When these “administrative subpoenas” (a fancy term for polite request) are challenged in court, ICE tends to withdraw them, because they don’t want the legal precedent that says what they’re doing is illegal and un-American.
They should be forced to defend them, that might put a stop to this.
• Lawyers have been calling for the abolition of ICE for years, not because we oppose immigration enforcement, but because ICE as an institution is extremely unusual in American law
• The legal mechanisms that define it are anomalous
• And those legal anomalies carry real constitutional danger.
For years, the Federal government was paying telephone companies for their phone records. Not the calls themselves, just the metadata. I'm sure the capital driven companies get paid for providing the data, as a service fee.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has reportedly been asking tech companies for information on accounts posting anti-ICE sentiments. According to The New York Times, DHS has sent hundreds of administrative subpoenas to Google, Reddit, Discord and Meta over the past few months. Homeland Security asked the companies for names, email addresses, telephone numbers and any other identifying detail for accounts that have criticized the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency or have reported the location of its agents. Google, Meta and Reddit have complied with some of the requests
Open Facebook and scroll. Every time ICE comes up the content is exclusively positive (and no I don't feed the trolls and bring this algorithm on myself).
It's not all bots. Some people back this push, and FB is where they hang.
I don't think this stuff is why people will be pulled out of line at CBP, but it will inform why they are bounced, should they otherwise come to the attention of the authorities. They don't need a bloom filter over 1m entrants, they need something they can say "because" when they toss you out.
They should be forced to defend them, that might put a stop to this.
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