[HN Gopher] ICE using Palantir tool that feeds on Medicaid data
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ICE using Palantir tool that feeds on Medicaid data
Author : JKCalhoun
Score : 707 points
Date : 2026-01-25 17:36 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.eff.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.eff.org)
| simonw wrote:
| Any time I see people say "I don't see why I should care about my
| privacy, I've got nothing to hide" I think about how badly things
| can go if the wrong people end up in positions of power.
|
| The classic example here is what happens when someone is being
| stalked by an abusive ex-partner who works in law enforcement and
| has access to those databases.
|
| This ICE stuff is that scaled up to a multi-billion dollar
| federal agency with, apparently, no accountability for following
| the law at all.
| jfyi wrote:
| It doesn't even need malicious intent. If nobody rational is
| monitoring it, all it will take is a bad datapoint or
| hallucination for your door to get kicked in by mistake.
| Jaepa wrote:
| Plus there is inherent biases in datasets. Folks who have
| interactions with Medicaid will be more vulnerable by
| definition.
|
| To quote the standard observability conference line "what
| gets measured gets managed".
| plagiarist wrote:
| The same people saying that will also defend police wearing
| masks, hiding badges, and shutting off body cameras. They are
| not participating in discussions with the same values (truth,
| integrity) that you have. Logic does not work on people who
| believe Calvinistic predestination is the right model for
| society.
| j16sdiz wrote:
| Wait. Is calvinistic predestination the majority view of
| republicans? I thought most of them are some form of (tv)
| evangelism, or secularism
|
| I am not American and genuinely curious on this.
| ungreased0675 wrote:
| No, none of that is true.
|
| Remember, Republicans represent half the country, not some
| isolated sect living in small town Appalachia.
| tfehring wrote:
| 27%* https://news.gallup.com/poll/700499/new-high-
| identify-politi...
| jfyi wrote:
| >some isolated sect living in small town Appalachia.
|
| Calvinists or Evangelicals?
|
| I don't think that holds water either way.
| helterskelter wrote:
| > Republicans represent half the country
|
| This statement isn't necessarily wrong because about half
| of elected government officials are Republican, but I
| want to point out that less than 60% of eligible
| Americans voted in 2024, so we're talking about <30% of
| Americans who vote Republican.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| And honestly, with a Congress that allows every state,
| irrespective of population, two Senators, it is somewhat
| skewed. I mean San Jose, California is about double the
| population of the entire state of Wyoming.
| gritspants wrote:
| I don't believe there is any sort of conservative
| intellectual movement at this point. The right believes
| they have captured certain institutions (law enforcement,
| military), in the same way they believe the left has
| captured others (education/universities, media), and will
| use them to wage war against whichever group the big finger
| pointing men in charge tell them to.
| efnx wrote:
| Republicans are overwhelmingly Christian, and even though
| Calvinism, or its branches, may not be the religion a
| majority of Republicans "exercise", predetermination is a
| convenient explanation of why the world is what it is, and
| why no action should be taken - so it gets used a lot by
| right wing media, etc.
| steveklabnik wrote:
| A lot of American Christians aren't hyper committed to the
| specific theology of whichever flavor of Christianity they
| belong to, and will often sort of mix and match their own
| personal beliefs with what is orthodoxy.
|
| That said, I'm ex-Catholic, so I don't feel super qualified
| to make a statement on the specific popularity of
| predestination among American evangelicals at the moment.
|
| That said, in a less theological and more metaphorical
| sense, it does seem that many of them do believe in some
| sort of "good people" and "bad people", where the "bad
| people" are not particularly redeemable. It feels a little
| unfalsifiable though.
| alwa wrote:
| Some, probably; not all (and certainly not the current
| president, who in his more senile moments muses about how
| his works have probably earned him hell [0]).
|
| But the same observation applies to lots of other
| attitudes, too--like "might makes right" and "nature is red
| in tooth and claw" or whatever else the dark princelings
| evince these days. I feel like "logic matters" mainly
| pertains to a liberal-enlightenment political context that
| might be in the past now...
|
| Does reality always find a way to assert itself in the face
| of illogic? Sure! But if Our Side is righteous and
| infallible, the bad outcomes surely must be the fault of
| Those Scapegoats' malfeasance--ipso facto we should punish
| them harder...
|
| https://time.com/7311354/donald-trump-heaven-hell-
| afterlife-...
| mythrwy wrote:
| It's something they say in sociology 101 at colleges in the
| US and some people occasionally believe it.
| OrvalWintermute wrote:
| Calvinistic predestination is a TULIP sense (Total
| depravity, Unconditional election, Limited atonement,
| Irresistible grace, and Perseverance of the saints) is an
| extreme minority position, like 7% to 5% of the American
| Church (Reformed Camp)
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Anyone on the right who implicates Pretti for carrying a
| licensed firearm is a good litmus test for bad faith.
| godelski wrote:
| It's amazing how quickly the party of small government,
| states rights, and the 2nd amendment quickly turned against
| all their principles. It really shows how many people care
| more about party than principle.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _shows how many people care more about party than
| principle_
|
| "Trump's net approval rating on immigration has declined
| by about 4 points since the day before Good's death until
| today. Meanwhile, his overall approval rating has
| declined by 2 points and is near its second-term lows"
| [1].
|
| I'd encourage anyone watching to actually pay attention
| to "how many people care more about party than
| principle." I suspect it's fewer than MAGA high command
| thinks.
|
| [1] https://www.natesilver.net/p/trump-is-losing-normies-
| on-immi...
| wat10000 wrote:
| Two percent of Americans changing their opinion in the
| face of state sanctioned murder is not a good number.
| atmavatar wrote:
| It's not that amazing. The Republican party has
| repeatedly demonstrated my entire life that their goal is
| power and all stated ideals can and will be sacrificed as
| needed to achieve that goal.
|
| We get things like philandering individuals running on
| family values platforms, anti-gay individuals being
| caught performing gay sex acts in restaurant bathrooms,
| crowing about deficits and the national debt during
| Democrat administrations while cutting taxes and
| increasing spending during Republican administrations,
| blocking Supreme Court nominations because it's "too
| close to an election" while pushing through another
| Supreme Court nomination mere weeks before a subsequent
| election, etc.
|
| The fuel running the Republican political machine is bad
| faith.
| wat10000 wrote:
| They haven't turned against their principles. Party _is_
| the principle. You're just confused because you thought
| their stated principles were real.
|
| I spent too much of the 90s listening to Rush Limbaugh
| and consuming other conservative media and the exact same
| contradictions were prominently on display then. They
| absolutely excoriated law enforcement for things like the
| Waco siege. The phrase "jack-booted thugs" got used. But
| when LAPD beat the shit out of Rodney King on video,
| suddenly police could do no wrong.
| iso1631 wrote:
| I assume the NRA are out in droves at a US citizen being
| executed for carrying a gun?
| leptons wrote:
| I guess this is an example of FAFO? This is what the NRA
| wanted, now they got to find out how what happens when
| there are too many guns and too many idiots with guns
| masquerading as law enforcement. The guy had every right
| to have a gun, and the masked tyrants had no right to
| kill him for it.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| The NRA is ostensibly _pro guns_ but they are also _pro
| oppression_.
| nailer wrote:
| Police absolutely should have body cameras - quite frequently
| they've proven law enforcement officers handled things
| correctly where activists have tried to say otherwise.
| ck_one wrote:
| This is the moment for Europe to show that you can do gov and
| business differently. If they get their s** together and
| actually present a viable alternative.
| skrebbel wrote:
| How is it not viable now?
| alecco wrote:
| They are doing it differently alright.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chat_control
| lillecarl wrote:
| You're saying a proposed bill which hasn't passed is
| comparative to recent events in the US or am I reading too
| much between the lines?
| alecco wrote:
| You're saying EU is any different to USA?
|
| Palantir clients: Europol, Danish POL-INTEL, NHS UK, UK
| Ministry of Defence, German Police (states), NATO,
| Ukraine, ASML, Siemens, Airbus, Credit Suisse, UBS, BP,
| Merck, ...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palantir_Technologies#Custo
| mer...
|
| https://www.palantir.com/partners/international/
| vladms wrote:
| Nitpicking, many on your list are not part of the EU :
| NHS UK, UK Ministry of Defence, NATO, Ukraine, UBS, BP.
|
| Plus, the EU is 27 countries, out of which 5 are listed
| on their wiki page, with various institutions.
| Jordan-117 wrote:
| "Best I can do is Chat Control 3.0"
| direwolf20 wrote:
| Europe _can 't_ do business differently. Or at least it
| doesn't seem to be able to. China can.
| nathan_compton wrote:
| Last I checked millions of europeans are living in a
| functioning civilization. I've lived in Europe. It is ok.
|
| Don't confuse "GDP not as big as ours" with "totally non-
| functional."
| direwolf20 wrote:
| I didn't say it was totally nonfunctional, I said they
| can't do business differently than they are currently
| doing.
| p1esk wrote:
| _China can_
|
| Yes, things are different in totalitarian states.
| lugu wrote:
| What would you like to see changed in the EU?
| koolba wrote:
| > The classic example here is what happens when someone is
| being stalked by an abusive ex-partner who works in law
| enforcement and has access to those databases.
|
| There's a world of difference between a government using
| legally collected data for multiple purposes and an individual
| abusing their position purely for personal reasons.
| sosomoxie wrote:
| The parent's example is of an individual using that "legal"
| state collected data for nefarious purposes. Once it's
| collected, anyone who accesses it is a threat vector. Also,
| governments (including/especially the US) have historically
| killed, imprisoned and tortured millions and millions of
| people. There's nothing to be gained by an individual for
| allowing government access to their data.
| simonw wrote:
| That difference is looking _very_ thin right now.
| Jaepa wrote:
| Is this legal though?
|
| & effectively if there is no checks on this is there actually
| a difference? There only difference is that the threat is to
| an entire cohort rather than an individual.
| monooso wrote:
| At this moment, the primary difference appears to be scale.
| godelski wrote:
| When did legality make something right?
|
| The whole social battle is a constant attempt to align our
| laws and values as a society. It's why we create new laws.
| It's why we overturn old laws. You can't just abdicate your
| morals and let the law decide for you. That's not a system of
| democracy, that's a system of tyranny.
|
| The privacy focused crowd often mentions "turnkey tyranny" as
| a major motivation. A tyrant who comes to power and changes
| the laws. A tyrant who comes to power and uses the existing
| tooling beyond what that tooling was ever intended for.
|
| The law isn't what makes something right or wrong. I can't
| tell you what is, you'll have to use your brain and heart to
| figure that one out.
| tasty_freeze wrote:
| Musk and his flying monkeys came in with hard drives and
| sucked up all the data from all the agencies they had access
| to and installed software of some kind, likely containing
| backdoors. Even though each agency had remit for the data it
| maintained, they had been intentionally firewalled to prevent
| exactly what Palantir is doing.
|
| There is also a world of difference between a government
| using data to carry out its various roles in service of the
| nation and a government using data to terrorize communities
| for the sadistic whims of its leadership.
|
| Think I'm being hyperbolic? In Trump's first term fewer than
| 1M were deported. In Obama's eight years as president, 3.1M
| people were deported without the "techniques" we are
| witnessing.
| RHSeeger wrote:
| There is 0 difference. None. There's not even a line to
| cross.
|
| > legally collected data
|
| In both cases, the information is legally collected (or at
| least, that's the only data we're concerned about in this
| conversation).
|
| - government using
|
| - individual abusing
|
| ^ Both of those are someone in the government using the
| information. In both cases, someone in the government can use
| the information in a way that causes an individual great
| harm; and isn't in the "understood" way the information would
| be used when it was "pitched" to the public. And in both
| cases, the person doing it will do what they want an almost
| certainly face no repercussions if what they're doing is
| morally, or even legally, wrong.
|
| The government is collecting data (or paying someone else to
| collect that data, so it's not covered by the rules) and can
| then use it to cause individuals great harm. That's it, the
| entire description. The fact that _sometimes_ it's one cop
| using it to stalk someone or not is irrelevant.
| blurbleblurble wrote:
| Respect, thank you for using your voice.
| steve1977 wrote:
| Also always keep in mind that what is legal today might be
| illegal tomorrow. This includes things like your ethnicity,
| religion, sexual orientation and much more.
|
| You don't know today on which side of legality you will be in
| 10 years, even if your intentions are harmless.
| direwolf20 wrote:
| The reaction from the masses: "But that isn't true today,
| _anything_ could happen in the future, and why should I
| invest so much work on something that 's only a possibility?"
| whatshisface wrote:
| People do not have justifications for most choices. We
| watch YouTube when we would benefit more from teaching
| ourselves skills. We eat too much of food we know is junk.
| We stay up too late and either let others walk over us at
| work to avoid overt conflict or start fights and make
| enemies to protect our own emotions. If you want to know
| why Americans are allowing themselves to be gradually
| reduced to slavery, do not ask why.
| soulofmischief wrote:
| It's disingenuous to say Americans are "allowing"
| themselves to do anything in the face of countless,
| relentless, multi-billion corporate campaigns, designed
| by teams of educated individuals, to make them think and
| act in specific ways.
| iugtmkbdfil834 wrote:
| This. As much as I would like to say 'individual
| responsibility' and all that, the sheer amount of
| information that is designed to make one follow a
| specific path, react in specific way or offer opinion X
| is crazy. I am not entirely certain what the solution is,
| but I am saying this as a person, who likes to think I am
| somewhat aware of attempts to subvert my judgment and I
| still catch myself learning ( usually later after the
| fact ) that I am not as immune as I would like to think.
| whatshisface wrote:
| It is not you who plants weeds in the garden but the
| wind, but the wind won't weed them back out again.
| soulofmischief wrote:
| A valid perspective, and I agree that a democracy only
| works as long as its citizens remain civically engaged.
| Unfortunately, I think it's too late for the US in its
| current form, and it might not be long before we see it
| split up into smaller regions, unless something suddenly
| kicks Congress into gear and people break ranks to
| impeach and disparage the Trump administration.
| dpc050505 wrote:
| Don't forget murdering protesters.
| keybored wrote:
| I sometimes imagine that HN was a professional collective.
| Maybe working with the supply chain of foodstuffs.
| Carciogenic foodstuff would be legal. Environmental
| harzards getting into foodstuff would be legal. But there
| would be a highly ideological subgroup that would advocate
| for something that would very indirectly handle these
| problems. And the rest of the professional collective are
| mixed and divided on whether they are good or what they are
| actually working towards. A few would have the insight to
| realize that one of the main people behind the group
| foresaw these problems that are current right now 30 years
| ago.
|
| That people ingest environmental hazards and carciogens
| would be viewed as a failure of da masses to abstractly
| consider the pitfalls of understanding the problems
| inherent to the logistics of foodstuffs in the context of
| big corporations.
| Rodeoclash wrote:
| The older I get the more disconnected I feel from some of
| the posters on this site. I can't remember exactly when I
| joined, 2012ish maybe? But the takes people have seem to
| be getting wilder and wilder.
| phatfish wrote:
| Most users here are American, have you seen what is
| happening in America?
|
| The funny (sad) thing is all the hot takes about the UK
| or Europe being a "police state" because porn is being
| blocked for kids, or persistent abuse on social media
| actually has repercussion (as it does in the real world
| already).
|
| Meanwhile ICE are murdering US citizens in the streets.
| Turns out American "free speech" doesn't prevent an
| authoritarian regime taking hold.
|
| To clarify, i do believe in free speech. But until you
| are bundled into a black car for holding up poster with a
| political statement (like in Russia or China), you have
| free speech. Attempting to stop abuse on social media is
| not the same. The closest we have to preventing free
| speech in the UK is the Israel/Gaza "issue".
| p1esk wrote:
| Privacy itself can become illegal just as easily as religion,
| etc. if we follow your argument.
| nfinished wrote:
| What point do you think you're making?
| vladms wrote:
| My interpretation: advocating for privacy without making
| effort to avoid a large part of the society goes "crazy"
| will not protect you much on the long term.
|
| I do like "engineering solutions" (ex: not storing too
| much data), but I start to think it is important to make
| more effort on more broad social, legal and political
| aspects.
| steve1977 wrote:
| Absolutely - there are quite a few attempts in this
| direction.
| RicciFlow wrote:
| EU is literally debating about "Chat Control". Its purpose
| is to scan for child sexual abuse material in internet
| traffic. But its at the cost of breaking end to end
| encryption.
| zugi wrote:
| > Its purpose is to scan
|
| That's its _ostensible_ , _purported_ , _show_ purpose.
|
| The _real_ purpose _is_ to break end to end encryption to
| increase government surveillance and power. "But think
| of the children" or "be afraid of the terrorists" are
| just the excuses those in power rotate through to to
| achieve their true desired ends.
| jayd16 wrote:
| It's a hell of lot harder to enforce...
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Yes, that is indeed the point.
| RickJWagner wrote:
| Don't forget about social media posts. In the UK, people are
| being jailed for those _today_.
|
| Imagine if they used your past post history against you.
| iso1631 wrote:
| In the US if you make a social media post threatening the
| president you are breaking the law and can be sent to jail
| just as much as if you said it
| ambicapter wrote:
| Link?
| zugi wrote:
| These are both true statements, but there's a huge
| difference in scale.
|
| The UK arrests 12,000 people per year for social media
| posts ( https://freedomhouse.org/country/united-
| kingdom/freedom-net/... ), for a broad range of vague
| reasons including causing offense. That's far more than
| much larger totalitarian nations like Russia and China.
|
| The US arrests folks for direct online threats of
| violence - a much higher bar.
| crimsoneer wrote:
| No they're not. An incredibly small number of people
| _might_ get arrested if policing cocks up. Nobody is being
| jailed.
| direwolf20 wrote:
| Which posts are people being jailed for?
| zbit wrote:
| Data are immortal times of peace are not!
| dismalaf wrote:
| Which is why I generally vote for people who believe in
| freedom versus an overreaching state.
| jfyi wrote:
| I need to get this super power.
|
| I am lucky to get to vote for people that don't believe in
| a religious ethno-state.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| I think it must depend on the country, right?
| jfyi wrote:
| Yeah, or county... but same kind of difference.
| charcircuit wrote:
| Laws can not be applied retroactively.
|
| >ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation and much more.
|
| In this case you will very likely be given an option to leave
| or change (not possible for ethniticity).
|
| Wanting to be able to break the law in the future is not a
| just motivation.
| blibble wrote:
| > Laws can not be applied retroactively.
|
| I mean, I've read stupid takes on this website but this
| really takes the cake
|
| despots don't care about the law
| charcircuit wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ex_post_facto_law
|
| >despots don't care about the law
|
| This is such a low probability scenario that I don't
| think it's worth the average person to worry about.
| blibble wrote:
| > This is such a low probability scenario
|
| how is it a low probability scenario?
|
| it's happened before, in living memory (there are still
| people alive that survived the holocaust)
|
| and you're seeing the early stages of despotic rule
| literally today in Minnesota
| charcircuit wrote:
| There weren't ex post facto laws being passed during the
| holocaust.
|
| >the early stages of despotic rule literally today in
| Minnesota
|
| This type of thinking is what is leading to the
| destruction of order there.
| blibble wrote:
| > There weren't ex post facto laws being passed during
| the holocaust.
|
| the argument isn't that states can't create ex-post facto
| laws (even though they can, see: any country with
| parliamentary sovereignty)
|
| it's that what the law says doesn't matter when the
| executive no is longer bound by the rule of law
|
| see: the United States under the Trump regime
|
| the fact that some previous legislature has passed a law
| saying that "using the gay/jewish/disabled/... database
| for bad things is illegal" is of no consequence when the
| state already has the database and has no interest in
| upholding the rule of law
| charcircuit wrote:
| No, this argument is about the database of past events
| being prosecuted in the future.
|
| >"using the gay/jewish/disabled/... database for bad
| things is illegal"
|
| If it is legal than I want to be able to use such a
| database as it makes law enforcement more efficient. It
| gets rid of inefficiency in the government. Wanting such
| inefficiency is wanting to allow for unlawful behavior.
| It's the whole using privacy as an excuse to hide from
| the government.
| blibble wrote:
| asinine logic
| wat10000 wrote:
| I do want to allow for unlawful behavior. Not all laws
| are just.
| azan_ wrote:
| > This type of thinking is what is leading to the
| destruction of order there. Are you sure it's this kind
| of thinking that's at fault? I would've said that it's
| actually caused by giving people without training and any
| serious screening extreme power with absolutely zero
| accountability. Would love to hear your take on this
| though.
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| A few years ago most people would think violating the
| Posse Comitatus act would be such a low probability
| scenario. And yet.
| array_key_first wrote:
| The US is currently descending into fascim. With each
| passing day, we see more bold and obviously illegal
| actions that we would not have dreamed up in our wildest
| nightmares.
| azan_ wrote:
| Wait, so you think government that will make some
| "ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation and much more"
| illegal is probable enough to consider such hypothetical
| situation, but government that will ignore law is where
| you draw the line?
| charcircuit wrote:
| I think ex post facto laws being passed is much more rare
| of a situation.
| RHSeeger wrote:
| Challenge.
|
| Laws cannot an action a crime after it was committed.
| However,
|
| - Civil rules can and do impact things retroactively
|
| - Laws may not make something illegal retroactively, but
| the interpretation of a law can suddenly change; which
| works out the same thing.
|
| - The thing you're doing could suddenly become illegal with
| on way for you to avoid doing it (such as people being here
| legally and suddenly the laws for what is legally changes).
| This isn't retroactive, but it might as well be.
|
| It is _entirely_ possible for someone to act in a way that
| is acceptable today but is illegal, or incurs huge civil
| penalties, tomorrow.
| throw0101c wrote:
| > _Laws can not be applied retroactively._
|
| I would not be surprised if SCOTUS disagrees at some point.
| leptons wrote:
| They want to declare "Antifa" a terrorist organization. So
| anyone that is against fascism (ANTI-FAscist) will be labeled
| a terrorist. Let that sink in for a moment.
|
| https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-
| actions/2025/09/desi...
| reneberlin wrote:
| Don't forget your comments on HN, which, as we all know,
| don't go away. I think the chilling-effect is absolutely real
| now.
| WrongOnInternet wrote:
| "I've got nothing to hide" is another way of saying "I don't
| have friends that trust me," which is another way of saying" I
| don't have friends."
| AndrewKemendo wrote:
| > how badly things can go if the wrong people end up in
| positions of power
|
| This is why there shouldn't be any organization that has that
| much power.
|
| Full stop.
|
| What you described is the whole raison detre of Anarchism;
| irrespective of whether you think there's an alternative or
| not*
|
| "No gods No Masters" isn't just a slogan it's a demand
|
| *my personal view is that there is no possible stable human
| organization
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchist_symbolism#No_gods,_n...
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| Have you read Graeber & Wengrow?
| hypeatei wrote:
| The simple response to that line of thinking is: "you don't
| choose what the government uses against you"
|
| For any piece of data that exists, the government effectively
| has access to it through court orders or backdoors. Either way,
| it _can_ and _will_ be used against you.
| sheikhnbake wrote:
| The true problem is that it happens no matter who is in charge.
| It's like that old phrase about weapons that are invented are
| going to be used at some point. The same thing has turned out
| to be true for intelligence tools. And the worst part is that
| the tools have become so capable, that malicious intent isn't
| even required anymore for privacy to be infringed.
| baconbrand wrote:
| From everything we are seeing, the tools are not actually
| that capable. Their main function is not their stated
| function of spying/knowing a lot about people. Their main
| function is to dehumanize people.
|
| When you use a computer to tell you who to target, it makes
| it easy for your brain to never consider that person as a
| human being at all. They are a target. An object.
|
| Their stated capabilities are lies, marketing, and a
| smokescreen for their true purpose.
|
| This is Lavender v2, and I'm sure others could name
| additional predecessors. Systems rife with errors but the
| validity isn't the point; the system is.
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| For me, the angle is a bit different. I want privacy, but I
| also sense that the people who are really good at this (like
| Plantir) have so much proxy information available that
| individual steps to protect privacy are pretty much worthless.
|
| To me, this is a problem that can only be solved at the
| government/regulatory level.
| ben_w wrote:
| In principle, I agree with your point; in practice, I think
| the claims made my these surveillance/advertising companies
| are likely as overstated as Musk's last decade of self-
| driving that still can't take a vehicle all the way across
| the USA without supervision in response to a phone summons.
|
| The evidence I have that causes me to believe them to be
| overstated, is how even Facebook has frequently shown me ads
| that inherently make errors about my gender, nationality, the
| country I live in, and the languages I speak, and those are
| things they should've been able to figure out with my name,
| GeoIP, and the occasional message I write.
| esseph wrote:
| > I think the claims made my these surveillance/advertising
| companies are likely as overstated as Musk's last decade of
| self-driving
|
| They are not overstated, and they are far worse.
| wat10000 wrote:
| It's funny when Facebook thinks you're interested in
| aquariums and shows you aquarium ads when that isn't your
| thing at all.
|
| It'll be a lot less amusing when Palantir thinks you're
| interested in bombing government buildings.
| crimsoneer wrote:
| Palantir don't sell data though, they just give you a
| software platform.
| tartoran wrote:
| They don't sell the data, they sell access to that data
| thangalin wrote:
| > I've got nothing to hide.
|
| Some retorts for people swayed by that argument:
|
| "Can we put a camera in your bathroom?"
|
| "Let's send your mom all your text messages."
|
| "Ain't nothin' in my pockets, but I'd rather you didn't check."
|
| "Shall we live-stream your next doctor's appointment?"
|
| "May I watch you enter your PIN at the ATM?"
|
| "How about you post your credit card number on reddit?"
|
| "Care to read your high-school diary on open mic night?"
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Some retorts for people swayed by that argument_
|
| Do any of these actually prompt someone to reconsider their
| position? They strike me as more of argument through being
| annoying than a good-faith attempt to connect with the other
| side.
| throw-qqqqq wrote:
| I usually just quote Snowden instead:
| "Ultimately, arguing that you don't care about the right to
| privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different
| than saying you don't care about free speech because you
| have nothing to say."
| HellDunkel wrote:
| Not as clever as it may sound. It is perfectly possible
| that someone has nothing to hide in a good way, whereas
| someone without anything to say for himself cannot be
| easily imagined as a good faith social individual. So in
| a way this is comparing apples to bad apples and claiming
| they are perfectly equal.
| ambicapter wrote:
| > whereas someone without anything to say for himself
| cannot be easily imagined as a good faith social
| individual
|
| Huh? You can't imagine boring people as a "good faith
| social individual"?
| HellDunkel wrote:
| If you have nothing so say for yourself that is more than
| beeing boring, it is beeing indifferent which is just one
| step away from amoral.
| tigerlily wrote:
| Or acutely stressed. Some people clam up as a stress
| response.
| charcircuit wrote:
| I feel "people should not have have consequences for what
| they say", and "people should be able to avoid
| consequences for what they have done", are separate
| concepts. One does not require believing in the other.
| For example I believe the former, but for the latter I
| believe everyone should be punished when they break the
| law.
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| People should have consequences for what they say, but
| not from the government. You should never be _prosecuted_
| for what you say, no matter how vile. But other people
| are free to exercise their rights in response, including
| freedom of association.
| charcircuit wrote:
| That was a typo in my post. Fixed.
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| Generally speaking, I think the point of statements like
| this is to shoot down the trite and thought-free cliche "if
| you have nothing to hide". And the point is rarely to
| convince the person you're speaking to, it's usually to get
| people who might otherwise be swayed by hearing the trite
| and thought-free cliche to think for a moment.
|
| If you're talking directly to one person and trying to
| convince them, without an audience, there are likely
| different tactics that might work, but even then, some of
| the same approach might help, just couched more politely.
| "You don't actually mean that; do you want a camera in your
| bedroom with a direct feed to the police? What do you
| _actually_ mean, here? What are you trying to solve? "
|
| Option A: "Yes!", which tells you you're probably talking
| to someone who cares more about not admitting they're wrong
| than thinking about what they're saying.
|
| Option B: "Well, no, but...", and now you're having a
| discussion.
|
| Generally speaking, people who say things like "if you have
| nothing to hide" either (charitably) haven't thought about
| it very much and are vaguely wanting to be "strict on
| crime" without thought for the consequences because they
| can't imagine it affecting them, or (uncharitably) have
| attitudes about what they consider "shameful" and they
| really mean "you shouldn't do things that _I_ think you
| should feel shame about ".
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Quite. I think a lot of Americans are acculturated (partly
| via movies and TV) to constant one-upmanship and trying to
| end disagreements with zingers. Look how many political
| videos on YouTube are titled 'Pundit you like DESTROYS
| person you disapprove of!' You see the same patterns in
| Presidential 'debates' and Congressional hearings. It's all
| very dramatic but lacking in real substance.
| Arch485 wrote:
| I think the "nothing to hide" argument is made for a
| different reason.
|
| People are unafraid of the government knowing certain things
| because they believe it will not have any real repercussions
| for them. The NSA knowing your search history is no big deal
| (as long as you're not looking for anything illegal), but
| your church knowing your search history would absolutely be a
| big deal.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > People are unafraid of the government knowing certain
| things because they believe it will not have any real
| repercussions for them.
|
| A very famous quote: "Conservatism consists of exactly one
| proposition: There must be in-groups whom the law protects
| but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds
| but does not protect."
|
| Many people - particularly white people, but let's not
| ignore that a bunch of Black and Latino folks are/have been
| Trump supporters - believe that they are part of the in-
| group. And inevitably, they find out that _the government
| doesn 't care_, as evidenced by ICE and their infamous
| quota of 3000 arrests a day... which has hit a ton of these
| people, memefied as "leopards ate my face".
|
| [1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/29/trump-
| ice-ar...
| RHSeeger wrote:
| > The NSA knowing your search history is no big deal (as
| long as you're not looking for anything illegal)
|
| Until someone at or above the TSA decides they don't like
| you. And then they use your search history to blackmail
| you. Because lots of people search for things that wouldn't
| be comfortable being public. Or search for things that
| could easily be taken out of context. Especially when that
| out of context makes it seem like they might be planning
| something illegal
|
| Heck, there's lots of times where people mention a term /
| name for something on the internet; and, even though that
| thing is benign, the _name/term_ for it is not. It's common
| for people to note that they're not going to search for
| that term to learn more about it, because it will look bad
| or the results will include things they don't want to see.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| When someone said "I got nothing to hide" I always took it
| to mean "I will tell the nazis when they come which house
| to look in".
|
| It's good to know in advance who they are.
| charcircuit wrote:
| You, someone's friends, and someone's mom are not law
| enforcement investigating a crime.
|
| There's a big difference between these scenarios.
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| Are you against income tax?
|
| Are you against business registration?
|
| All of these are subject to the similar issues with the stalker
| ex abusing a position of power?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _All of these are subject to the similar issues with the
| stalker ex abusing a position of power?_
|
| You seem to be asking a question. The answer is no.
|
| The IRS does not need to know my sexual orientation or
| circumcision status. Medicaid, on the other hand, may.
| (Though I'd contest even that.)
| RHSeeger wrote:
| Are you saying that, because there is one way in which people
| are vulnerable, that it doesn't matter if we add more ways
| they are vulnerable? Because that makes no sense whatsoever.
| tw04 wrote:
| > The classic example here is what happens when someone is
| being stalked by an abusive ex-partner who works in law
| enforcement and has access to those databases.
|
| Which has literally happened already for anyone who thinks
| "there's controls in place for that sort of thing". That's with
| (generally) good faith actors in power. What do you think can
| and will happen when people who think democracy and the
| constitution are unnecessary end up in control...
|
| https://www.cnn.com/2013/09/27/politics/nsa-snooping/
| jimmydoe wrote:
| I don't agree. I'm fine ICE can see my data, as long as there
| are process enforced to track those usage and I have a right to
| fight back for their misuse.
|
| Problem today is ICE has no accountability of misuse
| data/violence, not they have means to data/violence.
| femiagbabiaka wrote:
| There has been no point post Patriot Act where there has been
| accountability for data misuse. You need to update your
| priors.
| irl_zebra wrote:
| > I'm fine ICE can see my data, as long as there are process
| enforced to track those usage and I have a right to fight
| back for their misuse
|
| I agree with this in theory, but its a fantasy to think they
| have this restriction at this point. ICE seems to be taking
| all comers, the lowest of the low, the vilest of the vile,
| giving them "47 days of training," and sending them off armed
| into the populace. I have seen no evidence they believe they
| have any restriction on anything. It's basically DOGE but
| with guns instead of keyboards.
| jimmydoe wrote:
| I was referring to principle, not ICE in its current state.
|
| since you can't turn ICE around overnight, I don't think
| Americans should authorize ICE more data and power NOW.
| LightBug1 wrote:
| principle is sometimes indistinguishable from fantasy
| RHSeeger wrote:
| I'd rather ICE (or whatever government agency) not see my
| data... because, even if there are processes that are
| enforced, there might not be tomorrow. If that data isn't
| collected in the first place, that threat vector disappears.
| tasty_freeze wrote:
| It reminds me of when Eric Schmidt, then CEO of google, tried
| that argument about people's worry of google collecting so much
| personal data. Some media outlet then published a bunch of
| personal information about Schmidt they had gathered using only
| google searches, including where he lives, his salary, his
| political donations, and where his kids went to school. Schmidt
| was not amused.
| Sebguer wrote:
| Back in the day, Google eng had pretty unguarded access to
| people's gmails, calendars, etc. Then there was a news story
| involving a Google SRE grooming children and stalking them
| through their google accounts...
| neilv wrote:
| That questionable-sounding stunt by the media outlet wasn't
| comparable: Google/Alphabet knows _much_ more about
| individuals than addresses, salary, and political donations.
|
| Google/Alphabet knows quite a lot about your sentiments, what
| information you've seen, your relationships, who can get to
| you, who you can get to, your hopes and fears, your economic
| situation, your health conditions, assorted kompromat, your
| movements, etc.
|
| Schmidt is actually from OG Internet circles where many
| people were aware of privacy issues, and who were vigilant
| against incursions.
|
| But perhaps he had a different philosophical position. Or
| perhaps it was his job to downplay the risks. Or perhaps he
| was going to have enough money and power that he wasn't
| personally threatened by private info that would threaten the
| less-wealthy.
|
| We might learn this year, how well Google/Alphabet protects
| this treasure trove of surveillance state data, when that
| matters most.
| mindslight wrote:
| > _Schmidt is actually from OG Internet circles where many
| people were aware of privacy issues, and who were vigilant
| against incursions._
|
| > _But perhaps he had a different philosophical position.
| Or perhaps it was his job to downplay the risks_
|
| I feel that as the consumer surveillance industry took off,
| everyone from those OG Internet circles was presented with
| a choice - stick with the individualist hacker spirit, or
| turncoat and build systems of corporate control. The people
| who chose power ended up incredibly rich, while the people
| who chose freedom got to watch the world burn while saying
| I told you so.
|
| (There were also a lot of fence sitters in the middle who
| chose power but assuaged their own egos with slogans like
| "Don't be evil" and whatnot)
| neilv wrote:
| Yes, I remember that period of conscious choice, and the
| fence-sitting or rationalizing.
|
| The thing about "Don't Be Evil" at the time, is that (my
| impression was) everyone thought they knew what that
| meant, because it was a popular sentiment.
|
| The OG Internet people I'm talking about aren't only the
| Levy-style hackers, with strong individualist bents, but
| there was also a lot of collectivism.
|
| And the individualists and collectivists mostly
| cooperated, or at least coexisted.
|
| And all were pretty universally united in their
| skepticism of MBAs (halfwits who only care about near-
| term money and personal incentives), Wall Street bros
| (evil, coming off of '80s greed-is-good pillaging), and
| politicians (in the old "their lips are moving" way, not
| like the modern threats).
|
| Of course it wasn't just the OG people choosing. That
| period of choice coincided with an influx of people who
| previously would've gone to Wall Street, as well as a ton
| of non-ruthless people who would just adapt to what
| culture they were shown. The money then determined the
| culture.
| ciupicri wrote:
| OG = Original Gangster?
| bad_haircut72 wrote:
| Yes but its a slang term that just means original/old-
| school now (unless you're an actual criminal maybe).
| realharo wrote:
| Even if you trust the intentions of whoever you're giving your
| data to, you may not trust their ability to keep it safe from
| data breaches. Those happen all the time.
| RHSeeger wrote:
| Or the person that takes over after them
| chaostheory wrote:
| Unfortunately, this also means that everyone is taking a risk
| when they participate in the US census.
|
| https://exhibits.lib.berkeley.edu/spotlight/census/feature/j...
|
| https://www.npr.org/2018/12/26/636107892/some-japanese-ameri...
| cyanydeez wrote:
| The business is equally blamed. But ever aince Uber showed up
| and violated laws in all jurisdictions, we always focus on the
| cops and not the criminals.
|
| The "they look like us" fallacy is so deep in this.
| SilverElfin wrote:
| ICE and DHS already were bloated and somehow grew from not
| existing 25 years ago to a $100 billion budget. Then the big
| Trump spending bill added another $200 billion to their budget.
| And there's no accountability for who gets that money - it's
| all friends and donors and members of the Trump family.
|
| They have money for this grift of epic scale but complain about
| some tiny alleged Somalian fraud to distract the gullible MAGA
| base. And of course there is somehow not enough money for
| things people actually need like healthcare.
| tombert wrote:
| > This ICE stuff is that scaled up to a multi-billion dollar
| federal agency with, apparently, no accountability for
| following the law at all.
|
| Apparently any time they do anything horrifying, they will just
| declare that victim as a "terrorist" or something, and their
| sycophantic supporters will happily agree.
|
| What I find amusing is that when the Snowden leaks happened and
| I would discuss it, when I said something like "let's pretend
| for a moment that we can't trust every single person in the
| government" I would usually get an agreeable laugh.
|
| But using these same arguments with ICE + Palantir, these same
| people will say something like "ICE IS ONLY DEPORTING THE
| CRIMINALS YOU JUST WANT OPEN BORDERS!!!". People's hypocrisy
| knows no bounds.
| direwolf20 wrote:
| How do we know whether they're people or bots?
| duxup wrote:
| The thing also is, it doesn't matter what the truth is. If the
| computer says you did a thing, the thugs (ICE) will do what
| they want.
|
| Here is someone out for a walk, ICE demanding ID, that she
| answer questions. She says she's a US citizen ... they keep
| asking her questions and one of the ICE people seem to be using
| a phone to scan her face:
|
| https://np.reddit.com/r/Minneapolis/comments/1qbawlr/minneap...
|
| What she says, the truth, none of it would matter if his phone
| said to bring her in. And after the fact? The folks supporting
| ICE have made it clear they've no problem with lying in the
| face of the obvious.
| lemoncookiechip wrote:
| It's not even that big of a leap. We've seen a off-duty ICE
| agent drunk driving his child, getting stopped by the cops,
| implied threats to one of the officers for being black with
| payback, spent the whole time saying "come on man" using his
| position as a federal officer as a way to get out of trouble,
| and ends to the point that I wanted to make, complained about
| his and I quote "bitch ex-wife" for divorcing him.
|
| What is stopping this lowlife from going after his ex-wife, or
| one of those cops by using databases that they have access to?
| We know from journalists going through the process that there's
| no curation or training involved to join ICE specifically.
|
| But this goes beyond them. We know that cops can be corrupt to,
| we know politicians can be corrupt to, what is stopping any of
| these people from using private data to not only go after their
| spouses, but also business rivals, and people who slight them?
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_1X7MVrnPY
| trimethylpurine wrote:
| > _What is stopping this lowlife_
|
| Same as with all other crime, we hope it's the law that stops
| him. We hope that more policemen want to be good men than
| bad.
|
| The illusion of safety is based on the honor system. Society
| doesn't work without that.
| direwolf20 wrote:
| Does it actually work like we hope it does?
| charcircuit wrote:
| Except in this case people are trying to hide their location
| because they are in the country illegally. Saying you should
| care about privacy because the law may be enforced against you
| is just proving people who say that right.
| RHSeeger wrote:
| But there are people trying to hide their locations even
| though they are here legally; because ICE has made it very
| clear they don't care if you're here legally or not. They
| arrest and deport US citizens. They arrest and deport people
| that show up to court to become US citizens.
|
| It's clear the government cannot be trusted to use
| information in a reasonable way; so we should not allow them
| to get that information.
| charcircuit wrote:
| >They arrest and deport US citizens
|
| This is systematically not true as citizens can not be
| legally deported.
|
| >They arrest and deport people that show up to court to
| become US citizens.
|
| If someone is not a citizen and are here illegally they
| should be removed, no matter their intentions. If you are
| willing to break the law to stay here, I personally don't
| want them back in the country.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| 'systematically' doing a lot of work here/ It happens,
| you know it happens, the fact that it's not supposed to
| happen doesn't validate that.
| UncleMeat wrote:
| I'm very sorry but _even criminals_ have access to our
| constitutional rights.
|
| "Hey I know that guy is a criminal" does not give people the
| right to search their property without a warrant. Too bad if
| that makes law enforcement more difficult.
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| One interesting point about the volume of data that might be
| available about any individual is that law enforcement will
| only look for data points that suit their agenda.
|
| They won't be searching for counter evidence. It won't even
| cross their minds to do so.
|
| You're on record saying one thing one time that was vanilla at
| the time but is now ultra spicy (possibly even because the
| definition of words can change and context is likely lost) then
| you'll be a result in their search and you'll go on their list.
|
| (This is based on my anecdotal experience of having my house
| raided and the police didn't even know to expect there to be
| children in the house; children who were both over ten years
| old and going to school and therefore easily searchable in
| their systems; we hadn't moved house since 15 years prior, so
| there was no question of mixing up an identity. The police
| requested a warrant, and a fucking judge even signed it, based
| on a single data point: an IP address given to them by a third
| party internet monitoring company.)
|
| Keep your shit locked down, law enforcement are just as bad at
| their jobs as any other Joe Clockwatcher. In fact they're often
| worse because their incentive structure leans heavily towards
| successful prosecution.
|
| Sorry for the rant.
| ClikeX wrote:
| The nazi's were easily able to find jews in the Netherlands
| because of thorough census data. Collection of that data was
| considered harmless when they did it. But look at what kind of
| damage that kind of information can do.
| throw0101c wrote:
| > _The classic example here is what happens when someone is
| being stalked by an abusive ex-partner who works in law
| enforcement and has access to those databases._
|
| Or if you're _currently_ married to an abusive partner and want
| to leave: how can you make a clean break with all the tracking
| nowadays? (And given how 'uncivilized' these guys act in
| public (masked, semi-anonymous), I'd had to see what they do
| behind closed doors.)
| fastball wrote:
| When talking about government services, how do you have
| privacy? Does one not need to perform audits, etc?
|
| This is why I personally prefer more devolved spending - at the
| federal level it is far too much centralized power.
| abernard1 wrote:
| > This ICE stuff is that scaled up to a multi-billion dollar
| federal agency with, apparently, no accountability for
| following the law at all.
|
| It should be mentioned that "illegal" is a definitive word.
| There are definitely people not willing to follow the law,
| including political entities which are dependent on it. The
| moniker of privacy in this respect is a shield for illegality,
| because there is no reason that Medicaid data regarding SSNs
| should be shielded from the federal government.
|
| To take this to its logical conclusion, Americans must concede
| that EU/UK systems of identity and social services are
| inherently immoral.
| rcpt wrote:
| Wishful thinking but it would be real great if a future leader
| destroyed this infrastructure.
|
| I'm sure they'll run on not using it but when systems like this
| exist they tend to find applications
| acc_297 wrote:
| Wishful thinking but it would be real great if an engineer
| poisoned these datasets with bait entries
| Analemma_ wrote:
| It's not gonna happen. The people who work at Palantir, if
| they're not just there for the money, think they're doing the
| right thing, they see themselves as keeping the country safe
| and improving government efficiency (and who could be against
| that?)
| mikelitoris wrote:
| Nobody thinks that. They are there for money.
| direwolf20 wrote:
| Even Peter Thiel?
| kakacik wrote:
| Especially Peter Thiel. Now we are not saying he doesn't
| internally agree with many things that are happening (I
| don't mean this specific topic but rather overall
| direction of US society), we know he does.
| gunsle wrote:
| That's just not true. There are plenty of people in
| defense tech that clearly believe they are doing the
| right thing. Same with those in the military. Their
| version of "right" is just different than yours. To them,
| ensuring American hegemony is more right than whatever
| your definition is.
| nodra wrote:
| You would be surprised how pilled some people are. It's
| unfortunate.
| amelius wrote:
| Money, or these IT folks derive pride from the technical
| challenge of building the tool, whatever its purpose. Or
| both.
| smashah wrote:
| These tools are there to make sure no such leader ever gets to
| power, and to ensure the death of the free state. Luckily
| there's a constitutional amendment (and therefore a
| constitutional duty upon true Patriots) that has a patch for
| such regressions.
| fastball wrote:
| Destroying Medicaid would in fact solve the problem, that's
| true.
| loeg wrote:
| Why would Medicaid have the data of anyone who is at risk of
| immigration enforcement? The reported connection seems tenuous:
|
| > The tool - dubbed Enhanced Leads Identification & Targeting for
| Enforcement (ELITE) - receives peoples' addresses from the
| Department of Health and Human Services (which includes Medicaid)
| and other sources, 404 Media reports based on court testimony in
| Oregon by law enforcement agents, among other sources.
|
| So, they have a tool that sucks up data from a bunch of different
| sources, including Medicaid. But there's no actual nexus between
| Medicaid and illegal immigrants in this reporting.
|
| Edit: In the link to their earlier filings, EFF claims that some
| states enroll illegal immigrants in Medicaid:
| https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/07/eff-court-protect-our-...
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| They are targeting a variety of people beyond legal immigration
| status. Immigration status is the public-facing pretext for
| their power and operations.
| nxm wrote:
| Do explain
| sambull wrote:
| "If it was up to Stephen [Miller], there would only be 100
| million people in this country, and they would all look
| like him."
|
| To accomplish things like that, a lot of us are going to be
| removed. I don't think these are jokes, it's a pattern of
| statements to condition and normalize. A thing he has done
| over and over.
| uxp100 wrote:
| What are you quoting? I mean, that sounds like what
| Stephen miller believes, but who said it?
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| Trump, ~6 months ago
| hrldcpr wrote:
| https://archive.is/20250921060001/https://www.nytimes.com
| /20...
| LightBug1 wrote:
| ... a Temu Fredo Corleone with a Nazi haricut ...
| odie5533 wrote:
| Medicaid-receiving immigrants could have their immigration
| status change, legal violations, emergency medicaid use,
| sometimes there's state funded coverage that immigrants are
| offered, etc. There's lots of reasons where Medicaid will have
| information on immigrants.
| lvspiff wrote:
| That doesnt mean they are illegal right off the bat - there
| is no reasonable way to filter out the "illegal" members of
| the roles and essentially making it so the DOJ has a list of
| people who they can cross reference with expiring status and
| the moment the clock strikes midnight and their status
| changes they can get picked up. They should not have all
| those records for fishing expedititions.
| nemomarx wrote:
| Do you actually think ICE cares about your legal citizenship
| status?
| loeg wrote:
| Yes. That's very relevant to their aims.
| neumann wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46758042
| dashundchen wrote:
| ICE has been harassing and following legal observers to their
| houses. They've shot and executed at least two people who were
| exercising their legal right to record their activity.
|
| The FBI has been showing up at the door of some people who dare
| to organize protests against ICE.
|
| Stingrays have been deployed to protests, ICE is collecting
| photos of protestors for their database, and has been querying
| YCombinator funded Flock to pull automated license plate camera
| data from around the country. Trump, Vance, Noem and Miller are
| calling anyone who protests them domestic terrorists.
|
| It's pretty clear this isn't just about immigration, that this
| is about pooling data for a surveillance state that can quash
| the constitutional rights of anyone who dares to oppose the
| current regime. We've seen this story before.
| kakacik wrote:
| When your whole system works by giving absolutely ridiculous
| amount of power to a single individual who has nobody above
| or at least on the side capable of interfering and changing
| things, this is what you eventually get. Crossing fingers and
| praying given person isn't a complete psycho or worse is not
| going to cut it forever, is it. Especially when >50% of
| population welcomes such person with open arms, knowing well
| who is coming.
|
| Given what kind of garbage from human gene pool gets and
| thrives in high politics its more surprising the show lasted
| as long as it did.
|
| Now the question shouldn't be 'how much outraged we should
| be' since we get this situation for a year at this point, but
| rather what to do next, how we can shape future to avoid
| this. If there will be the time for such correction, which is
| a huge IF.
| mindslight wrote:
| I don't disagree with where you're coming from. But to be
| fair, our system _did_ have separation of powers and rough
| legal accountability for most of the time it was accruing
| so much power. The fascists just managed to get enough of
| the Supreme Council on board to sweep these away under the
| guises of unitary executive theory and blanket immunity for
| their new president-king.
|
| So from this perspective it's a matter of a corrupted
| interpreter, meaning merely adding more legal restrictions
| won't work. Rather final ultimate authority needs to be
| distributed amongst the states. The unrest in Minnesota
| would be solved in a week if the governor could simply use
| the National Guard to restore law and order without
| worrying that the out of control federal executive would
| just take control of them and then have even more foot
| soldiers to escalate the situation with.
| sarchertech wrote:
| > Rather final ultimate authority needs to be distributed
| amongst the states. The unrest in Minnesota would be
| solved in a week if the governor could simply use the
| National Guard to restore law and order without worrying
| that the out of control federal executive would just take
| control of them
|
| We tried that with the Articles of Confederation. Then
| half the country tried it again 70 years later. It didn't
| work out either time.
|
| Trump's not even close to the worse President we've had.
| He's just the craziest since television became
| widespread. FDR who is widely considered one of our best
| Presidents put nearly 100k US citizens of Japanese
| descent in interment camps.
|
| Andrew Jackson committed literal genocide.
| mindslight wrote:
| One failing of framing it as " _just ... since television
| became widespread_ " is that it ignores the actual power
| "television" (really, mass media, and now individually-
| tailored mass media) has to exert effective population
| control. The worrying thing here isn't so much the
| specific draconian actions themselves, but how much of
| the population is actively and gleefully cheering for
| them. And as it's obvious that none of these policies are
| going to make our country materially better (eg
| economically or social cohesion), this performative vice
| signalling stands to get worse and worse as this goes on.
|
| I'm certainly not a slavery apologist, but the Civil War
| was a terrible precedent that we are now paying the price
| for. Like always, power always gets agglomerated because
| the hero (Lincoln) desires to to good. But once it's been
| agglomerated, it tends to attract evil.
|
| One of the clear underlying pillars of support for
| Trumpism is China/Russia trying to break up the United
| States so that it is less able to project power over the
| world. In this sense, supporting the paradigm of a
| weakened federal government is helping fulfill that goal.
| But it would be one way to stop the hemorrhaging and at
| least get us some breathing room in the short term. The
| current opposition party has trouble even mustering the
| will to avoid voting to fund the out of control
| executive, so whatever reforms we push for have to be
| simple and leverage existing centers of power. We can't
| let the national Democrats simply do another stint of
| business-as-usual phoning it in as the less-bad option,
| or we'll be right back here just like we are now from
| last time.
| nullocator wrote:
| > Trump's not even close to the worse President we've
| had. He's just the craziest since television became
| widespread. FDR who is widely considered one of our best
| Presidents put nearly 100k US citizens of Japanese
| descent in interment camps.
|
| They are putting people in interment camps right now,
| people are dying in them. You can find stories on a daily
| basis about discovered deaths in camps in texas being
| determined to be homicides, and those are just the ones
| we know about.
|
| > Andrew Jackson committed literal genocide.
|
| Give Trump time. Also the deaths as a result of just the
| destruction of USAID, millions of children will and are
| dying; it's comparable and beyond to the worst things any
| president has done in the history of the country
| AngryData wrote:
| Its every branch of the government. The federal
| government, largely through congressional legislation,
| has been amassing more and more power for longer than
| anyone has been alive, while willingly ceding large
| chunks of that power to the executive branch, while the
| executive was grooming and shaping the justice
| department.
|
| Just the abuses of the commerce clause alone should show
| our government is full of corrupt power mongers.
|
| And it goes down the list too. States taking power from
| counties, counties taking power from cities, judges,
| cops, and prosecutors claiming authority over more and
| more issues despite a lack of sound legal precedence or
| public approval.
| mindslight wrote:
| Sure. I agree, but I don't really get what larger point
| you're making. A "unitary executive-king" is still a
| drastic departure from the bureaucratic structures that
| had been accreting power. The way I characterize the old
| system is bureaucratic authoritarianism - there was (/is)
| still arbitrary authoritarian (anti- Individual Liberty)
| power over our lives, but its exercise is bound up in
| bureaucracy that at least claims to be impartial and
| nominally answers to the courts. Whereas now we're
| dealing with autocratic authoritarianism, where that same
| power is arbitrarily and capriciously wielded by the
| whims of one demented career criminal.
| leptons wrote:
| If the Democrats didn't allow SCOTUS to become corrupted by
| the fascist right-wing, we wouldn't be in this situation.
|
| RBG refused to retire and died while Trump was president.
| That gave them one seat. Obama could have
|
| McConnel refused to let Obama replace Scalia after he died.
| I'm not sure that had to happen the way it went down.
| nullocator wrote:
| When was the ideal time for RBG to retire? Was it when
| Mitch McConnell was refusing to even hold hearings for
| any Obama nominee in the last years of his presidency?
| There is no indication that RBG retiring would have
| resulting in a confirmed Obama selected justice, it could
| have just resulted in Trump getting his picks earlier.
| UncleMeat wrote:
| No. It was before that. She should have retired in 2009
| or 2010 when Obama was in the white house and democrats
| controlled the senate.
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| Excuse me discussing the fact that Jack booted fascist brown
| shirt thugs murdering people is a political statement and
| needs to be censored here
| michaelmrose wrote:
| They hold both that people whose citizenship depends on
| birthright citizenship are not in fact citizens and that
| naturalized citizens can be denaturalized either for disloyalty
| or based on some sham pretext. They also see people getting
| benefits as leaches worthy of targeting.
|
| Also naturalized and birthright citizens are far more likely
| than others to associate or live with others of less legal
| status.
|
| Naturalized and birthright citizens quality for benefits and
| they and their families are at risk.
|
| If they are allowed to detain and deport without any due
| process as they have asserted anyone not white is at risk.
|
| The DHS official social media presence shared a picture of an
| island paradise with the caption America after 100 million
| deportations.
|
| This is the number of non-whites not the number of immigrants
| in even the most ridiculous estimates.
| nextos wrote:
| Medicaid holds previous addresses, household details, previous
| diagnoses, ethnicity, etc.
|
| It is quite trivial to infer if someone is likely to have
| emigrated to the US due to obvious gaps in records or in their
| relatives' ones.
|
| This is what Palantir does, essentially. Simple inference and
| information fusion from different sources.
| jayd16 wrote:
| Pam Bondi is now demanding voter rolls. It's clearly about
| suppressing liberal voters in liberal areas through a show of
| force. They're using this data to optimize who to harass.
| cma256 wrote:
| If citizenship is required to vote then how would accessing
| voter rolls suppress liberal voters? Honest question; I'm not
| concern trolling. I had to Google who's allowed to vote.
|
| I found this article[1] by the Brennan Center. It alleges
| this is an attempted federal takeover of elections but it
| doesn't suggest or allude to voter suppression. I'm not
| convinced by the article that having access to voter rolls
| can be considered a federal takeover of election
| administration (but I'm not in the know and would need things
| explained more verbosely).
|
| If you have more information about the attempted
| centralization of election administration and its impacts on
| voter suppression I would be interested to know more.
|
| 1. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-
| opinion/trum...
| neumann wrote:
| I don't understand your question. What does citizenship got
| to do with this?
| cma256 wrote:
| I thought GP was arguing they were trying to find non-
| citizens on the voter rolls to intimidate them (which may
| be a misreading).
| jayd16 wrote:
| They'll claim they're doing that but intimidate citizens
| instead.
| pyrophane wrote:
| Honestly my real fear is ICE agents at polling places on
| Election Day harassing would-be voters with citizenship
| checks and aggressive behavior, slowing things down and
| maybe causing some people to leave.
|
| Regarding voter data though, if it becomes known that
| registering to vote as a minority will get you extra
| scrutiny from ICE, and perhaps a visit to your home, that
| would probably cause some citizens avoid voting altogether,
| especially if they are associated with people who are not
| her legally.
|
| Either way, the federal government really has no right to
| that data or legitimate use for it, so hopefully they don't
| manage to get their hands on it.
| cma256 wrote:
| Thanks. I understand now.
| fastball wrote:
| How does that work? As a US citizen, no amount of
| "harassment" is going to stop me from voting.
| hydrogen7800 wrote:
| Nonetheless, it was successfully implemented for about 100
| years in the US.
| nullocator wrote:
| Are you a citizen, can you prove it at the polling station?
| I am doubtful you are, and your documents if you have them
| don't seem legit enough, so I think we'll set your vote
| aside, or possibly prevent it from being cast; we can't be
| too sure!
| jayd16 wrote:
| Seeing as the harassment has escalated to murder of
| citizens, I'm not so sure how you can say that.
|
| Less sensationally, they'll just crank up ID requirements
| and wait times to suppress your vote.
| cael450 wrote:
| My wife works in autism services in a predominantly Latino
| city. Those kids all have Medicaid, which includes info about
| their parents. It would be pretty trivial to cross reference
| with other data points to identify kids with undocumented
| parents and then you have their home address. Many of these
| kids go to a clinic everyday, so now you know when someone
| (likely a parent) is dropping them off too. She's had patients
| with parents who have been picked up by ICE. I wouldn't be
| surprised if that data came from Medicaid. It's basically the
| same as the IRS data they've been using.
|
| And it is next to impossible for average people to get adequate
| care for their kids with autism without Medicaid and early
| intervention can make the difference between someone who can
| live relatively independently with supports and someone who
| will spend their adult life chemically restrained in an
| institution. So they are in between a rock and a hard place.
| noitpmeder wrote:
| This current administration and their policies have definitely
| influenced my opinion on the 2018 debate around citizenship
| questions on the US census.
|
| (For more context:
| https://www.tbf.org/blog/2018/march/understanding-the-census...)
| eoskx wrote:
| Glad to see this post didn't get flagged like the one that was
| posted yesterday on a similar topic about ICE data mining and
| user tracking.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46748336
| therobots927 wrote:
| Give it a few minutes
| amelius wrote:
| Yes just wait until the topic changes from databases to the
| political side where the root of the problem lies.
| noncoml wrote:
| Aaaand... it's gone
| taurath wrote:
| It likely will. There's major impact on literally everyone in
| tech, there's huge data privacy concerns, and it has less
| coverage or discussion than a new version of jQuery. The US gov
| could fall but that would count as politics here so clearly
| irrelevant.
| andy99 wrote:
| > less coverage or discussion than a new version of jQuery
|
| Pretty sure this is a feature not a bug. Most people aren't
| here for political topics.
| therobots927 wrote:
| Yep. They're here to bury their head in the sand and keep
| up to date with the latest tech trends like the good little
| worker bees they are.
| watty wrote:
| I don't think that's fair. I follow politics closely but
| prefer HN to stay technical. It shouldn't be offensive.
| filoeleven wrote:
| The "hide" link is right next to the "flag" link. Using
| flag instead of hide puts more strain on the mods, and is
| not the right thing to do for "this topic doesn't apply
| to my interests."
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| But it is the right thing to do for "this topic violates
| HN guidelines both in letter and in spirit, as well as
| predictably causing low-quality discussion threads".
| UncleMeat wrote:
| We do not agree that it violates the HN guidelines,
| either in letter or in spirit.
| ahtihn wrote:
| What if I would prefer that these topics don't show up at
| all?
|
| What if I'm concerned that leaving such topics up would
| attract more of the kind of people that prefer discussing
| these topics over tech topics?
|
| Hiding doesn't fix the problem.
| HumblyTossed wrote:
| They should be aware of how tech is being used in political
| games though...
| RHSeeger wrote:
| This.
|
| The government doing bad things is a political topic.
|
| How the government is using technology to do bad things
| is both a political and technology topic.
| taurath wrote:
| It gets down to the definition of political which is
| basically anything that might have a human cost, including
| to the people here. I have many coworkers having to upend
| their lives, some can't currently leave the country. This
| is not worthy of discussion, but an esoteric library update
| is. Paul Graham posts are not political topics for some
| reason, but H1B people is.
|
| Technology, technology leaders, and technology companies
| are literally driving politics, buying elections, driving
| the whole US economy.
|
| Saying what "political" topics are IS political - and it's
| decidedly a right wing position. Only those with the powers
| protecting them get to avoid politics.
| golem14 wrote:
| There is a fun German word capturing this:
| "Deutungshohheit"
| jprd wrote:
| There is always going to be an intersection between tech
| and politics. This convo is no different than talking about
| Section 230, H1B visas or using vision models to sexualize
| people or distort the truth.
| pibaker wrote:
| In a corrupt and authoritarian country, it is common to
| have officials busted on "corruption" or "embezzlement"
| charges. And yet most people know they are actually not
| jailed for the crimes they got charged for, because there
| are more than enough people to fill all the prisons for
| breaking the exact same laws they are accused of breaking.
| They knew the only reason these people got jailed is
| because they lost some kind of power struggle within the
| administration, and corruption is just a convenient lie
| those who prevailed tell you to keep you comfortable.
|
| You never see the "no politics please thk u" crowd when it
| is about protests in Iran, Chinese oppression in Hong Kong,
| Russian aggression on Europe or hell, when people were
| literally running a political campaign the EU to stop
| killing games. You only see people flagging political
| submissions when it is a particular kind of politics - just
| like you only see corrupt officials jailed when they are a
| certain kind of officials.
|
| Connect the dots, make your own conclusions.
| ajb wrote:
| Comments like this remind me of those guys who wouldn't
| stop working, in the twin towers. Just didn't want to get
| out of their zone.
| paganel wrote:
| When the computer code many of us are working on is
| directly shaping that politics I think that we should talk
| about it and stop hiding behind the bush.
| andy99 wrote:
| Yeah so find a forum that's for discussing that and
| discuss it there. Don't try and force people who are
| discussing something else to talk about politics with
| you. Do you also randomly go onto GitHub issues and start
| talking politics because the people who are talking about
| repo bugs are "hiding behind a bush" and should talk
| about the political things you think are important
| instead?
| paganel wrote:
| I don't comment on GitHub issues.
|
| I think that forums like this one should discuss politics
| as affected by computer code seeing as HN is one of the
| main (for lack of a better word) computer programmers'
| forums based/located in/with a focus on SV, it's not some
| random computer forum which specializes in some random
| computer programming issue.
|
| Hacker News is not lambda-the-ultimate.org, seeing them
| as similar is part of that hiding behind the bush, people
| commenting on here actually work at companies like
| Palantir, Alphabet, Meta and the like, companies whose
| recent involvement in politics affects us all, at a
| worldwide level. Also see this recent FT article [1] in
| connection with how the leaders of those companies have
| gotten a lot reacher since Trump ascended to power for a
| second time.
|
| > Tech titans lined up for Trump's second inauguration.
| Now they're even richer
|
| > Silicon Valley bosses who lined up behind the US
| president for his inauguration have fared well under his
| administration
|
| [1] https://archive.ph/https://www.ft.com/content/674b700
| e-765d-...
| array_key_first wrote:
| Nobody is forcing you to do anything. You're choosing to
| comment. You're not being censored nor is your speech
| compelled.
|
| This forum is for hacker news. Some people believe tech
| news related to politics qualifies, some don't.
|
| Your perspective is equally arbitrary. You have no
| reasoning, no justification. So stop pretending you do.
| andy99 wrote:
| You sound really mad. There are plenty of sites where you
| can lean in to that. This is a tech discussion site.
| There are guidelines that explain what is on and off
| topic, the latter includes politics. That might help you
| understand the site you're posting on:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| saubeidl wrote:
| There is no apolitical topics. There's just politics you
| agree with and politics you don't agree with.
| xzjis wrote:
| German pastor Martin Niemoller:
|
| "First they came for the Communists, and I did not speak
| out-- Because I was not a Communist.
|
| Then they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak
| out-- Because I was not a Socialist.
|
| Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak
| out-- Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
|
| Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out--
| Because I was not a Jew.
|
| Then they came for me--and there was no one left to speak
| for me."
| mmcwilliams wrote:
| Preserving the status quo is a political position.
| alex1138 wrote:
| Damn near everything on HN gets flagged eventually. Either get
| everyone to drop their biases as Silicon Valley tech VCs or
| make it so that flags can ONLY be used to remove clear abuse.
| Sick of it
| noncoml wrote:
| It is really disheartening and sad to see this community
| burying its head in the sand and ignoring what's happening to
| our country
| nailer wrote:
| There's probably a lot of people that have say mainstream
| left (eg Obama and Sanders statements around 2010), centrist
| and conservative views on illegal immigration and support
| enforcing the law. What you see as something bad happening is
| something very normal made more difficult by unhelpful state
| governments and vigilante groups.
| saubeidl wrote:
| Armed goons terrorizing cities, dragging people out to
| brutalize and murder them is _not_ "something very normal".
|
| It's what the brown shirts did.
| nailer wrote:
| That's not happening though. If it was, you'd see it
| everywhere. ICE operates fine in Florida. It's just
| cities with armed vigilante groups where problems are
| happening.
| array_key_first wrote:
| Anyone who believes ICE is legitimately trying to rectify
| illegal immigration is either too stupid to function or a
| liar.
|
| Because I give the benefit of the doubt, I will assume most
| people are not that stupid. So, the only option left is
| they don't actually believe it, and it's just virtue
| signalling to their fascist overloads. Personally, I think
| that's a bit pathetic, not to mention naive. Nobody has any
| reason to think they will be spared, citizen or not.
| shantara wrote:
| What I see today on HN mirrors the processes I've witnessed
| in Russian speaking parts of the net during the 2010s.
| Despite the escalation of totalitarianism in Russia, the
| growing internet censorship and military operations in nearby
| countries, which left the posters on the same websites on the
| different sides of military conflicts, some sites have stuck
| to their "no politics" rule. Both to avoid upsetting people
| in power and out of their owners' naive beliefs.
|
| Reading them was like living in an alternate reality where
| nothing more notable happens than a release of new version X
| of a framework Y. Large portions of the tech community had
| exactly the same attitude that could be seen here and now -
| refusal to consider the societal implications of their daily
| work, adherence to technical solutions over the real world
| ones ("I'll just work remotely and use a VPN, who cares") and
| just simple willful ignorance.
|
| It was around that time that I started to frequent English
| speaking discussions, which were much more vibrant and open.
| It saddens me to see the same kind of process repeat itself
| here.
| lvl155 wrote:
| I actually think it's best that HN flags and removes them
| because we are quickly entering a stage in this country where
| you will be flagged by the government monitoring the internet.
| I would caution people to start using VPN and continuously
| flush your IPs. I would even go as far as to recommend removing
| face ID from your devices which basically offers zero
| protection once you're detained (or have a quick way to disable
| it).
| hackable_sand wrote:
| You want us to hide in our own country?
| billy99k wrote:
| I'm waiting to hear about the alternatives, which still involve
| deporting illegal immigrants. It seems the people against ICE,
| don't want illegal immigrants deported at all.
| sosomoxie wrote:
| Yeah I'm against ICE and I don't want any immigrants deported.
| gruez wrote:
| /s?
|
| Otherwise you're proving his point, which is that there's no
| middle ground, only "ICE raids terrorizing people" and
| "sanctuary cities/states where local governments refuse to do
| any sort of immigration enforcement and specifically turn a
| blind eye to immigration status".
| direwolf20 wrote:
| What actual, concrete benefit do you see from deporting
| immigrants?
| gruez wrote:
| >you see from deporting immigrants?
|
| Nice job sneakily changing "immigration enforcement" to
| "deporting immigrants".
| PlanksVariable wrote:
| The question is about deporting illegal immigrants
| specifically, i.e. people who are in a country in
| violated of its immigration laws.
|
| I think the main benefit is the same as with any law: if
| you have a law with no consequences for the people who
| break it, you don't really have a law. If we don't have
| immigration laws, we have an open border and with an open
| border, we can't regulate the rate at which people enter
| the country. This rate can easily exceed the amount that
| the country reasonably accommodate, which negative impact
| on housing, healthcare, welfare, transportation, civic
| cohesion, and education systems.
|
| Immigration law is standard around the world, with
| deportation being the standard response to people who
| violate that law. The more interesting question here is
| how you think a modern country will function and continue
| serving the needs of its citizens when it stops enforcing
| its immigration laws.
| ok_dad wrote:
| > I think the main benefit is the same as with any law:
| if you have a law with no consequences for the people who
| break it, you don't really have a law.
|
| How do you feel about ICE raiding citizens homes without
| warrants? How about door to door raids?
|
| If ICE cannot even follow the 4th and 5th amendments then
| they should be jailed themselves.
| PlanksVariable wrote:
| They currently use administrative warrants but I'm in
| favor of requiring judicial warrants.
| fzeroracer wrote:
| Boss, they _already_ require judicial warrants. They 're
| blatantly violating constitutional rights. Do you think
| we have constitutional rights or not? Do we have _laws_
| or not?
| PlanksVariable wrote:
| I agree, but I'm clarifying the facts: they're claiming
| an _administrative warrant_ gives them authority to enter
| a house, not _no warrant_ as OP stated.
| direwolf20 wrote:
| An administrative warrant is just an email from their
| boss telling them to do it. It's not a real thing
| e44858 wrote:
| Has this ever been tested in court?
| jfyi wrote:
| Great, since we are all in agreement, let's see if we can
| put it clear terms.
|
| Administrative warrants are civil in nature and do not
| give authority to enter a house or any private space.
| Using them as such is in violation of the fourth
| amendment.
| direwolf20 wrote:
| What if a law only has consequences for the people it's
| intended for?
|
| Let's say you have a requirement that all TVs should be
| registered, so you can make sure every TV owner has a TV
| licence. You find an unregistered TV, but the owner has a
| TV licence. Does it make sense to confiscate the TV? What
| purpose would that serve?
|
| Let's say you have a law that all people entering a
| country must be scrutinized to ensure no serial killers
| get in. You find a guy who hasn't been scrutinized, but
| he's not a serial killer. Does it make sense to
| confiscate the guy? What purpose would that serve?
| gruez wrote:
| >Let's say you have a law that all people entering a
| country must be scrutinized to ensure no serial killers
| get in. You find a guy who hasn't been scrutinized, but
| he's not a serial killer. Does it make sense to
| confiscate the guy? What purpose would that serve?
|
| To ensure that people go through the checkpoint in the
| first place? For instance, the point of airport security
| checkpoints is to make sure that no terrorists get on
| planes, but if there's no penalty for you jumping the
| fence, why would people even bother going through the
| checkpoint?
|
| And all of this is ignoring the other purposes of
| immigration policy, eg. preserving jobs or whatever.
| direwolf20 wrote:
| Is the goal making sure everyone goes through the serial
| killer checkpoint, or is the goal stopping serial
| killers?
| gruez wrote:
| So the is implication is that we should get rid of
| airport checkpoints, because our actual goal is to catch
| terrorists? What about speed enforcement cameras? The law
| might be that you drive 20 in a school zone, but isn't
| our goal to actually stop dangerous drivers? Actually,
| why even bother stopping dangerous drivers? The actual
| thing we care about is stopping accidents. If you're
| doing street racing at 4am, who's going to get hit?
| direwolf20 wrote:
| No, that is not the implication. Very obvious (thus
| failed) deflection going on here.
| gruez wrote:
| So what are you trying to imply then? As we seen with
| airport checkpoints and speeding cameras, it's clearly
| okay to punish behaviors that aren't directly harmful, so
| why is it so baffling for you that Americans want
| enforcement actions against people who entered the
| country illegally?
| sosomoxie wrote:
| Yes, well I don't think we should deport people and I think
| immigrants improve the US, so I would be in the latter
| category. He's "waiting to hear of alternatives that don't
| involve deporting illegal immigrants", and I have one:
| don't deport anyone.
| gruez wrote:
| >Yes, well I don't think we should deport people and I
| think immigrants improve the US, so I would be in the
| latter category
|
| Which would put you in the minority (16%).
|
| https://www.pewresearch.org/race-and-
| ethnicity/2025/03/26/am...
|
| Even without getting into a debate of whether we should
| do immigration enforcement at all (a sibling reply goes
| into it in better detail), there's the practical effect
| that most people do, and if Democrats don't oblige,
| people like Trump will get in power instead.
| sosomoxie wrote:
| I think the Democrats are also culpable for supporting
| anti-immigrant policy and sentiment. I absolutely believe
| that I'm in the minority, as this country has a deep
| history in racial bias (in fact, it was founded on that).
| jfyi wrote:
| It's a false dilemma either way. "You are with ICE or you
| are pro-illegal immigration".
|
| ...and that's best case scenario, giving the benefit of the
| doubt.
| PlanksVariable wrote:
| Why? Deportation is a reasonable response when a person
| violates a country's immigration laws. That is the standard
| around the world.
|
| Alternatively, you have an essentially open border, which
| obviously can lead to unmanageable waves of immigration that
| strain a country's housing, healthcare, schools, welfare, and
| other resources, among other effects.
|
| Disruption to peoples' lives happens when we have
| administrations who arbitrarily decide not to enforce the
| immigration law (e.g. the previous administration). It sends
| mixed signals to potential immigrants, and leads to the
| outcomes we have today when we decide to resume enforcing our
| laws.
| sosomoxie wrote:
| > _obviously can lead to unmanageable waves of immigration
| that strain a country's housing, healthcare, schools,
| welfare, and other resources, among other effects._
|
| I don't agree that this is "obvious". Immigrants bring
| important social and cultural capital. Who do you think is
| building a lot of the infrastructure in the US? The people
| putting a strain on the system are actually the aging baby
| boomer generation.
|
| I have many other reasons for supporting open immigration
| that are less transactional, but the suggestions that
| immigrants "strain" our infrastructure is incorrect.
| PlanksVariable wrote:
| Immigrants do bring important social and cultural
| capital. But nobody here is arguing in favor of no
| immigration.
|
| The standard among countries all over the world is to
| regulate the flow of immigration via immigration law and
| deportation of people who violate that law.
|
| How could a massive influx of people happening faster
| than a system can react not strain the system? I saw this
| firsthand in schools and hospitals where I grew up, and
| there are numerous examples throughout history from
| around the world of the disruption it can cause.
| sosomoxie wrote:
| The US is not like many countries in that it was _formed
| by illegal immigrants_ , and not just immigration,
| literal genocide and land theft of the indigenous people.
|
| That being said, all immigration policy is out of date.
| The world is connected now and the policies are an
| anachronism.
|
| > _How could a massive influx of people happening faster
| than a system can react_
|
| I don't agree that this is reality. Our system is not
| under strain from immigration. It's under strain because
| we spend our money on the military instead of improving
| infrastructure. It's also under strain due to wealth
| inequality and corporate friendly policy. None of which
| has anything to do with immigration.
| nemo44x wrote:
| > The US is not like many countries in that it was formed
| by illegal immigrants...
|
| That's a good argument for vigilantly enforcing
| immigration laws. Look what happens when you don't.
| bigyabai wrote:
| For me, it's the summary execution of US citizens that gives me
| pause.
| mindslight wrote:
| Who needs to care about the Constitution, Individual Liberty,
| or limited government when there are iMmIgrAnTs around?!
|
| It's like these people never got past their childhood phase
| worrying about the monster in the closet. In fact I do have
| to wonder how much of the non-Boomer+ support for this regime
| is just from naive kids who have zero life experience.
| codyb wrote:
| Tons of young people either voted for Trump or didn't vote
| at all this time around.
|
| Undoubtedly influenced by social media, they're now
| realizing that what they voted for was their own future's
| destruction and are now abandoning him in droves.
|
| We'll see if it's too late or not.
|
| Delete your social media, shit is poison.
| mindslight wrote:
| At the suburban protest I was at a few weeks ago there
| was a kid, he couldn't have been more than 20, circling
| around in his ~25 year old car with broken exhaust and
| mismatched-color body panels, filming, pointing, and
| laughing. I felt bad. At least the 50-something guys
| screaming with the blood vessels bulging out of their
| foreheads merely had the world change around them -
| supporting Republicans was halfway reasonable 30 or even
| 15 years ago, and if they haven't realized by now they're
| never going to. Whereas this kid is going to have plenty
| of time to cringe at how terribly stupid and naive he
| was.
| codyb wrote:
| Thanks for coming out!!
|
| At the walkout on Monday, it was a smallish group of us
| out, and then like a class of high schoolers came out and
| joined us and it was such a nice burst of energy.
|
| "New York City get litty! Donald Trump is shitty!" lol,
| they were having some fun with the chants.
|
| Would love to see more young people come out
| mkoubaa wrote:
| Exactly.
| thunderfork wrote:
| Forced movement is cringe, actually
| lawn wrote:
| You're wrong, simple as that.
| therobots927 wrote:
| You're right. We should throw away the constitution so we can
| deport.. (checks notes) 600,000 undocumented immigrants, only
| 5% of which have committed a violent crime.
| tinyhouse wrote:
| I don't have a horse in this race, but I do have a question.
| If you don't deport illegal immigrants, why not just open the
| border to everyone to come in? (let's ignore criminal
| records, etc for this exercise). What's the point of not
| letting people in but then if they manage to come in
| illegally, assume it's all good and they can stay?
| direwolf20 wrote:
| That's the question, isn't it? Why not just do that? Who
| are you trying to keep out of the country, and for what
| end, and is that end best attained by removing people from
| the country who aren't the ones you are trying to keep out?
|
| For instance, if you believe the border should be strict to
| keep out serial killers, what does that have to do with
| removing Korean car factory workers who aren't serial
| killers?
| tinyhouse wrote:
| Well, if a Korean car factory worker live and work
| illegally in the country, then it makes total sense to
| remove them, regardless if they are serial killers or
| not. A company shouldn't even hire anyone who is not
| eligible to work legally in the country. There are laws
| that need to be followed like everything else.
|
| It sounds like you're saying that you want the country to
| have open borders so that everyone can come live and work
| here given they pass some basic checks (no criminal
| history for example). I am not saying that is wrong, but
| that's not how pretty much every country in the world
| operates.
| direwolf20 wrote:
| > then it makes total sense to remove them, regardless if
| they are serial killers or not.
|
| Why?
|
| > A company shouldn't even hire anyone who is not
| eligible to work legally in the country.
|
| Apart from the legal punishments themselves, why not?
| What goal is achieved by this?
| blell wrote:
| Because once they come in sufficient numbers they will
| turn your country into the country they fled from - and
| then you are in trouble.
| sneak wrote:
| Which river is it in Ireland that they dye green every
| year for St Patrick's day like they do in Chicago?
| jfyi wrote:
| This is a slippery slope argument at best and jingoist
| rhetoric at worst.
| direwolf20 wrote:
| I don't understand. Can you elaborate?
| mindslight wrote:
| Buying into the narrative that any of this is about illegal
| immigrants is a red herring. Immigration is merely a
| pretext for enabling an unaccountable fascist police state
| using big data from the consumer surveillance industry to
| both keep enough people believing the regime's abject
| reality-insulting lies (the carrot), while extralegally
| punishing anybody who might be too effective at speaking
| out (the stick). This is painfully obvious as they move on
| to target US citizens - both the boots on the ground terror
| gangs, as well as the increasing political rhetoric about
| deporting citizens.
| DrSAR wrote:
| No horse either but here is an attempt (ignoring criminal
| record as you say): Opening the border and letting her rip
| is clearly not sustainable in the medium term. So you try
| to make it (reasonably) hard to get in incl. turning people
| away at the border.
|
| Once they are in (incl illegally so) you concede you have
| lost on this instance. Now you admit that forcefully
| removing immigrants carries too high a cost (literally +
| damage in the communities you remove the immigrants from +
| your humanitarian image). So you don't.
|
| Somehow that balance seems really hard to get right and
| edge cases (criminal record) matter.
| tinyhouse wrote:
| I'm not a big fan of this solution since it rewards
| people who knowingly did something that is illegal. It
| also allows businesses to take advantage of these people,
| unless you decide to give them legal status immediately.
| However, I agree with you that getting the balance right
| is really hard and that deporting people, esp families
| with kids who grew up here and did nothing wrong, is very
| problematic.
| nathan_compton wrote:
| Because we like second-class citizens because its easier to
| exploit their labor.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| As if those were the only two possibilities.
| 10xDev wrote:
| I mean, I don't like CCP tech or public executions of
| disarmed citizens but saying _only_ 5% is a bit nuts.
| direwolf20 wrote:
| What percentage of illegal immigrants have committed
| violent crimes?
| therobots927 wrote:
| The stats are pretty clear. Based on DHS own numbers
|
| https://factually.co/fact-checks/politics/number-deported-
| im...
| jfyi wrote:
| I'll read it for them.
|
| This basically states that the figures are based on self
| reported ICE data and are unreliable at best.
|
| The figure is within a rounding error, and regardless
| does nothing to change the CCP tech and public executions
| of citizens in the street in broad daylight in front of
| dozens of cameras.
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| Another way to look at it: the native born are twice as
| likely to be arrested for violent and drug crimes.
|
| https://docs.house.gov/meetings/JU/JU01/20250122/117827/HHR
| G...
| trentearl wrote:
| The alternative is better trained officers with more
| accountability.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| You can't fix this by giving them more money for training.
| This is how they're trained to act.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Grossman_(author)
| steveklabnik wrote:
| Bovino says "the officer [who killed Pretti] has extensive
| training as a range safety officer and less lethal officer,"
| and had served for eight years.
| halfmatthalfcat wrote:
| The US cannot afford, demographically, to curtail immigration,
| illegal or otherwise. Simple fact is the US _needs_ more people
| because we're under the replacement rate.
| rngfnby wrote:
| But why are we under the replacement rate? Seems relevant
| cogman10 wrote:
| Because of eroding worker rights and raise cost of living.
|
| You need free time for kids and if the salaries are too low
| for a single income household a lot of people will end up
| opting out of having kids.
|
| This isn't unique the the US. Basically every country with
| a whack work life balance is looking at population
| replacement problems.
| twodave wrote:
| I think this is an oversimplification. History has shown
| that as soon as a country is developed enough that
| children start increasing the family expenses rather than
| decrease them (I.e. helping out with the farm, or
| whatever the sustaining family business is, but in
| developing countries this is overwhelmingly agriculture)
| the pressure to have children slacks off to a large
| degree and becomes more of a luxury. So it's just a
| byproduct of industrialization.
|
| The US is actually better off with replacement rate than
| a lot of countries that have industrialized since them
| because of the way it happened and the wars that were
| fought. More rapidly-industrializing countries (China,
| Japan, a few other Asian and SA countries) have way
| shorter runways despite industrializing much later than
| the US. And those with one child policies really just
| made things worse for themselves.
|
| A very large part of what the future is going to look
| like in my opinion is how different countries are able to
| grapple with this issue and come up with solutions to the
| problem of a large aging population and a service,
| hospitality and medical industry with not enough bodies.
| acdha wrote:
| It all comes back to women being treated as full people.
| Having a child is dangerous, expensive, and a major time
| commitment which mean that women who have other options are
| going to have fewer children later in life when they have
| the resources to support them. We also have much less
| demand for unskilled workers so even women who really want
| children are getting educated and establishing careers
| first rather than getting married at 18.
|
| https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2026/is-the-us-birth-rate-
| decli...
|
| That leaves really only two choices: pull a Ceausescu and
| try to remove the choice, or improve all of the things
| which make people feel now is not the right time to have
| kids. Since the former choice is both immoral and self-
| defeating, that really flips the discussion to why the
| people who claim to want more children oppose universal
| healthcare, childcare, making housing more affordable,
| banning negative career impacts for mothers, addressing
| climate change, etc. There are many things which factor
| into an expensive multi-decade bet and you have to improve
| all of them to substantially shift the outcome.
| philipallstar wrote:
| > It all comes back to women being treated as full
| people.
|
| What does this actually mean? Do you mean "get a job
| instead of having kids?" Working to afford life instead
| of having kids seem much less humanising, if anything.
| Being a wife and mum is being a full person, and the main
| thing that's bad about it is if you are a full-time mum
| your spouse has to work incredibly hard to compete on the
| housing ladder against all the two-income families
| bidding against them.
| jakelazaroff wrote:
| Consider that many women... want to work? And some even
| want to work _and_ have kids?
| acdha wrote:
| I meant that they get to choose whether and when they
| have children, and can have full careers. Think about it
| in terms of opportunity cost: much over a century ago,
| women were expected to marry and be wives with a handful
| of exceptions like religious service. They did not have
| many opportunities for education and there were limited
| opportunities for independent employment with entire
| professions off-limits. When those were your choices,
| even women who didn't really want kids that much went
| down that path because only a few people had the drive
| and social clout not to, and without modern birth control
| that almost inevitably lead to more kids (necessary,
| because mortality was shockingly high in pre-vaccine
| times).
|
| Now, however, there are tons of other opportunities
| available. Instead of kids just happening, couples can
| plan them and are making decisions about their finances
| and other life impacts such as the case you mentioned
| where people might realize that they can't afford a
| larger home. Prospective mothers, even if they really
| want kids, are also being told advanced education is key
| or that mothers tend to have lower lifetime earnings even
| adjusted for field, so the questions aren't just "can we
| feed them?" but "would I avoid future layoffs if I finish
| a masters degree before becoming a parent?"
|
| I think that's great, everyone should control their life
| trajectory, but it means that to the extent we want to
| reverse the trend we need to be lowering the costs so
| people aren't looking at trade offs like permanently
| lowering their career trajectory or locking themselves
| into a limited, highly-competitive corner of the housing
| market.
| Hikikomori wrote:
| They can't be good little wives like republicans want if
| they have a career.
| LightBug1 wrote:
| Considering at least a third of potential replacement
| partners are Trump voters, can you imagine women feeling
| sexy about them? LOL
| philipallstar wrote:
| Considering the many liberal women who want men who have
| conservative values (although still agree with them on
| politics, somehow), yes. Probably yes.
| filoeleven wrote:
| What does this even mean?
| AngryData wrote:
| That's what happens when you make your population poor by
| outsourcing large chunks of your economic base and stomping
| on worker rights.
| ralph84 wrote:
| For the line must always go up crowd, they feel a need. Not
| everyone is in the line must always go up crowd.
| halfmatthalfcat wrote:
| The line is always going to be going up somewhere. I'd
| rather it be where I live than not.
| ralph84 wrote:
| Then doesn't it make more sense for the people who prefer
| living among a high fertility rate to move to the places
| where there's a high fertility rate? Why should people
| who don't have that preference have to endure mass
| migration when they don't want, didn't ask, and didn't
| vote for it?
| halfmatthalfcat wrote:
| Makes no sense at all imo, especially when you consider
| the origin story and melting pot ethos that made the US
| what it was in the first place.
| refurb wrote:
| That logic doesn't hold up.
|
| Legal immigration - as is today - is about 1% of the US
| population. That's pretty standard, and would result in an
| slowly increasing population.
|
| But regardless, saying "we need immigrants" then jumping to
| "illegal or not" is not a logical argument. We absolutely can
| have a system that prevent illegal immigration, while
| carefully screening legal immigrants. Heck, every country in
| the world does this except the US.
| halfmatthalfcat wrote:
| Can, if we had a functioning Congress that actually passed
| material laws. We've been trying to pass immigration reform
| for the last couple of decades.
| filoeleven wrote:
| And we would have had bipartisan steps toward it before
| the last presidential election, if Trump hadn't told
| Republicans to tank it at the last minute because it hurt
| his biggest talking point for reelection.
| yks wrote:
| How about this: no masks, no weapons (if they feel they are in
| danger they can call the cops who already have more weapons
| than they possibly need). Every time a citizen is detained in
| jail, detaining agent and their manager lose their paycheck for
| that period. Family with kids jailed and separated? No
| paycheck. You know, do it in the Christian compassionate way,
| not in the shooting single moms way.
| philipallstar wrote:
| We would have to pass a more general law that said children
| cannot be separated from their parents based on any crime the
| parents have committed, as there's no reason to special-case
| illegal immigration.
| billy99k wrote:
| How about local law enforcement just comply with ICE?
| Sanctuary cities and non-compliance brought this on these
| blue cities.
|
| The issue is that the anti-ice groups just don't want
| illegals deported. I will never support this.
|
| It's also difficult to have any discussions when there is
| nobody willing to be honest about it.
|
| Even the discussions here aren't in good faith.
| bigyabai wrote:
| With all due respect, actually look at the replies to your
| comment here. _You_ are arguing in bad faith.
|
| > How about local law enforcement just comply with ICE?
| Sanctuary cities and non-compliance brought this on these
| blue cities.
|
| No, they "brought this on" by ignoring due process. There
| is no world in which your stance justifies the
| extrajudicial execution of a detained US citizen.
| billy99k wrote:
| This is a bad faith argument.
| bigyabai wrote:
| If you live in the US, this is relevant to you.
| AngryData wrote:
| You are saying cops should ignore constitutional law in
| support of ICE? That is absolutely bonkers. This is the
| United STATES, not the Supreme Authority of the Federal
| Government.
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| Most of these people didn't protest ICE under Biden and Obama,
| who both deported more than Trump 1. That's because we see a
| difference in how illegal migrants were prioritized (violent
| offenders first) and treated (more humanely) then compared to
| now. And how citizen protests were handled then and now.
| rexpop wrote:
| Yeah, deportations are clearly beside the point, now.
| asveikau wrote:
| They sold us on a lie about the extent of the illegal immigrant
| "problem". It's numerically impossible to make the promises
| they made and not deport people who it's hard to argue should
| be deported.
|
| Immigrants also commit crimes at fewer rates than US born
| people and crime is at all time lows. Yet they sold us for
| years on a crime moral panic and phantom "migrant crime".
|
| So you said, propose a solution that also involves deporting
| people, and I will say NO. You are wanting to target a mostly
| fake problem.
| gunsle wrote:
| That is literally not true in any way. Let's see your
| immigrant crime stats.
|
| Crime is at an all time low because liberal DAs like the one
| here in Minneapolis let repeat offenders off constantly
| because locking them up (enforcing the law fairly) would be
| racist.
|
| https://www.mprnews.org/story/2025/09/17/hennepin-county-
| to-...
|
| https://www.kare11.com/article/news/local/courts-
| news/hennep...
|
| Literally their arguments are that these people are from a
| disadvantaged background so they should be allowed to run
| around harming innocents, repeatedly. These crimes are never
| fully prosecuted, so the police department and local
| governments can count them as "not crimes" meaning the crime
| rate they report stays low. Crime is visibly terrible here in
| Minneapolis - whole blocks of decent neighborhoods having
| their cars broken into, regularly shootings and violent crime
| even in commercial areas, the complete destruction of uptown,
| I could go on - and yet our police chief and mayor are out
| there touting historically low crime. On top of large scale
| fraud taking place that liberal female judges are throwing
| out after unanimous guilty verdicts.
|
| Things like this
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/minnesota/comments/1pconlj/hennepin.
| ..
|
| are a literal lie. I've lived here my whole life. There is
| absolutely Somalian gang activity both in the twin cities
| metro and in St. Cloud.
|
| If they don't even look into Somali crime, or claim it
| doesn't exist (lol) they can of course claim the crime rate
| is historically low.
| acdha wrote:
| Speaking of propaganda, do you have a link to the data
| behind those claims? It feels like "complete destruction"
| should make the news.
| asveikau wrote:
| > Let's see your immigrant crime stats.
|
| https://www.google.com/search?q=immigrants+less+likely+to+c
| o...
|
| > Crime is at an all time low because liberal DAs
|
| If you take out the outlier years of 2020-2022 caused by
| the pandemic, crime has been declining for more than 30
| years. I don't know what kind of conspiracy theories about
| "liberal DAs" you're on about, this only became a talking
| point a few years ago, and wouldn't explain why crime
| dropped for multiple decades starting in the mid 1990s. The
| trend is also not restricted to areas with "liberal DAs".
| filoeleven wrote:
| I think you forgot to plug your tinfoil hat in.
| belorn wrote:
| It is fairly well established that social economic status is
| the largest predictor for crime than any other predictor. In
| order for immigrants to commit crimes at a lower rate than US
| born people we would have to make the claim that immigrants
| has an average higher social economical status than US born
| people.
|
| The statistics you are looking for is that the sum of all
| crimes is lower for immigrants than US born people. 13.8% of
| the US population are immigrant residents, so in order for
| the sum of immigration crime to be higher than US born people
| the rate would need to be close to 1000% larger, which it is
| not.
| asveikau wrote:
| No, the way any serious person would look at crime data is
| per capita. You take the number of crimes committed by an
| immigrant and divide by the number of immigrants. That
| gives you a rate. The rate is lower than for people born in
| the US.
|
| This may be the first time you are exposed to this idea,
| because you have been lied to repeatedly that crime is high
| and it's immigrants doing it, but it's well studied.
| NCFZ wrote:
| Aside from the confusing conflation of sums and rates
| mentioned in other replies, your argument assumes that
| correlations are transitive and exhaustive--i.e., that
| because socioeconomic status correlates with crime, any
| group with lower crime must have higher socioeconomic
| status. Which of course is invalid because correlations do
| not compose across variables, and crime is multi-causal
| HNisCIS wrote:
| You're right, maybe calling people "illegal" is just shitty and
| we should be the welcoming county we were taught about on
| history class.
| commiepatrol wrote:
| Unfortunately the system we had in place didn't work because
| politicians disobeyd the law. States like CA and NY etc
| essentially said go ahead come here illegally and get free
| medicine, get a driving license, etc. Instead if they actually
| arrested illegals and threw them out we wouldn't need ICE to do
| it.
| AngryData wrote:
| You are proof that propaganda works because nobody is telling
| illegals to go to their cities.
| belter wrote:
| "ICE Budget Now Bigger Than Most of the World's Militaries" -
| https://www.newsweek.com/immigration-ice-bill-trump-2093456
| smitty1e wrote:
| I hope that we can agree that blowing off the 10A and allowing
| all of this federal bloat has not been a swift call.
|
| Social services left at the State level would be subject to a
| smaller pool of votes for approval and are more likely to be
| funded by actual tax revenue instead of debt.
|
| That is: sustainably.
|
| Furthermore, the lack of One True Database is a safety feature in
| the face of the inevitable bad actors.
|
| In naval architecture, this is called compartmentalization.
|
| There are good arguments against this, sure, but the current
| disaster before you would seem a refutation.
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| Some states are too poor to effectively fund and maintain their
| own safety nets. It's common for folks laid off in these states
| to get a dubious mental health diagnosis to justify SSDI,
| because doctors know they have no prospects and could well
| become homeless without it.
| smitty1e wrote:
| So we mug other States rather than address the problem?
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| These states may be fundamentally too resource poor to
| effectively maintain their populations. So collectively we
| agreed that richer states should subsidize them, because no
| one wants to see their neighbors suffer unnecessarily. And
| in the hope that newer generations may invent or unlock
| other resources to break the cycles of poverty.
|
| My fear is that many of these states are locked in a bubble
| of lies, a culture that longs for an imaginary and
| idealized past that never existed. That they'll continue
| raising generations of people who think they need to be an
| independent, 'rudged' individualist when that's never been
| possible anywhere. And once they fail they'll settle for
| punching down on people different than them.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| Funny how often those are red states...
| mkoubaa wrote:
| And I used to roll my eyes at the homeless guy who ranted about
| the mark of the beast
| rconti wrote:
| ... but I'm sure they'd never target "undesirably unhealthy"
| citizens with this data to harass.....
|
| If you work on this kind of tech, please, quit your job.
| ddtaylor wrote:
| Soft quit so they can continue to bleed money and delay further
| talent acquisition.
| OrvalWintermute wrote:
| Undocumented immigrants/illegal immigrants are not generally
| eligible for federally funded Medicaid coverage in the United
| States, as federal law restricts such benefits to U.S. citizens
| and certain qualified immigrants with lawful status.
|
| They are eligible for Emergency Medicaid, which covers emergency
| medical needs like labor and delivery or life-threatening
| conditions; hospitals that accept federal dollars for
| medicare/medicaid are required under federal law (EMTALA) to
| provide stabilizing emergency care regardless of immigration
| status or ability to pay.
| EngineerUSA wrote:
| Palantir is interesting. Founded by a closeted German, run by an
| Israeli operative, and a 3rd arm of the federal gov. I wish we
| could prosecute it in my lifetime for the numerous violations of
| privacy it undertakes, but the world does not work that way. The
| rich enjoy private jets subsidized by our hard-earned taxes,
| while violating ideals held by our Founding fathers (for what
| would Thiel or the current CEO know about our morals, when they
| have none and are American by name only.. their loyalties lie
| elsewhere)
| midlander wrote:
| The irony of a discussion on how bad Palantir is for providing
| tools for ICE to fight illegal migration devolving into hating
| Palantir because of the countries of origin of their founders.
| yoyohello13 wrote:
| It is ironic that so many of the American billionaires
| decrying the erosion of American culture were not even born
| in America.
| dogman123 wrote:
| pretty awesome that the new yc website touts gary tan's work at
| palantir as a positive
|
| "he was an early designer and engineering manager at Palantir
| (NYSE:PLTR), where he designed the company logo"
| therobots927 wrote:
| We're talking inside the death star
| cdrnsf wrote:
| There's no reason to believe that ICE, DHS or any other agencies
| will use this data carefully, judiciously or in good faith.
| Instead, it's quite clear at this point that all they will do is
| abuse the power they do have, execute and antagonize anyone they
| disagree with and then lie despite ample evidence to the
| contrary.
|
| I'd say Palantir should be ashamed for facilitating this, but
| their entire business model is built around helping the
| government build an ever more invasive police state.
| notepad0x90 wrote:
| Don't you at least need to legally migrate to be in medicaid? I
| thought I had to be a citizen? Are they full in a full on SS mode
| now?
| regenschutz wrote:
| They're not just going after the so-called "illegal aliens",
| something made clear after the numerous extrajudicial killings
| by ICE officers recently, such as the one that occured
| yesterday.
| nailer wrote:
| Someone bought a Sig Sauer gun that's known to go off when
| moved suddenly (you can find as many videos as you want on
| the issue) - grabbed an agent and resisted arrest. The gun
| went off during the arrest, officers thought the man was
| firing at them.
|
| It's tragic - the way to prevent this is to increase calm,
| give the federal officers some support, stop conspiracy
| theories (eg like the boy that abandoned by his father that
| people say was 'arrested' or your comment pretending it was a
| murder) and stop vigilante groups from causing chaos.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Has there been an investigation?
| AngryData wrote:
| Lol no, guns don't just magically go off when in a holster.
| Yes mechanical failures do happen, but it requires very
| specific types of impact in very specific ways that cannot
| happen when in a holster and are so rare as to happen on
| decade timescales with tens of thousands of the gun. Also I
| saw zero evidence of that guys gun going off in the video,
| the first shot heard is the shot coming out of the ICE
| goon's gun that he is pointing at that guy, who then also
| mag dumps him while he is on the ground.
| hydrogen7800 wrote:
| Well, that's an interesting take. Even if a holstered
| weapon did discharge (no idea how likely this is for the
| specific weapon in question), why would someone suspect
| they are being fired at by a person with a holstered
| weapon? Poor/no training is the most charitable
| explanation.
|
| I suppose enough people will grasp at this take.
| pjc50 wrote:
| People keep forgetting that it's possible to legally migrate,
| work for awhile, and so on, and then "become illegal" due to
| deadlines or administration issues.
|
| An example every tech worker should understand is H1-B, where
| as an added bonus your employer can make you illegal.
| kjellsbells wrote:
| FWIW, people here illegally are already not eligible for
| Medicaid, [0] so it's hard to see why ICE having access to a
| roster of Medicaid enrollees would help them with their stated
| mission of enforcing removal orders.
|
| Then again, we have ICE shooting American citizens in the
| streets, so I guess the law is whatever they decide it is, not
| least because our legislative branch is uninterested in laws.
|
| https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/IF/PDF/IF1191...
| vannucci wrote:
| It's almost as if ICE's real new mission has nothing to do with
| immigration enforcement and more about terrorizing the public
| into submission?
| hackermatic wrote:
| What about finding them through the records of their citizen
| children?
|
| Edit: cael450 has already offered a specific example of this
| threat vector: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46758387
| tomlockwood wrote:
| The people working for Palantir are collaborators.
| testing22321 wrote:
| The US Attorney General also just said they'll withdraw ICE from
| Minnesota if they hand over voter registration files.
|
| [1] https://www.newsweek.com/pam-bondi-ice-minnesota-shooting-
| ti...
|
| They're not even hiding the fact this has nothing to do with
| immigration and everything to do with compiling lists of people
| to target later.
| rlt wrote:
| How would they target people using voter rolls? Is the concern
| that it includes party affiliation? Couldn't they just provide
| the rolls without party affiliation?
|
| Honestly it seems crazy even state governments know party
| affiliation. I know it's so they know who can vote in primaries
| etc, but it seems like you should just be able to register to
| vote with your party directly.
| RealityVoid wrote:
| I'm afraid of the day strongmen come into power in my country and
| start targeting people on their social media history. I'm sure to
| end on _some sort_ of naughty list. You kind of get how people
| become depoliticized and apathetic when resistance has no
| apparent effect and speaking up only gets you in trouble. That's
| how civic societies atrophy and die.
| indubioprorubik wrote:
| Yes, all you had to do is find transport companies that dont hand
| in gas bills in the tax season and they just pop up aus
| fraudulent.
| mystraline wrote:
| Right now, in Belarus, amateur radio operators are being
| considered "enemies of the state".
|
| Naturally they all are registered with the govt, and thus easy to
| pick up, jail, or murder.
|
| This is the type of danger where last year amateur radio was
| legal, and now it gets you jailed. Thats the danger of this sort
| of data.
| starkeeper wrote:
| Medicaide data is pretty much covered by HIPPA. So Evil. Also it
| seems like it is too late, even if a court says do not do it,
| they will anyway and get away with it since the supreme court
| rules the president is allowed to break the law.
|
| HELP I AM SOOOO F**NG ANGRY. Sorry I just don't have anywhere to
| safely put this rage.
| fluidcruft wrote:
| HIPAA has mechanisms that allow government access (even if it
| were not Medicaid).
| libpcap wrote:
| Immigration laws, like any other laws, need to be enforced,
| right?
| sam-cop-vimes wrote:
| Yes, with humanity and with respect for due process. And laws
| should not be applied selectively against people you don't like
| while turning a blind eye to violations by people on 'your
| side'.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Have you actually read immigration laws? They are not as
| Manichean or prescriptive as many commenters make them out to
| be. Enforcement-first proponents often seem unaware of or
| indifferent to the difference between civil and riminal
| violations and the lack of mandatory remedies. I've also
| noticed a distinct tendency to hyperbolize and outsize lie
| about past policy choices in order to justify their position.
| cauch wrote:
| A lot of people who support the current US government do not
| want the laws to be enforced, they just want to see people who
| look brown or foreigners to be deported, regardless of if they
| are in the US legally or illegally.
|
| The immigration laws are saying that we should stop illegal
| immigration, but respect the legal immigration. And because of
| that, it means that each case should be carefully treated to
| discover if the person is illegal or not.
|
| But a majority of people supporting the crack-down on
| immigration are more than happy to see 10 innocents being
| deported if it means 1 illegal being deported, and they will
| wave around the illegal being deported to explain that before
| the crack-down, the law was not respected, forgetting that the
| current situation is breaking the law way more than the
| previous one (before: 1 illegal not deported, 1 error. after:
| 10 innocents being deported, 10 errors).
|
| In other words: if you care about the law, you cannot "pick and
| choose" and say "the laws are not respected because 1 illegal
| is not deported" but also "10 innocents are being deported,
| this breaks the law, but this does not count".
| AngryData wrote:
| No, just because something is illegal doesn't mean it should be
| ruthlessly enforced with dangerous and deadly action or even
| enforced at all when the majority of the public doesn't support
| them. Do you believe the feds should go into marijuana legal
| states and start arresting everybody for breaking the law?
| Marijuana is illegal after all.
| yellers wrote:
| Thanks Obama.
| Ylpertnodi wrote:
| Someone needs to start a call-and-response chant to show how
| displeased they are.
|
| That'll learn 'em.
| journal wrote:
| Palantir missed out on JSON as ticker symbol.
| xzjis wrote:
| Imagine what they could do with mental health data if they ever
| decide to start deporting people with mental "problems", just
| like the Nazis did in their time. The same goes for people with
| physical disabilities.
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