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ICE to Buy Tool that Tracks Locations of Hundreds of Millions of Phones Every Day
Documents show that ICE has gone back on its decision to not use location data remotely harvested from peoples' phones. The database is updated every day with billions of pieces of location data.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has bought access to a surveillance tool that is updated every day with billions of pieces of location data from hundreds of millions of mobile phones, according to ICE documents reviewed by 404 Media.
The documents explicitly show that ICE is choosing this product over others offered by the contractor's competitors because it gives ICE essentially an "all-in-one" tool for searching both masses of location data and information taken from social media. The documents also show that ICE is planning to once again use location data remotely harvested from peoples' smartphones after previously saying it had stopped the practice.
Surveillance contractors around the world create massive datasets of phones', and by extension people's movements, and then sell access to the data to government agencies. In turn, U.S. agencies have used these tools without a warrant or court order.
"The Biden Administration shut down DHS's location data purchases after an inspector general found that DHS had broken the law. Every American should be concerned that [the current administration's] hand-picked security force is once again buying and using location data without a warrant," Senator Ron Wyden told 404 Media in a statement.
(Score: 5, Touché) by PiMuNu on Friday October 03, @09:13AM (12 children)
Don't worry, it's for immigrants.
ps: if you aren't for us, you are against us. Just sayin.
pps: the innocent have nothing to hide. kthxbye
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Thexalon on Friday October 03, @11:30AM (7 children)
Incidentally, a couple of days ago a bunch of federal agents led by ICE attacked an apartment building in Chicago at 1 AM, rappelling in from a Black Hawk helicopter, busting down the doors of every apartment in the building, zip-tying all the residents including the children, dragging them out onto the street in some cases completely naked, and destroying and stealing property including documents that proved citizenship that has gone mysteriously missing. One of the agents was caught on film saying "F--- them kids" when parents complained about the treatment of their children. Citizens were denied access to lawyers. There was no evidence offered whatsoever that any of the people who had been grabbed out of their beds had committed any kind of crime.
But apparently 37 people out of couple hundred couldn't immediately prove they were citizens even if they were here completely legally, so that makes it all OK, according to the administration. What Fourth Amendment?
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 5, Informative) by c0lo on Friday October 03, @12:12PM
Federal agents storm Chicago apartment building, detain kids [yahoo.com]
See? Nothing illegal there, just a bit violent.
Can't trust the kids these days, carry no papers, very sus, almost sure Tren de Aragua gangsters.
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Tokolosh on Friday October 03, @03:54PM (1 child)
The Leviathan is going to do what it is going to do. The writers of the Constitution anticipated this, and created the Judicial branch of government, headed by the Supreme Court, to put a stop to such inevitable nonsense. Sadly, the courts have failed abjectly in their duty. And I am not referring just to the present lot, but going back a hundred years or more.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." Somehow, "all" men does not include non-men and those born outside the US, and were passed over by their Creator.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by gnuman on Saturday October 04, @09:38AM
Yeah, that's just bullshit. This is same thing that happened in germany in the 20s. The courts always ruled for the nazis because they always ruled against the communists. You see, all the judges had to be nationalistic enough to be allowed to be judges. The nazis didn't just "take over" -- it was decades in the making, by packing the courts, etc.. While one side kept talking about "rule of law", the other side just changed everything about the law to suit itself. A person got killed? Well, if it was Nazis that did it, it's self-evidently self-defense. Maybe even the "dead culprit" has to pay damages.... If a communist-sympathizer did it? Self-evident premeditated, terrorism at hand. Minimum 20 to life sentences. And today's equivalent of DEI and political opposition, were the very first that went to concentration camps.
And now you talk about judicial branch will save you? That's laughable. If anything, they can just delay the almost inevitable at this point. When executive branch runs over the legislative branch, like they are doing, the judiciary is almost meaningless. It will just get worse ... much worse.
As for the constitution, it's just a piece of paper. Deploying federal troops in states without consent of the state is clearly against the constitution. But if your entire feedback is "we'll sue you!", sorry.... constitution becomes toilet paper at this point.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by r1348 on Friday October 03, @05:59PM (2 children)
People, I'm just saying, start organizing resistance cells, because this is heading in a very dark direction.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by janrinok on Friday October 03, @07:27PM
You have provided sound advice.
I suggested that people start taking action in March and was booed off the stage.
Only now are some people (and not all) beginning to see what is happening - and it is already too late.
[nostyle RIP 06 May 2025]
(Score: 2) by https on Sunday October 05, @06:55AM
Heading? HEADING? The back of the "Welcome to Nazi America" sign has gotten very small in your rear view mirror. You're in it. Bear witness.
And yes, I used the term Nazi. Deliberately, because the word has a meaning [medium.com].
Offended and laughing about it.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by driverless on Saturday October 04, @07:28PM
Jeezus, first the US gets its Horst Wessel, now they're deploying Einsatzgruppen. Can't they think of anything original themselves?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 03, @12:00PM
I wouldn't be surprised if those "assistance" cards get replaced by smartphone apps for this reason. Especially being the government is already providing free cell phones. How long until these subsidized cellphones come preloaded with "assistance" apps?
Result:
You do not want anything to do with someone else's phone. You have no idea how many watch lists that phone is on.
Phones are always tracked, regardless of settings, as the system needs to know where you are to send incoming calls to the nearest tower. An app associated with money compels you to set up financial credentials in order to send or receive funds.
We have built the beast. Keep your nose clean.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 03, @10:30PM
And Satanic radical leftists.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 04, @12:09AM (1 child)
> ... it's for immigrants.
I think you forgot the /s ??
My personal solution? No cell phone. I'm very lucky to be able to work from home and rarely travel on business (when I can borrow a flip phone if it seems to be necessary).
(Score: 3, Insightful) by gnuman on Saturday October 04, @09:41AM
So ... they don't need to track you. You are in known location all the time. And your flip phone or smartphone is no different --- cell tower connection gives your location by design and necessity.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 03, @02:22PM (1 child)
(Score: 4, Interesting) by epitaxial on Friday October 03, @07:38PM
"Take the guns first, go through due process second" https://www.c-span.org/clip/white-house-event/user-clip-donald-trump-take-the-guns-first-go-through-due-process-second/4717030 [c-span.org]
Had Obama said that, Republicans would have held an impeachment vote within the hour.
https://www.ktvu.com/news/nra-trump-trans-gun-ban [ktvu.com]
You know the NRA was dreading the day they had to split with the party and admit the second amendment applies to everyone.
(Score: 5, Informative) by DannyB on Friday October 03, @02:25PM (4 children)
An opinion piece [politicalhotwire.com] that did not age well.
The Hill: Kamala's Latest Lie?
If your boy is chewing on electrical cords, then ground him until he conducts himself properly.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aafcac on Friday October 03, @06:44PM (3 children)
I've definitely seen a significant amount of abuse of the "slipper slope fallacy" being used as a justification for why we just need to cool our jets, that these horrible things that he says he's going to do aren't going to happen. And to some extent, I do think a little bit of wait and see was appropriate early on, just because there were so many horrible things that he was promising and it wasn't clear the extent to which the entire system had been hollowed out to enable him.
But, it does get a bit old hearing people insisting that Trump isn't really going to do that and we're very sure that one isn't something he'll follow through on when nobody really knows. I doubt most people thought that most of this stuff would happen because normally a less corrupt SCOTUS would be putting a stop to at least the most egregious abuses of power.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 03, @10:33PM
Well it's either shut 'er down or get shut down when the Epstein files drop. Pepperidge Farm remembers.
(Score: 2) by gnuman on Saturday October 04, @10:02AM (1 child)
By that, I hope you meant Congress instead. The courts are not meant to stop anything, maybe just delay
Yes, in 2016. Currently, you have Peter Theil creation as VP. The same one that is taking over government technologically via Palantir. This "wait and see" was almost 10 years ago -- have people been under rocks all this time?
(Score: 2) by aafcac on Sunday October 05, @04:34AM
That's some early 19th century thinking. Yes Congress is supposed to intervene, but SCOTUS has decided what constitutes permissible actions and legislation with respect to the constitution since it gave itself the power in Marbury V. Madison. It's checks and balances which a considerably minority of the population only seems to care about when the government wants to do good things for people that aren't robbery barons or corporations.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Saturday October 04, @04:37PM
They should definitely stay home where its safer.
Also, given how carefully its being censored, I would assume the "children" are 17.9999999999 years old.