago
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    Paracompact 2 days ago
    There are degrees of culpability in any discussion. Generally, this is approximated by how much damage you individually are doing to your society compared to the alternative. You have to consume a lot of a company's products before your impact is comparable to working for them.
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    Eddy_Viscosity2 1 day ago
    Exactly. If you have regular meetings on how to best progress development of the torment nexus, then you can't claim innocence just because you aren't the one deploying the torment nexus for torment-purposes.
    testfrequency 2 days ago
    Consumers less so.
    They are the victims, not the source.
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    amelius 2 days ago
    Fully agree.
    If you want to put the blame on consumers, at least show them on your adverts, product packaging, etc. all the morally abject methods used in the production of the product.
    If you hide it from them, all the blame is on you.
    cucumber3732842 1 day ago
    Black and white thinking is a large part of what got us here.
  - Diti 2 days ago
    With the sorry state the software industry is currently in, I’m not surprised that developers would sell their soul in exchange for the peace of mind of being able to pay rent and food. Working for those companies does not make people “do what they can to support racist agendas”.
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    hackable_sand 2 days ago
    I can pay rent and feed myself without hurting people
    Everything else is an excuse
    testfrequency 2 days ago
    Is this your way of sharing that you work at X or are open to hurting people in exchange for cash?
    Also, you can retain your morals and choose a career, it is optional to select where you work as it’s hopefully voluntary.
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    surgical_fire 2 days ago
    There's nothing voluntary when your options are homelessness and starvation. The bank won't accept your morals in lieu of money when accepting mortgage repayments.
    Thankfully I don't live in the US and I don't work for anything even remotely related to this. I don't know if I would have the fortitude in the current US job market (based on what I read here) to threat the well being of the wife and daughter by taking principled stances.
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    RGamma 2 days ago
    Dilapidating the world for an easy buck is gonna bite you and/or your kids eventually. We have reached technological sophistication where certain kinds of mistakes are not allowed if civilization as we know it is to survive.
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    surgical_fire 2 days ago
    When the bank reposseses the house because you are not paying the mortgage, this will bite you and your kids too.
    You can call it an "easy buck", and it is just coping. An easy way to make some poor schlemiel creating a miserable report with user location data during his sprint into a greedy bastard that is just enriching his bank account out of the suffering of plenty.
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    RGamma 2 days ago
    Atomization enables this. Any number of individuals are individually weak against their employer/some org, but a big group of them can be quite powerful.
    If many were to sacrifice their morals out of financial pressure easily (the control over which is in increasingly few hands) the path the US is treading becomes pretty deterministic... We've seen it in the movies and read it in the books.
    You guys seem to need collective action and civil disobedience.
    Then again.. maybe the will for collective action comes only after the repossessions...
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    surgical_fire 2 days ago
    > You guys
    One of the reasons I chose to move to Europe is because I value the mininal safety nets and labor protections on this side of the pond. Yes, I make less money and pay more taxes but I believe this is how society should work, I reject the hyper individualism that ignores any sort of collective.
    But I am also not naive. Expecting individuals to take the burden for decisions way beyond their control is silly. It takes immense fortitude to threaten the well being of those dear to you based on principle, when the only outcome is your own suffering (the company will likely find another employee right away anyway).
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    jacquesm 2 days ago
    The best way to evaluate any society is to look at what happens to people without power in the system. Inmates, illegals, the poor and children.
    TitaRusell 1 day ago
    Actually the social safety net has allowed Europeans a level of individualism that is completely unimaginable for the rest of the world.
    No charity from church or family needed. Just the State- and it does not care about your religion or sexual preferences.
    testfrequency 2 days ago
    You chose the most absolute and extreme predicament possible to cast your “money is money” belief.
    You do realize this is what most criminals of the world just so happen to say as well, right?
    Where is the line?
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    surgical_fire 2 days ago
    There's nothing extreme in what I said, it is actually how the world we live in works.
    It's an extremely unfair system based on coercion - you are beaten down into submission by the implicit threat that without work you won't be able to make ends meet.
    Maybe you have a family that can support you financially. Maybe you already own the place where you live and could save up money over an extended period that you can weather a storm. If you are in these situations, that's great, but it is also an extremely privileged position to be in.
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    account42 1 day ago
    Absolutely no one with the skills to work in the software industry is in a position where working for unethical mega-corporations or literally starving are their only options.
    umanwizard 2 days ago
    Okay, I'll accept your point for those software engineers that have a choice between working at an immoral company or "homelessness and starvation".
    Thankfully, that isn't most of them. Despite the job market not being as good as it used to be, the vast majority of software engineers in the US could still find another job to pay the bills before becoming homeless and starving.
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    surgical_fire 2 days ago
    If that's the case, great then. I did work for a company I find morally objectionable in the past (i.e.: evil), and I eventually found my way out.
    At the time I was still paying rent and needed employment to keep my visa. I also had little savings, and an ill parent that depended on me. I certainly couldn't take the principled stance of "fuck this, I'm out".
    My point is that if you are in the position to take a principled stance, good for you. Maybe you already own your home, maybe you had time to accumulate savings, maybe you can do a few interviews and land a less evil job even in the current market (and perhaps a pay cut won't be a massive blow in you life). All that is awesome, but also a position of relative privilege.
    Prescribing principled stance as universal without recognizing this is just cruelty though.
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    Kim_Bruning 2 days ago
    I sympathize with your situation, and I'm not calling you a monster. But "I had no choice, I had people depending on me" is the exact reasoning that has enabled every atrocity carried out by ordinary people; it's the banality of evil.
    None of the individual acts seem evil. Conducting a census isn't evil. Collating the data isn't evil. Arresting people with the wrong papers isn't necessarily evil. Driving a train isn't evil. Operating a switch isn't evil. Processing paperwork isn't evil.
    Look what's proposed now: Adtech has the data, this would feed into ICE systems leading to arrests, flights are conducted, and people get put into prison camps like CECOT where they have no recourse and where people are already talking about forced labor.
    So no, I'm not saying to these folks "you're literally causing Auschwitz". That's a famous Vernichtungslager, and that's not true yet.
    But people getting locked up in Concentrationslager or Arbeitslager (like historically : Mittelbau-Dora, Flossenbürg, Mauthausen, and Monowitz). I think we're getting there.
    I guess the question is: at which point do you decide maybe to wear extra layers or skip a meal instead? We're not there yet. The chain has many links. Eternal vigilance is needed to make sure they don't actually link up.
    (ps. Imagine if I was posting this in 2024! Can I exchange this timeline for another please? )
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    jacquesm 2 days ago
    > That's a famous Vernichtungslager, and that's not true yet.
    But it may well become true soon.
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    Kim_Bruning 2 days ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46897620
    From the angle of your 2015 post, I can at least see where you're coming from. Modern adtech is much more granular and up to date than a census ever was.
    And hopefully the worst case can be prevented.
    surgical_fire 1 day ago
    I understand quite well. The banality of evil is a thing because most people have actual very little power to enact meaningful change. Risking yourself for the well being of complete strangers is commendable, but often has an obscene cost for the individual.
    I reject that societal and systemic issues can be fixed by individual action, unless as an individual you are extremely powerful (and the ones that are typically are the ones causing the societal and systemic harm).
    As an common man you can do small things. Do a lousy job when processing the paperwork of evil. Malicious cooperation to the powers that be. Small acts of charity. That sort of thing.
    Systemic change can only be achieved through collective action. Easier said than done.
    The world is cursed. Life is tough even at the best of times. The system as it is ensures compliance through coercion and threats.
    I honestly believe we would agree more than disagree on the current state of things. I just reject the approach that individual action is a way out of this sort of mess.
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    Kim_Bruning 1 day ago
    My father keeps asking me why I don't I ever apply to $BIGCO and earn more money. I certainly have the ability, he says.
    But I ask him, "But would you work for Lex Luthor?"
    He doesn't have a good comeback to that.
    Anyway, I (mostly, hopefully) try to make my small corner of the world a happy place. And I hope everyone else does for theirs.
    computerthings 1 day ago
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    computerthings 1 day ago
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    ljm 1 day ago
    Perhaps to show the level of privilege I enjoy as a software engineer with some level of seniority, I have had zero problem resigning from a position (more than once in fact) because I objected to something my employer was doing. It's been enough for me to filter potential opportunities exclusively to tech-for-good concerns.
    Sure, I don't earn half a million a year total comp to kiss some billionaire's ass, but I still have a very comfortable lifestyle that is well above the median.
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    account42 1 day ago
    Yeah, software is perhaps one of the industries where the "I got bills to pay" argument is the least justifiable. If your lifestyle can only be sustained by working for unethical companies then your lifestyle is unethical. You certainly don't need to sell your soul to FAANG to live a comfortable and happy life.
    AlecSchueler 2 days ago
    > With the sorry state the software industry is currently in, I’m not surprised that developers would sell their soul in exchange for the peace of mind of being able to pay rent and food
    You really think adtech is the way to avoid starving on the street? There are a hell of a lot of jobs between entry level and adtech dev that could give you the same basic peace of mind.
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    Diti 3 hours ago
    No, there are ways to avoid working for adtech or tech support if you still have family or friends (I’m currently moving back to my parents’ place). But not everyone has this luck.
    watwut 2 days ago
    There was never shortage of developers who "would sell their soul" for higher salary in conditions where job with slightly lower salary was easily available. I really do not think we have to pretend to our selves that if one of us does it, it is because he/she is poor and the kids would starve.
    Also, layers are resining from positions in doj they find unethical. It is not like the jobs for them were easier to find.
  - satvikpendem 2 days ago
    Blind is like 4chan, not representative of the vast majority of software engineers but rather their own self contained bubble. I wouldn't use Blind as exemplary of anything in this case.
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    rkomorn 2 days ago
    I spent enough time in FAANG and adjacent to realize that some of the senior engineers and directors around me held 4chan/Blind-like beliefs.
    Some of those folks were cultural leaders in the orgs I belonged to. Some even passed for nice people.
- tokyobreakfast 2 days ago
  But those tools buy Teslas and $8 donuts and cardboard apartments in trendy neighborhoods for people too young to understand how money works.
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  - badbird3 2 days ago
    Quite the high horse you got there
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    tokyobreakfast 2 days ago
    Considering there are hundreds or thousands of users on this site who have taken cash—either directly or indirectly—in exchange for building the world's most egregious examples of privacy-abusing software that were formerly only memes in 80s sci-fi movies. Yet they choose to focus their energy on getting upset over things they don't understand and can't control—like immigration enforcement.
    No, my conscience is clean.
    deaux 2 days ago
    Hey there, I quit a job over similar concerns, knowing it would lead to a >70% decrease in comp. Without a significant nest egg or wealth, whether personal or through family.
    Now let me say the same: But those tools buy Teslas and $8 donuts and cardboard apartments in trendy neighborhoods for people too young to understand how money works.
    There, now there's no longer a high horse concern.
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    rl3 2 days ago
    >...I quit a job over similar concerns, knowing it would lead to a >70% decrease in comp. Without a significant nest egg or wealth, whether personal or through family.
    Hey, thanks for doing the right thing.
    jacquesm 2 days ago
    Thank you!
    It takes real courage and it costs to have principles. And just like I detest those that fall for the money I have insane respect for those that stand up.
    hsbauauvhabzb 2 days ago
    It’s worth pointing out that a non-insignificant subset of tech workers know the impacts and still don’t give a fuck though.
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    hsbauauvhabzb 2 days ago
    @anoym - There isn’t something inherently bad about working for law enforcement or national security agencies as long as what you’re doing cannot be used now or in the future unethically. But too be honest I think this is a ‘don’t hate the player’ type things, if palantir didn’t exist, another company would take its place - privacy legislation is the only thing that prevents it, not relying on ethics of the masses.
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    lan321 2 days ago
    > legislation is the only thing that prevents it
    I strongly agree. There's even the argument to be made that if no legislation exists, even if you're anti X, you might get incentivized to build a company for X just so it's not a fan of X at the helm of the top company for X.
    Blaming it on the employees is pointless. It's the law that should dictate what's allowed and what isn't and if the lawmaking or enforcement isn't working you probably want some "good" people in those companies.
    account42 1 day ago
    Laws are a reflection of the collective ethics of the masses, or at least they should be in a democracy.
    IhateAI 2 days ago
    All Law enforcement and Nat Sec of the United States is inherently unethical, or at minimum tied to ethically questionabke tactics. We have the highest incarceration rates in the world, death penalties ect. Our Military isnt exactly ethical in its missions, pretty much since WW2
    You're basically saying "There isnt anything inherently wrong about working for the 4th Reich"
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    fauchletenerum 2 days ago
    This is a childishly simplistic view of the world
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    cess11 2 days ago
    What complexity is it you'd like to add?
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    golem14 2 days ago
    For instance, the local cops checking in on grandma, or those checking in on a troubled child are really not the bad guys. You WANT them when you need them.
    Not all LEOs are brown shirts, In my experience, few are, but they give the lot a bad rap.
    Treating LEOs uniformly as evil is just counterproductive
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    donkeybeer 2 days ago
    Yes but I don't have a definitive map of who are the good ones, so we must treat it as a life or death situation and suitably defend ourselves in an interaction with any of them.
    cess11 2 days ago
    Why would I want cops doing that instead of social workers or teachers doing it?
    No one becomes a cop because they want to be nice and help vulnerable people. Some might say they did but that is some coping technique. Being a cop involves exerting violence towards people who are vulnerable and desperate, and to become one you have to be fine with this. Some would say that this alone is enough to deem a person ethically dubious.
    Even if one would accept the premise that society requires some degree of organised violence towards its members, one would also have to handle the question of accountability. Reasonably this violence should be accountable in relation to the victims of it, and police institutions inherently are not.
    I think that we should also note that the other person above used "childishly" to denote something negative, apparently they don't think of kids as the light of the world and childish as something fun and inspiring. This is something that makes me quite suspicious of their morals.
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    golem14 19 hours ago
    Maybe you and I have vastly different experience with police. Disclaimer: From a rather small US state.
    Your other note is also well taken, it does however not imply that anything a kid or teen does is OK or automatically positive.
    Finally, it's OK to be suspicious. I am too. What I am saying is that one cannot just make the decision "all cops are evil or must be treated as such" and then hope for a good outcome in all cases. I argue it's a better policy to keep an open mind and decide on a case by case basis.
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    cess11 36 minutes ago
    Fine, to you it is unthinkable that the institution as such might be immoral and would need to be abolished to achieve a semblance of a just society.
    However, many others have come to this conclusion and made a rather long tradition out of their arguments.
    hsbauauvhabzb 2 days ago
    No, I’m not ‘basically’ saying that. Stop putting words in my mouth.
    SpicyLemonZest 2 days ago
    Is it worth pointing out? It seems counterproductive to respond to a call to action by sarcastically complaining about the people being called to action.
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    tokyobreakfast 2 days ago
    The call is coming from inside the house.
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    SpicyLemonZest 2 days ago
    As effective calls to action often do! It's almost tautological when I say it this way, but if you want people working in ad tech to oppose ICE you have to convince them it's good for people working in ad tech to oppose ICE.
    Perhaps the conflict is that you just want to make people who work in ad tech feel bad, and don't care whether or not they enable ICE? That's fine, I suppose, there's industries I feel the same way about. But then we don't have much to talk about and I'm not sure what you hope to gain from being here. To me opposing ICE is very important - I think tobacco companies are pretty bad too, but if ICE sent out a request for cartons of cigarettes I'd shovel praise on them for declining.
    [-]
    CalRobert 2 days ago
    That’s the voice part of exit, loyalty, voice is it not?
    danaris 2 days ago
    > you have to convince them it's good for people working in ad tech to oppose ICE.
    Yes—and one of the tools we have for that is shunning.
    If enough of us who are appalled and disgusted by the state of things, and the people who willingly lend themselves to creating said state, make our disgust with those people known, it can lead to some of them choosing to act differently, because they care about being thought well of by their fellow techies.
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    SpicyLemonZest 2 days ago
    I agree with what you're saying, but shunning has to be selective to be effective. People have to believe that you won't shun them if they avoid the terrible things you're trying to stop. It's too much to simultaneously beef with ICE, adtech in general, Tesla, $8 donuts, and anyone who lives in a trendy neighborhood.
    anonym29 2 days ago
    A lot of them are even proud of being the loyal partners of the US intelligence community, which includes DHS and ICE.
- niek_pas 2 days ago
  NARRATOR: It wasn’t.
- account42 1 day ago
  If you need to wait until the tools you build are being used for things you disagree with before seeing the problem with building those tools then you have already failed.
- direwolf20 1 day ago
  It's a wakeup call: there's a lot of money in the mass surveillance industry
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  - casey2 21 hours ago
    Not really. Surveillance might create an arbitrage opportunity, but insurers hate data they can't trust. The more data the more noise.
    [-]
    direwolf20 19 hours ago
    Powerful people are paying a lot of money to locate their dispersed enemies. Think of the system in Palestine that tracks wanted terrorists back to their homes at night, so their whole families can be exploded.
- cucumber3732842 1 day ago
  >Hopefully this is a wakeup call to the software engineers and other employees at those companies
  No, it won't be. Except perhaps to too few to make a difference. The money is too good.
- salawat 2 days ago
  It wasn't a hypothetical future back in the time of DoubleClick.
  In the words of the XO from the Alfa class submarine to his CO in The Hunt for Red October: "You've killed us, you ass."
- mrtksn 2 days ago
  What makes you believe that software engineers are against the stuff happening? This new movement is defined by male loneliness and other sad traits that are quite common among people whom life passes in front of a computer. Curtis Yarvin, one of the masterminds of this new age is a software developer himself.
  I would argue that whatever is happening now is part of the revenge of the nerds once the nerds remain unsatisfied despite the material possessions they acquired as software ate the world.
  People deeply disconnected from the real world, seeing numbers and thinking with numbers without understanding the underlying realities of those numbers is a trait of any low touch system that developers and other IT professionals operate within.
  Just yesterday apparently when asked Trump said "it's just two people" that were executed by ICE and steered the conversation when he was pushed to elaborate.
  Probably from tech perspective ICE is incredibly well working, in tech world you can take away the livelihood of thousands of people by a single line of a code that changes an algorithm that bans someone or re-sorts the search results. Someone loses their Youtube account they built for years due to algorithm misfiring, someone loses their developer account on an App Store and can't even get a reason for it.
  The tech world is very used to operate in a fascist high efficiency environment that enshittifies everything that touches but keeps improving on some selected KPI. Maybe they wish it doesn't happen but they are not going to sacrifice higher numbers for the lives of a few people. Welcome to the highly efficient(according to selected KPI) new world order.
  I know you don't like to hear that as this is a place for IT people but the governance of online platforms is quite fascist across the board. People are banned, shadow banned or rate limited when don't behave or don't say the right stuff. Preserving order and increasing engagement is above everything, even those who claim that they came to make "speech free again" quickly turned into just changing what speech to be allowed.
  Anything controversial that is attracting negativity is hidden away unless it is feeding the narrative of the platform, then it is actively promoted.
  Therefore, I don't think that IT workers have any remorse or any problem with this new reality. Its the reality they built and most are loving it.
  The medium is the message but the medium was built bit by bit by IT professionals in a span of 20 years.
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  - direwolf20 9 hours ago
    A focus on preserving order is a far liberal/far centrist thing, not fascist. Fascists would ban to achieve political goals and not to maintain order.
    Major political groups:
    Liberals/centrists - maintain order/decorum at all costs
    Fascists - gain power at all costs, in groups of decreasing size
    Libertarians - reduce taxes at all costs
    Leftists - argue for an equal society but never get there
    Conservatives - return to monke
    [-]
    mrtksn 8 hours ago
    Yeah, no. In centrist governments you don’t have a a secret police type law enforcement that go around and “enforce laws”(in quotes because only the laws they like, i.e. laws that say you can't be here without permission but not the laws that say you have certain rights rights) without trials etc by intimidation and executions, that is a fascist thing. In centrist governments the order isn't preserved at all costs, it is preserved within the framework with well defined procedures and that's why its often imperfect and slow and when it becomes too inefficient(i.e. too expensive and too slow to prosecuted a perceived criminal activity) the population may demand fascism as a solution.
    Gaining power is at all cost as a fascist trait is a good point, Tech companies do that all the time too so techies are often accustomed with that.
    [-]
    direwolf20 55 minutes ago
    Centrists find Gestapo disorderly, and prefer not to have them, but don't confuse this with supporting minority rights.
- riazrizvi 2 days ago
  [flagged]
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  - prophesi 2 days ago
    Not OP, but I think the way ICE enforces immigration in the USA has a lot of issues. The bar is too low for people granted the right to utilize lethal force to join, they aren't revoked of the same civilian rights to privacy we give to public enforcers of the law, aren't required to wear bodycams because of their reliance in hiring more people before they can abide by what the law requires, and so on.
  - intermerda 2 days ago
    What an incredibly shitty comment which is wrong on so many levels. You are the type of person who believes that Oskar Schindler should have been shot to death for breaking the "law" rather than being celebrated.
    [-]
    jacquesm 2 days ago
    I'll be happy to bet he has no idea who that is and why supporting the Nazi's as long as they're doing your bidding is a bad idea.
  - trhway 2 days ago
    ICE doesn't follow the law. It breaks it.
    Its main mode of operation is fish-net-style catching brown people on the streets and making them sign voluntary deportation. That allows to bypass any court orders and any requirements of the law (like hearing, lawyer, etc).
    Edit: to the commenter below:
    >I care because my children are approaching the workforce and I want their opportunities to open up to them
    do you really want your children to work in strawberry fields in CA in 100+ degrees weather? That is the opportunities which mostly get open when you remove the migrants, legal or illegal, that ICE is targeting.
    [-]
    riazrizvi 2 days ago
    I'm a brown immigrant, the process to get into the US legally was long. I trust US institutions to have good intent, but like all institutions they fail at times. The mandate is to remove 25 million illegal migrants. I reject the hostile posture that people are taking based on negatively biased information, which in my view, further reassures me they are acting in Americans' best interest. I care because my children are approaching the workforce and I want their opportunities to open up to them, unlike I've witnessed in the tech industry where unscrupulous businesses have happily replaced American workers with labor that is desperate. You can't convince me that the negative bias toward ICE isn't in large part, funded and astroturfed by elements in the business lobby that don't care about unemployed citizens and residents, and further drafted by those who have jobs so can afford to not care.
    [-]
    jacquesm 2 days ago
    Do you honestly believe that when they're done with the illegal immigrants they're not going to come for the 'brown people in general'?
    [-]
    enaaem 2 days ago
    They will come after “domestic terrorists”.
    creatonez 2 days ago
    Deporting 25 million people using a terrorist militia is mass ethnic cleansing. Period. Has nothing to do with the job market, it is a basic historical reality.
    danek_szy 2 days ago
    If you want job opportunities to open up to your children, perhaps you should invest in parenting that teaches them good values (like hard work and good attitude), education and sense of agency in place of hoping some government agency will kidnap and deport enough immigrants (many of which are legal, like you btw) for market to offer enough demand for them. The above point about „quality” of jobs „taken” by the immigrants is also very valid…
    [-]
    riazrizvi 2 days ago
    You believe jobs are being taken and handed to deserving illegal immigrants because they have a better work ethic. I believe they are because investors are seeking ever greater returns no matter the cost to other others or even the long term sustainability of those very returns. This is the basis of our different positions.
    [-]
    direwolf20 1 day ago
    If you believe investors are ruining the country, why do you want to deport millions of immigrants instead of investors?
    [-]
    riazrizvi 1 day ago
    Because the rules of this land are the end result of waves of developments, over millennia, hard won through the observation of the cause and effect of policy on societies. I trust the effectiveness of American law on the basis of the success of the American Experiment. This very success is the draw that led me to leave my homeland and family and come here. So I'll go with American Law and legal system, rather than follow some reactionary duct-taped law some guy commenting on the internet says we should do.
    [-]
    donkeybeer 1 day ago
    American law is becoming third world like your home country now.
  - saubeidl 2 days ago
    Enforcing racial purity laws is abuse? Why are you impeding the Gestapo, a federal law enforcement agency? Why do you hate law and order, dirty anarchist?
    [-]
    jacquesm 2 days ago
    These are sad and dangerous times, you really should append the /s these because there are way too many people on HN who would take your comment and say 'he's one of us!'.
  - blurbleblurble 2 days ago
    "It is an interesting and somewhat macabre parlor game to play at a large gathering of [hackernews readers]: to speculate who in a showdown would go Nazi."
    https://harpers.org/archive/1941/08/who-goes-nazi/
    [-]
    account42 1 day ago
    Resorting to goodwin is an admission that you have no better argument.
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    blurbleblurble 3 hours ago
    I'm not resorting to Goodwin. I'm watching the same exact thing play out worldwide.
- hikkerl 2 days ago
  [flagged]
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  - int0x29 2 days ago
    Get a warrant. The federal government should not be "soliciting vendors" for my location.
    I love how the accounts defending ICE are always brand new.
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    learingsci 2 days ago
    [flagged]
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    j-pb 2 days ago
    German here, with little stakes in your shitshow. At no point during the obama years did I think:
    "Wow this looks just like the rise of the nazis!"
    Which was covered extensively during my history classes.
    Why did you even have all the school schootings if you don't use that stupid second ammendmend thing you have? This is the tyranical government you've all been waiting for.
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    franga2000 2 days ago
    [flagged]
    account42 1 day ago
    Perhaps "what you thought then and now" is the difference between those times more than "what happened then and now". With the former being largely influenced by "what your bubble told you then and now".
    [-]
    j-pb 1 day ago
    “The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”
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    learingsci 1 day ago
    We don’t have good data because it’s illegal to, for example, ask citizenship status on our census, but if you believe the numbers many democrats cite, Obama deported more immigrants than Trump. You can use Google to verify that though I’ll warn you the rabbit hole runs deep when it comes to official statistics. Importantly, under Trump we have far more violent felons to deport. The media thrives on salacious and emotionally charged stories rather unbiased reporting based on nuanced facts. It’s the entertainment industry.
    The recent tragedies are indeed thoroughly depressing for all of us, but we shouldn’t let our emotional reactions destroy our ability to reason and think objectively about history and statistics. We can feel and think. Some of us believe enforcement of laws is the villain in this. Some feel the laws themselves or the idea of borders and sovereignty are to blame. Others that a surge of violent criminals such as those who killed Jocylan Nungary or Laken Riley is the cause of the recent tragedies. None of these views are inherently evil. All of these views have some merit. Truth is manifold. Don’t be narrow minded, we need broad thinking not simplistic pathos driven dogmas and references to nazis. Grow up.
    [-]
    j-pb 1 day ago
    The number of deportations under obama was definitely higher, but he had only one concentration camp (guantanamo bay), and didn't use that for his own people.
    Learn about the tolerance paradoxon, there is no negotiating, nuance and reasoning with fashists.
    Your enlightened centrism is nothing but smoke and mirrors. Get educated.
    direwolf20 1 day ago
    If you are German, then you are probably blind to the similarities between current German politics and the Nazis, so this is not a good point of comparison.
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    Steltek 1 day ago
    Yeeeaaaah, I dunno if you wanna go there while the US is investing $100B in state sponsored ethnic cleansing, terrorism, and concentration camps. Glass houses, stones, etc.
    [-]
    direwolf20 1 day ago
    Germany invests less than that, but Germany is a smaller country. I'm not sure how much it is per capita.
    j-pb 1 day ago
    Which politics are you referring to? The AfD ("Alternative for Germany") who has been classified as a confirmed right-wing extremist organization by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution? And which has heavy ties to trump, musk, and the current U.S. government?
    Just because we currently have our own right wing populist faschists rearing their heads again, doesn't mean that the parallels of the current events in the US and the rise of the Nazis aren't real and glaring to someone who has had this as part of their basic education curriculum.
    https://web.archive.org/web/20250503162240/https://www.verfa...
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    direwolf20 1 day ago
    All parties of the government support and pay for ethnic cleansing in the middle east.
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    j-pb 24 hours ago
    What does that have to do with the situation in the US? The situation in the middle east is completely orthogonal to that, and observing the rise of faschism there says nothing about my stance on the current german foreign policy in regards to the middle east.
    If you want to know: In my personal opinion that conflict is fucked beyond repair because a small group of powerful people on both sides benefit from it, while a huge number of deep interpersonal conflicts and histories fuel it, with any moderates getting squashed by their own side. So I wouldn't send weapons, but I'd send humanitarian aid or the blue helmets. That whole region is thoroughly fucked beyond my pay grade.
    account42 1 day ago
    But it's only Nazis if you disagree with them. After all, the whole point of drawing the comparison is to shut down any possibility for discussion and nuance - "people I don't like are just like the nazis so I don't need to treat those who who doesn't fully oppose them with any respect".
    [-]
    j-pb 1 day ago
    Again, I have little stakes in your shitshow besides the international meddling they do with our own faschist party.
    This dualist thinking seems to be a particular US thing, based on your two party system.
    I see the erosion of the rule of law and decency in the US, the persecution of minorities, the populism, the defamation of journalism as "lügenpresse" and alignment of media to the party line, the personal police force (what the fuck is ICE doing in Italy), the person cult around a single madman, the violence without consequence, the fancy SS/SA style cosplay uniform by the head of ICE, and I think "that looks a lot like the stuff we learned about in school".
    mindslight 1 day ago
    > After all, the whole point of drawing the comparison [to Nazis] is to shut down any possibility for discussion and nuance
    Another way of phrasing this is that it's a call to stop assuming good faith discussion on the part of the boosters, stop being derailed by pondering nuance, and focus on putting the brakes on the new Nazi movement. History doesn't repeat but we're teetering on the edge of a large-scale horrific rhyme. Regardless of one's preferred policies regarding immigration, there is zero justification for where we're at.
    direwolf20 1 day ago
    The ones who are exterminating a race are the nazis
    [-]
    j-pb 1 day ago
    Which race?
    [-]
    direwolf20 1 day ago
    Palestinian
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    hikkerl 24 hours ago
    The jews are the Nazis now? Do you hear yourself?
    Use your words, direwolf. Even if your moral outrage is valid, calling everyone you dislike a "Nazi" is unhinged.
    [-]
    donkeybeer 14 hours ago
    Any race or group can be genocidal. What's so special about Israelis?
    habinero 2 days ago
    You can really tell which states actually fund their education programs by who understands this and who does not.
    [-]
    jacquesm 2 days ago
    It's a disease and it is spreading, fast.
    hikkerl 1 day ago
    Reasonable comments engaging in discussions on HN are frequently downvoted and flagged by the hivemind, causing the account to be shadow banned (ie. any comment is immediately 'dead', invisible to others).
    I make a new account at least every week to get around this. This is my only account. Don't like it? Encourage your comrades to engage in good faith and tolerate perspectives that they personally disagree with.
    [-]
    donkeybeer 1 day ago
    What? Where's the bad faith? You made a really dumb argument and got a simple factual response. And you still failed to engage with that response instead making up imaginary persecution.
    [-]
    hikkerl 24 hours ago
    >What? Where's the bad faith?
    Downvoting my comment, flagging my comment, getting my account shadow banned (it might be already and you'll never see this comment...), while dismissing my comment because it's from a new account.
    People can't have it both ways. Stop censoring civil comments that you disagree with, or stop complaining that people make new accounts to circumvent the censorship. Or, I guess, be honest enough to explicitly ban anyone from disagreeing with the hivemind and enjoy your echo chamber in peace.
    [-]
    donkeybeer 14 hours ago
    No higher authority came in to block your speech. Your peers expressed disagreement with you. Where is the censorship?
    donkeybeer 20 hours ago
    Downvoting is not censorship. Nobody involved here is a mod or admin. I see you still haven't responded to the simple fact asserted in the original post though.
    donkeybeer 14 hours ago
    You had a chance to respond to the simple factual claims in this message and you still instead used your reply to hilariously claim down voting is censorship where there literally was no moderator involvement therefore literally nothing preventing you from responding. If you think downvoting is censorship why are you not on a website that doesn't have downvoting? You probably also think marriage between peoples of different countires is violent genocide given your hysterics in magnifying simple events into the dramatic and extreme.
  - sham1 2 days ago
    I'm not the poster you replied to, but absolutely. Now personally I don't believe that this data should exist in the first place, but using it for law enforcement purposes is just very shilling and even worse than its "normal" use. I would think that someone with a fresh burner account would agree.
  - hsbauauvhabzb 2 days ago
    That implies a crime was committed. I think you’ll find people on HN fairly unsupportive of population wide surveillance. Getting a warrant from a judge is far better than ICE doing what they’re currently doing.
    [-]
    tokyobreakfast 2 days ago
    Unless of course that population wide surveillance pays $150k+/yr, with unlimited free snacks and gym membership, then all bets are off.
    ryan_lane 2 days ago
    > I think you’ll find people on HN fairly unsupportive of population wide surveillance
    Lately I'm not sure that's the case.
    [-]
    jacquesm 2 days ago
    Exactly, more than enough bootlickers on here. Or actual boot wearers, as I just found out.
    see:
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46897536
  - jacquesm 2 days ago
    You seem to be a bit scared of doing this all under your own name, comrade. But don't worry, we know exactly who you are.
    [-]
    hikkerl 1 day ago
    [flagged]
    maldev 2 days ago
    [flagged]
    [-]
    jacquesm 2 days ago
    > Not only that, but your profile clearly says you aren't even American. Maybe you should focus on your own politics, or things you understand, and not try to threaten people.
    I'm not threatening anybody, I'm just pointing out that in the aggregate anonymity does not exist as told by TFA whereas the GP seems to believe it holds some weight. The only reason you are able to write your comment is simply because I'm not hiding.
    You on the other hand are.
    > I personally, am glad we have this, so I don't experience what I do when I go to Europe, and get a bunch of illegal Africans terrorizing people in front of police. Or let alone the no go zones.
    Funny, that hasn't happened to me yet. What also hasn't happened to me yet is that I got shot in the face at a protest.
    But: you are part of the problem, you believe you are part of the solution. The fact that you believe that you are part of the solution but you're not proud enough of it to do so under your own name tells the whole story. It's the equivalent of the mask of those ICE goons.
    https://jacquesmattheij.com/if-you-have-nothing-to-hide/
    https://jacquesmattheij.com/trackers/
    > I'm glad, to have spend most of my career in the government to stop these people coming in and terrorists. Which is why I can report, the US has a very low terror rate, especially when you look at foreign extremists, unlike other parts of the world.
    That has something to do with two oceans and nothing at all with your efforts.
    [-]
    maldev 2 days ago
    [flagged]
    [-]
    jacquesm 2 days ago
    > I proudly stop terrorists, I proudly help law enforcement, and I proudly serve my country to make it the best in the world.
    And you're proudly delusional.
    But that's fine, stick your head in the sand and continue, you are so invested in this that the thought that you might be on the wrong side seems to scare you into flinging abuse and digging in deeper.
    The USA is not 'the best in the world', not by a long shot. Witness the turd sitting in the half demolished White House that you serve.
    > Anyways, I will be submitting a tip personally
    Haha, so you are now threatening to take revenge on someone you've never met because they're calling you out for exactly that sort of thing. I don't think I could have asked for harder proof.
    WTF dude, have you entirely lost it?
    defrost 2 days ago
    > Also, unless you're violating your visa and breaking American laws. You wouldn't have gotten shot in the face at a protest in America.
    The women shot in the face by an ICE agent was not "violating her visa", nor was she violating American laws by being halted for a short time across a single lane with traffic passing her by.
    She was given conflicting instructions by two agents, and was within her rights to leave as she did, slowly, carefully, when she was shot through the front and then through a side window by the same agent.
    > I proudly stop terrorists, I proudly help law enforcement
    These particular agents were a clown show textbook example of how not to behave .. you should be not be proud to associate with them.
    As for American law - it's falling apart from the top: https://talkingpointsmemo.com/morning-memo/the-trump-doj-has...
    The people shooting US citizens in the face and in the back are repeatedly in violation of judges orders.
    [-]
    hikkerl 1 day ago
    [flagged]
    maldev 2 days ago
    [flagged]
    [-]
    defrost 2 days ago
    > So, the government did an investigation
    Not the state government, and the federal government is in the midst of not a investigation under the pretence of having one.
    > But if you try to run over the police.
    She did not. It's very clear that she did not.
    Also .. ICE agents .. not "the police" - these were immigration agents overstepping their bounds.
    See stories about breaking multiple judges orders.
    [-]
    maldev 2 days ago
    [flagged]
    [-]
    throwawayqqq11 1 day ago
    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zkgNnbTrsgw
    Watch it.
    throwawayqqq11 1 day ago
    Since i cant reply to your flagged comment above, ill do it here.
    > And I gotta ask, you think it's just two oceans, and what your experience is in the intelligence community field? Are you just assuming without knowing the inner workings?
    This depicts the distribution of refugees caused by iraq and afghan wars. Which, to remind you, were proudly based on lies.
    > https://www.unhcr.org/news/press-releases/iraqis-afghans-and...
    > As a region, Europe received 75 percent of all asylum applications although the United States remained the single largest recipient country with an estimated 13 percent of all applications
    Are you still proud making the world a better place? Maybe you are too busy fighting terrorists to reply.
    [-]
    maldev 1 day ago
    Are you implying that refugees are terrorists? Also, according to any refugee agreement, you go to the first country of safe harbor. Not across the world. Why can’t they go back now, make Iraq great?
    Also, they arnt killing Americans anymore are they? We gave them everything we could. But the afghan army chose to just do drugs and do nothing and now their women can’t go to school and don’t have rights again.
    [-]
    throwawayqqq11 1 day ago
    No, im not implying that all refugees are terrorists. Just pointing out the obvious outcome of terror: people flee to savety.
    There are still terror orgs seeking to destabilize the region, like israel or ISIS. Besides the destruction, thats at least one reason why you wouldnt want to go back.
    But why can they stay? Maybe a familiy -- a life -- is a reason to stay too. Why is "why dont they go back" your initial reaction? Why do i have to remind you about that human element of migration? Are you implying all refugees are terrorists? Or are you a racist?
    Id really would like to see your mind rn. How it tries to spin the convo to "but they are illegal aliens". Such a pitty that even you cant see it.
    [-]
    throw03837 1 day ago
    [flagged]
    [-]
    throwawayqqq11 1 day ago
    How many face military conflict?
    [-]
    throw03837 1 day ago
    Not sure what you mean. Joining the IDF is optional for Israeli Arabs.
stephantul 2 days ago
This has bean a long time coming. This is a stark reminder that you should consider who the future stewards of whatever you are building might be.
We built a vast surveillance network under the guise of servings ads and making money, and lost track of how this power could be abused by an entity not aligned with our own values.
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- ianbutler 2 days ago
  Don't lump me in that "we". I did no such thing. I know exactly how it could be abused and have spent 12 years intentionally not working for companies that perpetuate it.
  [-]
  - stephantul 2 days ago
    Well I guess I mean the pubic in general. I also don’t necessarily mean willfully creating technology that can be abused.
    For example, we all stood by when we let Twitter and other US-based social media become the main way politicians communicate with the public. This has, in my opinion, had disastrous consequences on how they communicate and actively blocks politicians from achieving consensus.
    This is to say that you don’t need to have actively worked on something.
    [-]
    ianbutler 2 days ago
    I think that expecting the public to reason through the myriad n-order effects that were going to happen from the whiplash of technology in the last 30 years is a little much.
    However, I think a lot of people in tech could and did see those consequences coming and were pretty vocal about it. So, I don't think we all did stand by, we exercised what limited power we had. I don't want to seem accusatory here and I don't mean it harshly, but maybe you just didn't see the folks who have talked about problems like this.
    We also as individuals [without billions] have fairly limited capacity to directly act against these things. I donate a fair bit to the EFF for instance and I've sent outreach to representatives multiple times over the years for specific bills and when its possible I vote against surveillance.
    [-]
    stephantul 2 days ago
    You are right, I do acknowledge their efforts but did not do so here, which I should have.
    I don't necessarily mean to berate the public, but rather the politicians, who saw that they could use social media/big tech for their own personal gain, and the media, who went along with the narrative that putting all our public communication into privately owned platforms was good for democracy. And maybe our own governments and institutions (speaking from a EU perspective) for dropping the ball in protecting us.
    I think Evgeny Morozov's 2010-ish writing was prophetic in this regard.
    [-]
    belorn 1 day ago
    Several years ago in Stockholm (2014) during a conference focus on the Internet, the Chief Technology Officer for Barack Obama's 2012 re-election campaign held a talk on how they revolutionary the campaign process by using targeted advertisement campaign on social networks, mostly Facebook, and how effective the technique was to reach voters during fund raising and getting their voters to vote. In their view, this was the first major use of social media during an election. The talk is still available on Youtube for those interested. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3WS9bs3Aps)
    There are also articles from 2011 where political commenters noted how the Obama campaign broke new ground using targeted Facebook advertisement and outreach, and how EU politicians could learn from it. The many smaller, but in total larger donations given to Obama was contrasted with Hillary Clinton who had larger individual donations but less in total, and the commenters attributed this to the use of Facebook and finding and meeting a younger audience on those online platforms.
    People thought that targeted advertisement was a good thing and politicians looked on the techniques from that election and saw the potential for power. It was mostly just those privacy advocates, free software advocates and security experts that expressed doubt and warned about the dangers.
    [-]
    stephantul 1 day ago
    Yes! I distinctly remember the time magazine issue and article about this. This is exactly what I mean: we normalize and celebrate technologies without realizing what the repercussions are when we give the same tools and power to others.
  - emodendroket 1 day ago
    We are all very impressed, I assure you.
    [-]
    ianbutler 1 day ago
    Going by the upvotes I have generally yes people do seem to think so. It's only weird folks like you and the other guy that seem to have a problem.
    It's exactly why I don't do more because I really don't want to be associated with people like you folks.
    [-]
    emodendroket 1 day ago
    Well one thing we can be sure of is your self regard.
    [-]
    ianbutler 1 day ago
    Yes because not assenting to the anon rando who makes a snide insulting comment is outside the bounds of normal well regulated self interest. I can't possibly eyeroll any harder at you.
    [-]
    emodendroket 22 hours ago
    I just don’t know what patting yourself on the back for your incorruptibility is really adding to the discussion.
  - AndrewKemendo 1 day ago
    Good for you
    What are you doing to organize around that?
    Or is it just “I decided to leave so my hands are clean” self adoration?
    [-]
    hackable_sand 1 day ago
    Passive resistance is still resistance.
    It's the gateway to any sympathetic contingency.
    [-]
    AndrewKemendo 1 day ago
    Where’s the passive resistance?
    This user is still on twitter and actively promoting their handle there
    [-]
    ianbutler 1 day ago
    "We also as individuals [without billions] have fairly limited capacity to directly act against these things. I donate a fair bit to the EFF for instance and I've sent outreach to representatives multiple times over the years for specific bills and when its possible I vote against surveillance." - from a parallel thread I was commenting in.
    I'm totally fine stopping at minimizing my culpability. I sleep just fine at night and don't really jump at purity tests like you seem to want. I'm not other people's savior and I don't want to be. If you want to put your energy into that, I support you.
    [-]
    AndrewKemendo 1 day ago
    Then don’t jump into a conversation as though you have some answer if all you’re doing is virtue signaling that you’re detached
    [-]
    ianbutler 1 day ago
    > Don't lump me in that "we". I did no such thing. I know exactly how it could be abused and have spent 12 years intentionally not working for companies that perpetuate it.
    I don't think you know how to read because I certainly didn't do that. But also go fuck yourself.
    This is why no one cares about your causes btw because weird angry little dudes isn't a good look.
- fauchletenerum 2 days ago
  From day one everyone who worked on these ad-tech surveillance systems knew they had the capability for abuse. They were built to come as close as possible to the legal limits of surveillance and in several notable cases crossed that line. This isn't a surprise to anyone
  [-]
  - tosapple 2 days ago
    The way I understand it, which may be dated: is that if it's automated or robotic it doesn't qualify as an "unreasonable search or seizure".
    [-]
    direwolf20 1 day ago
    Or if it's a third party. The government is allowed to hire corporate contractors that don't obey the constitution.
- potamic 2 days ago
  There was a narrative here earlier that I'd rather trust Google/Apple with my data than any other company or any government. The end result is the same in the end. When it comes to privacy, the only thing that works is zero trust.
- IhateAI 2 days ago
  It was always intended to be used that way, the programmatic advertising industry is a product of US Nat Sec.
- s5300 2 days ago
  [dead]
bilekas 2 days ago
> Against that backdrop, ICE’s assertion that it is considering privacy expectations appears designed to reassure both policymakers and potential vendors that the agency is aware of the controversy surrounding commercial surveillance data.
We can't seriously believe that this agency has any sense of respect for privacy right? They literally are going around thinking they don't need judicial warrants. I mean nobody's going to stop them using the purchased data however they want, but don't lie and say you'll be good with the privacy and care of the data.
https://apnews.com/article/ice-arrests-warrants-minneapolis-...
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- trhway 2 days ago
  >They literally are going around thinking they don't need judicial warrants.
  Noem at the Senate hearing : "Well, habeas corpus is a constitutional right that the president has to be able to remove people from this country, and suspend their right to ..."
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46832512
whatever1 2 days ago
It’s quite obvious that all of these seemingly paranoid about privacy, were not that paranoid after all.
For the software builders the conclusion is that we should not store ANY identifiable data.
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- dmantis 2 days ago
  Exactly.
  While trying to degoogling, removing most proprietary software and use sandboxing for everything that's still needed as proprietary, you would often hear that stupid pro-surveillance thesis: "oh, what's wrong in someone trying to show you relevant things in the internet to buy by your interests?".
  Maybe now some people would think about it. That giving someone's leverage over youself is a ticking bomb until the actually scary people will use it as an advantage. That's humanity 101.
  Same about non-encrypted emails, cloud AI providers, SMS/real-identity based auth and 2fa, telemetry. The industry is full of trash and has to be revived from VC garbage.
  [-]
  - subscribed 1 day ago
    "what's wrong? Oh, it literally paints a target on your face that can be shot at if you happen to be brown".
    Maybe the answers must be blunt and unpleasant.
    [-]
    hackable_sand 1 day ago
    Huh?
- michaelsshaw 2 days ago
  Please do not stop using our product. Download this proprietary app. You can't (legally) know what it does. Please download and execute it. Please don't google the FSF or EFF. Please.
Apreche 2 days ago
This is why you must block all ads always. No exceptions.
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- entuno 2 days ago
  I've argued for a long time that adblocking isn't just a quality of life thing, it's an essential security control for browsing the Internet in the same way that patching your system and running malware protection is. I didn't expect it to be protecting your physical security quite so soon..
  This sort of thing should also help put the "adblocking is unethical" argument to bed.
  [-]
  - subscribed 1 day ago
    OS security was in the previous step:
    > Intellexa also uses malicious ads on third-party platforms to fingerprint visitors and redirect those who match its target profiles to its exploit delivery servers.
    -- https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/2025/12/leaks-show-in...
    Not blocking ads is bordering a self-destructive behaviour now.
  - trinsic2 1 day ago
    >This sort of thing should also help put the "adblocking is unethical" argument to bed.
    Finally. There are a lot of high profile YouTubers who have been saying this like LinusTechTips.
- Larrikin 2 days ago
  Do one better, block ads and give them false data on your profile using a solution like Ad Nauseam.
  [-]
  - armadyl 2 days ago
    Ad Nauseam unironically gives ad networks massively more information and data points to track you than if you just straight up blocked the ads.
    [-]
    Larrikin 8 hours ago
    Do you have a source besides yourself?
- YetAnotherNick 2 days ago
  It's not about blocking ads, but blocking tracking. If you connect to internet you are being tracked even though you block known tracking URLs.
  e.g. Hacker news uses no tracking url but uses Cloudflare which tracks the user across sites for things like bot detection.
  [-]
  - anonym29 2 days ago
    You are not powerless.
    https://0xacab.org/dCF/deCloudflare
    [-]
    obsequiosity 2 days ago
    The prominent link there not protected by https redirects to the wikipedia page for "uphill battle"...who and why about that redirect is the question being posed perhaps but how alarmist do we want to be?
    michaelsshaw 2 days ago
    I love your URL!
- globalnode 2 days ago
  Not sure that blocks device ID tracking through timing metrics for example. You can turn off java but then you become a beacon of suspicious activity.
mmoustafa 2 days ago
Why do all the discussion posts about ICE’s biometric app get taken down? Although they may invite politicing, they are very relevant to HN.
e.g [flagged] Target director's Global Entry was revoked after ICE used app to scan her face [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46833871]
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- saubeidl 2 days ago
  Digital brownshirts, using moderation tools as weapon to stifle discussion critical of the regime.
- somenameforme 2 days ago
  Look at this topic in the meta-level. It has a relatively low number of upvotes, extremist comments being actively upvoted - with the current top post suggesting people engage in sabotage, with many if not most dissenting views ending up flagged. This isn't exactly a productive nor interesting topic, because people are more interested in attacking people and circle jerking, rather than engaging in any sort of interesting discussion. So it ends up reading like the typical slop on Reddit, which is essentially where discussion goes to die. It's not great seeing that sort of stuff here as well.
  [-]
  - donkeybeer 2 days ago
    What is "extremist" about "sabotage"? These are private companies and private individuals, they can choose whether to or not to interact with ICE. Unless its a part of some formal investigation there is nothing criminal or extreme about providing whatever data or response or lack thereof to them. Or do you not believe in freedom of association and free speech?
    [-]
    somenameforme 1 day ago
    ICE is a law enforcement agency and so intentionally seeking to obstruct an investigation is indeed a crime. Impairing the access to data opens the door to fraud and other charges. And the manual linked goes above and beyond these relatively 'soft' crimes and into things like arson. Betting your life, and career, on these sort of things testament to how radicalized some have become.
    [-]
    donkeybeer 1 day ago
    How is this obstruction? Unless it's part of a proper investigation, they are just another private individual. You are free to do or not engage in business contracts with them, and any data given true or false or data not gievn can hardly be a criminal matter as its not an investigation and simply a business dealing between two parties.
    [-]
    somenameforme 1 day ago
    A company is absolutely free to choose whether or not to do business with them, but an employee acting to try to undermine them as a customer or their relationship with the business is what would open the door to all these sort of laws and consequences, especially when that relationship is precisely in the furtherance of a law enforcement purposes, and the interference was motivated by an effort to impair that enforcement.
    Stuff like actively expressing opposition to taking them on as a customer, trying to persuade management to do otherwise, and so on would all be perfectly kosher. But the stuff the top post in this thread alludes to, let alone what it links to, is how you end up in prison for a very long time after the 'I didn't know it was illegal' defense fails.
    [-]
    donkeybeer 1 day ago
    An employees actions would be a matter of judgment between the company leadership and themsleves, I don't understand how it's a criminal matter. To the outside entity it's a business contract, to the company it's an internal matter if and how to deal with any specific activities of the employee.
    [-]
    belorn 1 day ago
    > An employees actions would be a matter of judgment between the company leadership and themselves
    There has been a few news articles (and court cases) where this question has been raised and it is not strict true. Employee actions are only actions for which the employee has been given as an task as part of their employment and role. Actions outside of that is private actions. When this end up in court, the role description and employee contract becomes very important.
    A clear case example is when a doctor is looking up data on a patient. Downloading patient records from people who they are not the doctor for can be criminal and not just a breech of hospital policy, especially if they sell or transfer the data.
    [-]
    donkeybeer 1 day ago
    I was tempted to add this very line when I wrote my message but I hoped it would be obvious I don't mean things like illegally stealing private data. I was talking about things like "falsifying" data to the contractor, which doesn't seem like a crime to me just a contract violation.
    [-]
    belorn 23 hours ago
    If the employee are destroying property owned by the employer, for which is not part of the employee role or assignment, then they could be charged with hacking and property destruction just as if it was done by someone outside the company. The way around this that some people can attempt is work-to-rule strike. That would be a legal way to sabotage a contract without actually going beyond that of the employee contract.
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    donkeybeer 20 hours ago
    Again I was thinking of things like submitting non-functional application or data, not obvious property crimes like destruction of property.
    somenameforme 1 day ago
    You're granting an employee a special status that doesn't exist. Imagine a random person working to undermine a contract between the government and a business, motivated by an effort to obstruct law enforcement from enforcing the law. I'm sure you'd agree that this would obviously be illegal - that doesn't change simply because the person happens to be working for the business in question.
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    donkeybeer 15 hours ago
    And no I don't think it's illegal. You seem deeply confused, where is the "obstruction"? If there is obstruction there should be a specific court order and the parties involved, otherwise it's just business. Do you think say, telling a amazon delivery driver who's asking for the location of some address a bs route is illegal?
    donkeybeer 1 day ago
    It's still not clear to me, where did I anywhere imply it's any different if a single individual or company is in question. I said it's a matter between the company and the employee because a company may dislike the employees actions and choose to deal with it eg by firing them, the contracting party isn't involved here. It still seems to me at most a matter of contract whether it's directly a single person being contracted or a person as part of a company.
    donkeybeer 1 day ago
    If it's still not clear, I am saying my understanding is unless it is very specifically part of an investigation and involves the party in question, the entity whether an individual or a company is irrelevant, they are just as far as it seems to me engaging in a business deal.
    donkeybeer 1 day ago
    I mean why not, if they are just taking on a blanket software or data proposal, its no different than say a local government contracting the construction of some accounting software. At most they could claim failure of contract, I don't see how it should be a criminal matter if non functional or bad outcome was delivered.
    saubeidl 1 day ago
    The other side of this is, if you don't obstruct, you will eventually have to be the guy saying "I was just following orders" [0]
    [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_orders
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    somenameforme 1 day ago
    The Nazis were engaging in systematic and large scale genocide. ICE is deporting people in the country illegally back to their home countries, free of charge. I'm not being snarky there either, immigration offenses are taken seriously worldwide and in many places you can end up in indefinite detention, required to pay for your own deportation + fines, and more. The 'penalty' being a free ticket home is a pretty sweet deal.
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    saubeidl 1 day ago
    The Nazis started with a deportation plan [0] and building camps as well. It never starts with genocide, you slowly work up to it. The "final solution" happened once they realized the impracticablity of mass deportations.
    [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madagascar_Plan
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    somenameforme 1 day ago
    The Madagascar plan was Germany scheming to to remove all Jews from Europe and their occupied territories. It has nothing, whatsoever, to do with a country removing illegal immigrants from its territory as happens every day, world round. The only thing that makes it notable was previous administrations intentionally enabling and encouraging illegal activity which turned a small problem into a big one.
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    donkeybeer 1 day ago
    What "illegal activity" were previous admins "intentionally" "enabling"? Be specific. Cite specific facts and cases. And give comparison of rates of "illegalities" against the current admin.
    donkeybeer 1 day ago
    Instinct says if this current admin had any at all even remote evidence of some wrongdoing by the previous government, they'd already have been screaming their lungs out about it. I mean they always are screaming and blithering about incoherently, but they'd be screaming along with suing at least.
    saubeidl 1 day ago
    It is the exact same thing, with a different outgroup.
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    somenameforme 1 day ago
    No it obviously is not. You do not have a right to stay in a country illegally, anywhere in this world. If you want to migrate to a country, you need that country's permission. Without it you are an illegal alien and will, at the minimum, be removed from that country as soon as you are caught. In many places in this world you then may end up in detention - potentially indefinitely, imprisoned, fined, and so on. The US system, which is mostly just giving you a 'free' ride home, funded by US taxpayers, is incredibly lenient.
    There is no in group, out group, or whatever else. Go to Mexico or Canada illegally, as an American, and you're getting deported, same as everybody and everywhere else. Vice versa if a Canadian, Brit, or whoever else comes into the US illegally, they're also getting deported.
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    donkeybeer 1 day ago
    Yes but first prove illegality. And if you believe killing any person on the streets without any suspicion or charge is legal, cite the laws for it.
    saubeidl 1 day ago
    You did not have a right to stay in Germany as a Jew either. My point exactly.
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    somenameforme 17 hours ago
    This is both technically and logically incorrect. From a technical point of view - it's just wrong. Jews were persecuted and encouraged to leave, yet never formally expelled from Germany. And as the Nazis moved towards genocide, they moved in the other direction and made it impossible for Jews to leave the country.
    But from a logical point of view, it also fails, even in a parallel reality where you were right. Countries are generally deemed to have the right to kill their citizens for major violations of the law, in the pursuit of justice. But that does not mean a country has the right to just start killing their citizens on a whim. And similarly, every single country has the right to expel people who enter their country illegally or remain beyond the terms of a granted temporary stay. This does not mean a country has the right the randomly start expelling their own citizens, en masse, for no normal reason.
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    saubeidl 16 hours ago
    Your core assumptions are incorrect. Jews were not considered German Reich citizens. [0]
    Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.
    [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Laws#Classifications...
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    somenameforme 15 hours ago
    Your link does not conflict with anything I said. Jews were never formally expelled from Germany. You might note the page you link even lays out various rights for Jews living within Germany. In any case, this would not change the issue even had they been expelled, for reasons already mentioned.
    Those who do not read their links are doomed to misrepresent them.
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    saubeidl 15 hours ago
    You had a whole long paragraph about how it's all totally different this time because the Jews were German citizens.
    Except they were not and your whole point was wrong.
    There are none so blind as those who will not see.
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    somenameforme 14 hours ago
    You're engaging in banal semantics, in lieu of any form of logical or meaningful debate. When I say "citizen" obviously I am referring to the contemporary usage where you'd call somebody who is of a country - a citizen of that country. In the past this was not the case in many places where people could be legally within their own county, yet not considered civilians. An example you may be more familiar with is slaves in America.
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    saubeidl 14 hours ago
    These banal semantics are the legalistic excuses used by genocidal regimes to justify the unjustifiable and to assuade the conscience of collaborators.
    A close mirror of what is happening in this thread, if you will.
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    somenameforme 14 hours ago
    Deporting illegal aliens as literally every single country in existence does has no need of justification. You're the one that needs to justify claims of deporting people, for free, back to their home country as being an 'unjustifiable genocide', but in the end that's fundamentally illogical which leaves you with hyperbole, misrepresentation, and of course these sort of semantic games.
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    donkeybeer 14 hours ago
    Run me the numbers on how many people sent to el salvadore were illegal salvadoreans.
    saubeidl 12 hours ago
    > which leaves you with hyperbole, misrepresentation, and of course these sort of semantic games.
    > They say, ‘It’s not so bad’ or ‘You’re seeing things’ or ‘You’re an alarmist.’
    > "And you are an alarmist. You are saying that this must lead to this, and you can’t prove it. These are the beginnings, yes; but how do you know for sure when you don’t know the end, and how do you know, or even surmise, the end? On the one hand, your enemies, the law, the regime, the Party, intimidate you. On the other, your colleagues pooh-pooh you as pessimistic or even neurotic.
    [...]
    > But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes. That’s the difficulty. If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked—if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in ’43 had come immediately after the ‘German Firm’ stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in ’33. But of course this isn’t the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D.
    ~ They Thought They Were Free - The Germans, 1933-45; Milton Mayer
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    somenameforme 10 hours ago
    Again I'd emphasize that you are trying to imply that deporting illegal aliens, something most of every single country on this planet engages in, leads to genocide. There'd rather be a whole lot more genocide were this the case.
    And this argument about the Nazis being subtle and just slowly indoctrinating society toward a grand scheme is complete disinformation. Hitler was bonkers and as far back as 1919 he was ranting and raving about removing the Jews from all of Europe. And his speeches certainly didn't moderate that even the slightest. Even in Mein Kampf, again well before he was in major politics, he wrote about how if Germany had gassed some Jews during WW1, they could have saved millions of German lives. You didn't have to spin his words, or argue that innocuous acts might lead to the most egregious - he made his intent unabashedly and unambiguously clear.
    So for instance if you listen to the rhetoric of Jewish leaders regarding Palestinians, you can see the same thing. You don't seem to appreciate that people with genocidal intent do not see themselves as evil. They see themselves as the saviors of society, trying to save everybody from some greater evil, and taking on the burden of 'what must be done' upon themselves. The most vile of villains see themselves as the great protagonist of their story.
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    saubeidl 9 hours ago
    Removing the Jews, yes.
    Just like you're talking about removing the "illegals".
    The ugly details of what said removal entails are slow-rolled in a spiral of normalization.
    Again, initial talk was of deportation in the case of the Jews as well. The "final solution" was only introduced in '42, after consensus on removal had already been manufactured.
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    somenameforme 9 hours ago
    Now your responses are just head in the sand stuff as you're saying stuff that's plainly untrue (unless I am lying, or incorrect - which I am not) based on the very comment you're responding to.
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    saubeidl 7 hours ago
    I would posit you are in fact incorrect. Whether it is on purpose or not (e.g. whether you're lying), I cannot say.
    mothballed 1 day ago
    Not to make it out to be some paradise, but illegal immigration isn't a crime in Argentina or Brazil. Argentina doesn't enforce it, and in fact I have read court cases of people criminals arriving illegally with fake passport and granted citizenship.
    If you are illegal, you can literally show up fresh off of jet and on day one in .ar, file a court case for citizenship, have a lawyer run down the clock for a few years (by constitution in argentina illegal residence and subsistence for a few years = citizenship), and all the meanwhile they are legally barred from deporting you.
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    somenameforme 17 hours ago
    It is still a crime even in Brazil and Argentina. Whether or not it's enforced and/or the degree of exceptions allowed, are another issue. For instance obviously illegal immigration was treated radically different during the previous administration, but the laws remain overwhelmingly the same. For instance the most controversial issue in contemporary times is deportation without trial. That's called expedited removal [1], and was passed under Bill Clinton's administration, 30 years ago.
    One thing that I really don't like about the way the Democrat party is handling illegal immigration is that they know it's overwhelmingly unpopular, so they say one thing and do another. For instance part of the DNC 2024 platform was "Securing the Border" [2] which they tried to argue Biden had done, and that the only reason he hadn't doing more was because of Congress. Obviously that's overt gaslighting. If they want to run on a platform of defacto open borders, more power to them - laws can be changed, but they need to actually run on that platform instead of lying and gaslighting.
    [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expedited_removal
    [2] - https://democrats.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/FINAL-MASTE...
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    seanmcdirmid 17 hours ago
    Obama and to a lesser extent Biden weren't soft on illegal immigration, but they did two things that differ from the current administration:
    * They followed the law. Crackdowns like the one Trump is taking are only possible if you treat law as a fluid concept and ignore judges consistently. A democrat is never going to get around that, and yes, laws can be changed, but notice how Trump isn't even bothering to do that also (he just ignores them), the best he got from a Republican congress was extra funding for ICE (and remember, Bush was worse than Obama on illegal immigration).
    * They just treated them with some dignity (which Trump sees as soft, dignity isn't really in his vocab).
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    somenameforme 16 hours ago
    Judges aren't powerless. If an administration genuinely ignores a judge's lawful ruling, they can charged with contempt, with penalties up to imprisonment. But there's a lot of judicial activism leading to 'creative' rulings. Like the Supreme Court, Federal judges are appointed with life terms. And they can be even more impactful on a day-to-day basis, especially when they intentionally step outside the bounds of their authority. One of the more extremist judges did try to charge this administration with contempt - it was tossed. So the admin tried to charge the judge with misconduct, which was also tossed. It's just a lot of back and forth nonsense with checks and balances generally still working okayish.
    So for an example from the previous administration, they wanted race based admissions for colleges. That is obviously illegal and unconstitutional. After the Supreme Court predictably ruled against them, they worked to circumvent their ruling in various ways including in a 'Dear Colleagues' letter [1] offering guidance on ways universities could achieve a racial quota while remaining within the bounds of the law, effectively laying out a proposed blueprint for intentional Disparate Impact [2], which is *drum roll* also illegal.
    The main difference you're seeing in contemporary times is the way the media is spinning everything, intentionally looking to foment conflict and radicalism. We live in amoral times and so working around the judges and legal systems is framed primarily in terms of who's doing it.
    [1] - https://web.archive.org/web/20241127174625/https://www.ed.go...
    [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disparate_impact
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    seanmcdirmid 15 hours ago
    Judges aren’t powerless, they can always ask the executive to enforce their rulings (except when it’s the executive who’s disobeying their rulings…oops).
    Yes, that poor justice lawyer who broke down when the judge berated her that they were just ignoring his rulings, the lawyer replied that being sent to jail for contempt would at least let her get some sleep!
    So you shifted from immigration to DEI stuff? Yes, white people no longer get preferential admission like they once did and it’s somehow now racist, do you even realize how bad you guys sound? Anyways, yes, Obama looked for places in the law where he could do things, which I guess you will just claim is just as bad as ignoring laws and rulings straight up?
    The main difference is that we literally elected a fascist with dementia as President. And you guys would claim media bias if the press simply played videos of Trump talking.
    mothballed 1 day ago
    This doesn't justify it by any means, but the parallel between the Madagascar Plan and the issue with illegals in the US is actually quite similar in reasoning for how the perpetrators end up opening concentration camps.
    There are several countries that refuse involuntary repatriation of their citizens. With the Jews in germany, same issue, hardly anywhere was willing to take them. And that's when you ended up with the perpetrator buffering them in these camps until they just gave up because there was no place to send them other than back into the broad population.
    Of course it is the fault of the USA if these people are abused in these camps, but these peoples' home country are not doing any favors to the people stuck there by refusing to take them back.
    People in i.e. France are dealing with similar issue where much of their criminals are Algerian because Algeria is refusing much of the repatriation of illegal immigrants in France. France has chosen to just release them back into population rather than build camps, with end result Algerian gangs terrorize the populace knowing they can't be sent back, which obviously plays into the hands of pushing voters towards the right-wing.
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    somenameforme 16 hours ago
    The German plan for deportation was never executed. There were programs against the Jews, they were persecuted and encouraged to leave, but the Nazis never formally banned them. They ended up going the other direction as genocide approached and made it impossible for Jews to leave.
    But the situations are again nothing alike because in that case you're speaking of Germany trying to dump Germans on other countries. In this case you're speaking of the US returning e.g. Salvadorans to El Salvador, which the latter country generally having obligations under international law to accept their citizens. The handful of exceptions, like with Venezuela, have all generally been resolved.
    donkeybeer 1 day ago
    That's the point, it's not an investigation in the first place so how can you "obstruct" an investigation. It's just a business deal. Unless you believe special rules apply for business deals with them that make perfectly normal things crimes.
kleiba 2 days ago
I heard the new division of ICE that is implementing these investigations is called Government Ethics, Security & Transparency Agency for Public Operations, with some kind of acronym I couldn't quite hear.
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- trinsic2 1 day ago
  You know when you have corrupt organizations calling themselves exactly what they are not, we are in an authoritarian state. And its moving fast.
Ms-J 1 day ago
ICE will need to hit up Israel for that data.
Israeli companies are constantly working on spyware and advertising technologies.
Take a look at abominations such as the product Sherlock produced by Insanet:
https://www.theregister.com/2023/09/16/insanet_spyware/
https://cyberjustice.blog/2024/01/22/sherlock-the-terrifying...
There are loads of others.
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- throw03837 1 day ago
  It sounds like you’re just looking for another opportunity to bash a group of people that you hate.
  Spyware is produced in many countries - although the Israeli ones are very good, because Israelis are very good at what they do.
yanhangyhy 2 days ago
It is really hard to understand that this is a country that our nation’s media and KOLs have vigorously whitewashed for decades. They say the United States protects private property, that America is free and democratic, and that everyone owns guns, so they can guarantee their own freedom.
All of our people should feel ashamed of this—being deceived by the media day after day for decades. Too stupid. Even today, there are still many people who firmly believe it.
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- TitaRusell 1 day ago
  Ah yes the famous Constitutional freedom to gun down tyrants. It turns out nobody can agree on who the tyrant is!
charcircuit 2 days ago
I am all for government and private industry working together to keep the country safe and ensure our laws our efficiently enforced.
Refreeze5224 2 days ago
If you want to target a demographic, ask the experts.
tvbusy 2 days ago
Although this is quite a dark time, I hope ICE may finally (accidentally) do some good by making it super obvious to people how much online platforms track them.
ddxv 2 days ago
If anyone else finds this stuff interesting I've off and on worked on an open source MMP to try and keep the functionality of ad tracking but move the data collection off of centralized hubs like AppsFlyer. I'd love to pick it back up if some people are interested in working together.
https://github.com/openattribution
tgsovlerkhgsel 2 days ago
In a way, this is a good thing. Hopefully it will draw the attention of other countries and make them realize how important it is to prevent such data hoards, and hopefully once the US has recovered they'll learn from it like the Germans did from the Stasi.
Maybe California will even take it as an incentive to make proper privacy laws and impose it on anyone doing business in California in any way.
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- direwolf20 1 day ago
  Unlikely. Other countries will watch and realise how important it is to collect their own data hoards so they can do it too.
trhway 2 days ago
ICE got additional $80B over next 4 years in addition to the standard appropriations resulting in $28B budget for example in this year. That definitely gonna buy a lot of “market research”.
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- cluckindan 2 days ago
  For comparison, what is the cost of immigration?
  [-]
  - direwolf20 1 day ago
    Negative cost. It brings more money.
  - trhway 2 days ago
    To whom? To the country losing people or to the country getting people? Like, what is the cost of Elon Musk immigration? And who bears that cost? And who enjoys the benefits of it?
Ms-J 1 day ago
Here is another example of ICE directly working with Israeli Spyware companies.
"What Is ICE Doing With This Israeli Spyware Firm?"
https://www.msn.com/en-us/technology/software/what-is-ice-do...
The abuse to us normal people has to stop before we really organize and fix things.
globalnode 2 days ago
I love this. All these years I've been a privacy enthusiast lunatic, because ofc no-one has anything to hide. Now ad trackers are being potentially weaponised by the govt, and ofc no-one could have foreseen that. This is absolute gold. Will be patiently waiting for recall install's to start sending screenshots to ice of your private documents and comm's.
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- tvbusy 2 days ago
  Someone please hint ICE that they can get a lot more data from AI companies. Asking what your rights are? Straight to jail.
- trinsic2 1 day ago
  In a way Im glad its happening because its going to be a wake up call for many, on the other hand, there is going to be a lot of suffering as a result of this..
usernomdeguerre 2 days ago
> ICE says it is attempting to better understand how commercial big data providers and advertising technology firms might directly support investigative activities, while remaining sensitive to “regulatory constraints and privacy expectations.”
That's rich and i'll believe it when they respect the written law.
To be clear, I fully expect other departments have been investigating these sorts of things in past and present, but ice have conducted themselves differently now and should be treated accordingly.
raverbashing 2 days ago
Hey but who cares about cookies anyway right?
tokyobreakfast 2 days ago
This must be a real conundrum for the surveillance capitalist weekend 'resisters' who created this technology in the first place. "Oh, but it's not evil when we use it."
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- kybernetyk 2 days ago
  "It's my job - I just followed orders"
anonym29 2 days ago
Don't forget - Microsoft, Google, Apple, Amazon, Oracle, etc are all proud partners of the US intelligence community, which includes DHS and ICE. When the NSA asked these companies to participate in an unconstitutional and unlawful program (as ruled by a federal judge) called PRISM, they didn't fight, they eagerly complied. They kept their compliance secret. They lied about it to citizens, to their users, to their customers, and even to congress. These are fundamentally untrustworthy entities, and there's no reason to believe they've changed and won't comply with secret DHS and ICE requests just like they did with secret NSA requests.
Every dollar spent on AWS, Azure, GCP, Oracle Cloud, iPhones, Macbooks, Windows, Office, etc supports the widespread violation of rights committed against the innocent of all political and demographic backgrounds in the name of "national security".
Know what doesn't? Open source operating systems, open source software, and self-hosting. Do the right thing, ditch the modern day equivalents of IBM collaborating with the enemies of freedom, human dignity, and human prosperity.
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- oldcigarette 23 hours ago
  I remember rolling out encryption over all the DC<->DC fiber after the PRISM leaks at Google. People were pissed about it. I'm sure they comply with legal requests but I would be very surprised if they break the law (such as it is) in any way.
- Symbiote 2 days ago
  And for Europeans or those in other countries: every dollar spent on these companies is supporting their support of Trump; that's against Greenland, NATO etc. For example, Microsoft donated $1M (IIRC) to Trump for Davos.
  At work we have stopped buying new American services, but there's been very little reduction of existing use.
  (Yet we did manage a policy stating we won't buy anything from Russia.)
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  - direwolf20 1 day ago
    And for Europeans: Germany France and UK do the same thing
- michaelsshaw 2 days ago
  >Do the right thing, ditch the modern day equivalents of IBM collaborating with the enemies of freedom, human dignity, and human prosperity.
  I think it needs to go a bit further than that. We need names, for purposes of blacklisting but also future prosecution. Collaborators should not be tolerated.
  I'm sure it's not popular, but quite a few of our colleagues and fellow HN readers do belong in cells.
- andsoitis 2 days ago
  What phone do you use?
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  - direwolf20 1 day ago
    GrapheneOS is the only phone that Cellebrite admits they can't hack. And the only phone that if you bring it to Catalonia, they'll assume you're a drug dealer.
  - roughly 2 days ago
    AND YET YOU PARTICIPATE IN SOCIETY
  - michaelsshaw 2 days ago
    Pixel 8 Pro with Graphene.
uwagar 2 days ago
[flagged]
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- sham1 2 days ago
  But why though? Why shouldn't they be restricted to only using the tools they're legally entitled to? And why shouldn't they be held in account when they act like the SA just because they're "enforcing immigration law"?
  [-]
  - uwagar 1 day ago
    i suppose with this idea, they only homin in on illegals that use smartphones who willingly offer their realtime location to their app providers and is already sold, ICE could just buy it off them like others. they doin nothing illegal while illegals are illegally in the country bro.
- donkeybeer 2 days ago
  Of course, I propose ICE should have total view of all computers, phones and devices to aid them in their job. Begin by making yours public.
- subscribed 1 day ago
  Is it though? Or is it attacking and killing American citizens in the street, trafficking legal residents to the notorious prisons, starving and killing the captured in the concentration camps.
  Not sure how much of the heavy lifting is your "if" and the qualifier does, but I hope it's just sarcasm.
- _DeadFred_ 2 days ago
  ICE is normalizing police hiding behind masks. ICE is normalizing violating people's (hard fought and won in the Supreme Court) 1st amendment right to film the police, so that ICE can do their work in secret.
  ICE is using biometrics on people who have not broken any law, then saying the federal government will be doing whatever it can in its power to penalize those people now that they have been identified as doing... absolutely nothing illegal but stuff the impedes ICE's ability to operate in secret (among other things a violate of those people's due process rights).
  We don't do the whole 'secret police' thing in the USA, and we tend to get angry when the Government violates our Constitutional rights.
  [-]
  - jacquesm 2 days ago
    The stormtroopers in Star Wars look like they do to be some kind of extreme in anonymous abuse of power. Their squeaky clean white exterior is literally a whitewash of that abuse. That's the one trick that ICE could still pull to complete the transition.
- saubeidl 2 days ago
  But that's not what they're doing and you and I both know it.
  They're murdering political dissidents, they're kidnapping and torturing US citizens, they're terrorizing the streets.
- orthecreedence 2 days ago
  [flagged]
tosapple 2 days ago
[flagged]
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- emodendroket 2 days ago
  I don't think there is really anything "woke" about wanting to sell products to people who speak Spanish but what do I know. What does this even have to do with the article?
  [-]
  - tosapple 2 days ago
    First it's your nationality, then your language. Next maybe you're church or your music.
    Data is a liability, it's omnipresent. Permeating.
    [-]
    emodendroket 17 hours ago
    Foreign language ads could be done just based on the content with no behavioral targeting.
    michaelsshaw 2 days ago
    Maximum incoherence. If English is your first language, please seek medical attention immediately.
- pstuart 2 days ago
  [flagged]
throwfaraway135 2 days ago
I'm against this type of surveillance everywhere, but seeing the holier than thou attitude of some of the comments rubs me the wrong way.
Doing basically the same for people who are on the Epstein list was OK, but now it's wrong?
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- direwolf20 1 day ago
  Uh yeah, it's ok to track and arrest confirmed pedophiles, but not normal people at random
  [-]
  - throwfaraway135 1 day ago
    The last time I looked illegal immigration is still illegal.
    I don't see people protesting en masse to take Clinton, Trump, Gates etc. accountable. Maxwell Ghislaine is alive and well, and they can't get a incrementing confession.
    But somehow people loose their shit when some MS-13 gang members get arrested.
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    direwolf20 1 day ago
    MS–13 is running amok in Minneapolis, but they call themselves ICE.
    You say they're ICE, but I don't see any way to tell the difference.
    _DeadFred_ 1 day ago
    Illegal immigration enforcement/code is civil, not criminal. If it was criminal, enforcement would require giving suspected offenders actual Article III judge hearings pre-every deporations, not use immigration court, etc. You know, rights. If you lot want to change it to criminal, go for it. But don't lie.
    People lose their shit when the Constitution is violated. When civil norms are violated in evil ways. When people following the legal process with pending applications before the Government get punished/unfair enforcement against them because grannies in the government system are easier targets than tracking down actual MS-13 gang members. When law enforcement hides their identity and act like a secret police force ABOVE civilian oversite (again against the Supreme Court saying civilians have a right to monitor police actions and against American norms of... not having secret police).
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    throwfaraway135 1 day ago
    My argument is not about the legality, but selectivity of the outrage. Somehow if it's politically beneficial there are a ton of people outraged, and in other times like the pedophile scandal of the century, with a lot of powerful people in it, no one seams to really care.
    [-]
    _DeadFred_ 1 day ago
    Funny because the first line of your point is "The last time I looked illegal immigration is still illegal." so specifically about the legality, and I explained what you said is not true, and that if it was these people would have legal protections that match what the Constitution requires and the public would be way less upset.
    It sounds like you don't really care about the law, or people that want the constitution enforced, you care about the politics and if it the Constitution is politically inconvenient. Following the Constitution is ALWAYS the politically correct choice in the USA. Choosing the law over 'civil immigration enforcement' used as a loophole to bypass the law/Constitution is always the correct choice.
    mothballed 1 day ago
    You don't get MS-13 in the kind of operations that the populace have been protesting. If people are showing up with whistles and megaphones you have lost the element of surprise by such a long-shot what you are basically are getting are people who have to be there to wait for their kids to get back from school, or are sticking around because they need to go to their regular doctor appointment.
    If they were getting gang members the protests would be useless because tactically they would be in and out every time before anyone could protest their operations.
    [-]
    throwfaraway135 1 day ago
    Look, this is tangential, for what is worth I don't agree with a lot of what ICE is doing.
    My argument is that if you have two injustices A and B with severity of lets say 50/100 and 90/100. And injustice A is being globally protested, but injustice B is ignored, then your fight is not for justice, then you are being used as a political tool.
    [-]
    mothballed 1 day ago
    Or you are seizing your moment to temporarily ally with your enemies on a 50/100 topic when the 90/100 topic doesn't have the moment you need. I generally despise the politics of most people protesting DHS/ICE but I find them to be useful idiots on this particular topic so I'm happy to form a tenuous agreement with them.
drivingmenuts 2 days ago
They’re going from Brownshirt to Gestap to Stasi overnight.
motbus3 1 day ago
Auschwiiiiitz
Sorry I sneezed