Dozens Of Tech Experts Tell DHS & ICE That Its Social Media Surveillance And Extreme Vetting Should Be Stopped

from the bad-policies dept

Last week dozens of well known technologists sent a letter to Homeland Security arguing that Immigration & Customs Enforcement's (ICE) plans to use technology for "extreme vetting" is a really, really dumb idea.

According to its Statement of Objectives, the Extreme Vetting Initiative seeks to make “determinations via automation” about whether an individual will become a “positively contributing member of society” and will “contribute to the national interests.” As far as we are aware, neither the federal government nor anyone else has defined, much less attempted to quantify, these characteristics. Algorithms designed to predict these undefined qualities could be used to arbitrarily flag groups of immigrants under a veneer of objectivity.

Inevitably, because these characteristics are difficult (if not impossible) to define and measure, any algorithm will depend on “proxies” that are more easily observed and may bear little or no relationship to the characteristics of interest. For example, developers could stipulate that a Facebook post criticizing U.S. foreign policy would identify a visa applicant as a threat to national interests. They could also treat income as a proxy for a person’s contributions to society, despite the fact that financial compensation fails to adequately capture people’s roles in their communities or the economy.

The Extreme Vetting Initiative also aims to make automated determinations about whether an immigrant “intends to commit” terrorism or other crime. However, there is a wealth of literature demonstrating that even the “best” automated decisionmaking models generate an unacceptable number of errors when predicting rare events. On the scale of the American population and immigration rates, criminal acts are relatively rare, and terrorist acts are extremely rare. The frequency of individuals’ “contribut[ing] to national interests” is unknown. As a result, even the most accurate possible model would generate a very large number of false positives - innocent individuals falsely identified as presenting a risk of crime or terr

In short, this is the tech world telling DHS and ICE that its belief that there's a "nerd harder" solution to using computers and algorithms to sniff out terrorists is a load of pure hooey. It may be true, as Arthur C. Clarke once stated, that "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic," but the corollary does not apply: not all magical solutions can be implemented in technology. It's kind of ridiculous that actual technologists were needed to explain this to DHS, but that's where things are these days.

Filed Under: automation, bots, dhs, extreme vetting, ice, immigration, social media

Use A Landline To Talk About Criminal Activity? The Government Can Seize The House Around It

from the extreme-home-takeover dept

The Intercept has obtained a leaked asset forfeiture guide for seizures performed by ICE. (It has, unfortunately, chosen not to share the original document. Then again, the last non-Snowden leak it published appears to have helped out the document's source.)

For those familiar with the process of civil asset forfeiture, the contents of the guide are mostly unsurprising. Despite the document dating back to 2010, ICE did confirm the version seen by The Intercept is its most recent guidance. ICE is allowed to seize property without bringing charges or securing convictions -- something still permitted by federal law (your state laws may vary) and greatly encouraged by the new head of the DOJ, Jeff Sessions.

What is surprising about the document is how much emphasis is placed on the seizure of real estate. As Ryan Devereaux and Spencer Woodman point out, ICE's forfeiture teams are pretty much property flippers, albeit ones working with the undeniable advantage of making zero initial investment.

Much of the handbook is devoted to describing the process of seizing real estate — homes, farms, and businesses — and it is in these pages that the dual priorities of financial gain and law enforcement objectives become most apparent. While the handbook contains little discussion on how to utilize asset forfeiture to maximize crime-fighting outcomes, there is extensive discussion of how agents should painstakingly determine whether a property is valuable enough to make seizure worthwhile

[...]

More than a dozen pages of the document describe an important — if perhaps surprising — role of AIRG agents: as real estate appraisers. Using the example of “houses used to store narcotics or harbor illegal aliens,” the manual walks agents through a comprehensive process of assessing homes and landed properties to determine the financial appeal to ICE of acquiring such real estate.

If ICE can obtain a warrant to search the property it plans to seize, it will usually send a private real estate appraiser along during the search. AIRG [Asset Identification and Removal Group] agents apparently ballpark property values using public databases -- something that tells ICE whether or not it should move forward with the forfeiture.

As is the case in most civil forfeiture operations, the connecting tissue of criminal activity doesn't need to be much more than gossamer-thin.

The manual instructs agents seeking to seize a property to work with confidential informants, scour tax records, and even obtain an interception warrant to determine whether “a telephone located on the property was used to plan or discuss criminal activity” in order to justify seizing the property.

You would think the phone would be the "guilty" property -- at least as far as you can follow forfeiture's twisted logic. Apparently not. According to ICE's guidance, the entire house around the landline is equally culpable.

The handbook also points out civil forfeiture is preferable to criminal forfeiture, thanks to its general disdain for due process. The key factor is the conviction itself -- something you'd think a law enforcement agency would value over seized property. In criminal proceedings, seized property is generally returned if the charges don't stick. Not so with civil forfeiture. ICE's guidance says when in doubt, go civil. That way the agency may still keep something, even if the alleged perp goes free.

ICE is by far the biggest contributor to the DHS's total forfeiture take. This can be expected to grow with the new administration's intense focus on illegal immigration. As with any government program experiencing sudden growth, one can expect an exponential leap in abuse.

Filed Under: asset forfeiture, civil asset forfeiture, guidelines, ice, legalized theft, rules

ICE Now Calling Aiding Unaccompanied Minors 'Human Trafficking' To Bypass Sanctuary City Laws

from the offline-SESTA-ing dept

In the name of fighting sex trafficking, legislators are willing to make the internet mostly worthless. Punching a hole in Section 230 protections will encourage incumbents to limit user participation and prevent startups from ever making it off the ground. Proponents claim it's narrowly-targeted and abuse-proof, but the language would allow any service provider to be held accountable for the criminal actions of users. If traffickers can't use Facebook or Google thanks to heavier moderation, they'll move onto other websites and services until those too are rendered useless by government action.

Part of the problem with legislation like this is mission creep. It may start with sex trafficking, but it will inevitably be expanded to cover other illicit content. And sex trafficking itself is its own dodge. All the government has to do is claim something is trafficking and the hammer begins to fall.

This is because the term leaves no room for intelligent conversations. Proponents know people aren't likely to speak up against efforts to fight sex trafficking, especially when they point out this sometimes includes children. It becomes a governmental blank check for enforcement action -- something that deters questioning of the government's activities, much in the way the term "national security" has limited legislative and judicial discussion about surveillance overreach.

A recent raid by ICE in Oakland, California, appears to have been carried out under false pretenses: a bog standard immigration enforcement action masquerading as a human trafficking investigation.

Following a controversial Aug. 16 raid of a West Oakland home by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, Oakland Police Chief Anne Kirkpatrick said repeatedly that the operation was part of a criminal human trafficking investigation. She also asserted that OPD did not violate Oakland's sanctuary city policy by assisting ICE — by providing several patrol officers to block off the street during the raid — because it was a criminal, not civil immigration matter.

Sounds ominous. But the paper trail undermines the official narrative.

But according to evidence presented by Oakland Privacy Advisory Commission Chair Brian Hofer at the commission's meeting last week, the raid hasn't resulted in a single criminal prosecution. Rather, the only person arrested, Santos de Leon, is facing civil immigration charges and could be deported.

This is generating controversy because it appears Oakland police violated the city's sanctuary statutes by providing assistance to ICE in routine immigration enforcement efforts. But that's not the only reason it's controversial. It appears ICE is using loaded language to redefine activities performed by citizens aiding stranded children.

Immigration advocates are worried that the West Oakland raid could be an example of a new and troubling trend: ICE has recently begun to classify the act of providing shelter and other assistance to unaccompanied minors who recently immigrated to the United States as "human trafficking," and is charging adults, often close family members, with the crime.

When someone refers to a bill containing massive collateral damage as "narrowly targeted," they're either being ignorant or disingenuous. No one knows how to exploit legislation better than government agencies, and ICE calling acts of aid "human trafficking" (or "sex trafficking," according to the Oakland PD police chief) allows it to utilize local law enforcement and bypass local restrictions.

This is an IRL example of the exploitability of the terminology tied to SESTA. It's apparently being abused to allow local law enforcement agencies to violate local laws. Letting legislation like SESTA loose on the internet will result in similar abusive acts, accelerating mission creep's inevitable advance.

Filed Under: dhs, human trafficking, ice, immigration, oakland, oakland pd, sanctuary cities, sesta

Emails Show ICE Couldn't Find Enough Dangerous Immigrants To Fulfill The Adminstration's Fantasies

from the Operation-Goalpost-Relocation dept

When you've got an official narrative to deliver, you need everyone to pitch in to keep it from falling apart. No one can say ICE didn't try. The Trump administration -- bolstered by supporting statements conjecture from DOJ and DHS officials -- has portrayed undocumented immigrants as little more than nomadic thugs. Unfortunately, there's hardly any evidence available to back up the assertion that people here illegally are more likely to commit serious criminal acts.

Back in February, shortly after Trump handed down immigration-focused executive orders, ICE went all in on arresting undocumented visitors and immigrants. Included in this push was a focus on so-called "sanctuary cities" like Austin, Texas, which had vowed to push back against Trump's anti-immigrant actions.

Emails obtained by The Intercept show ICE doing all it can to prop up Trump's "dangerous criminal" stereotyping. Unfortunately, despite all of its efforts, ICE failed to come across many dangerous criminals during its February sweeps.

On February 10, as the raids kicked off, an ICE executive in Washington sent an “URGENT” directive to the agency’s chiefs of staff around the country. “Please put together a white paper covering the three most egregious cases,” for each location, the acting chief of staff of ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations wrote in the email.

It's a good starting point, especially if the administration is relying on you to back up its assertions. ICE was willing to go the extra mile to do just that, apparently.

“If a location has only one egregious case — then include an extra egregious case from another city.”

This is an interesting ploy: cannibalizing nearby cities' reporting in order to present some semblance of an "egregious case" immigrant nightmare --one that would need to be stripped of redundancy before final presentation.

Unfortunately for ICE agents, you can't make something out nothing. Three cases per city proved to be almost impossible. Many raids failed to uncover even one egregious case. With the clock ticking down, some ICE offices decided to grab "egregious cases" completely unrelated to the current operation.

In February 11, an official responded to a colleague’s list of egregious cases by pointing out that they were unrelated to the ongoing operation. “The arrest dates are before any operation and even before the EO’s. What is up with these cases?” the official wrote.

What's up with those cases is there were almost zero new cases to report to the man upstairs. Hundreds of arrests were made, but many involved people with no prior criminal record. In the remaining arrests, most of the priors found were minor violations, with the worst being drunk driving.

Not exactly the "public safety threat" the Trump administration had promised. When it became clear the "egregious case" reports might total only a handful of serious criminal offenses from hundreds of arrests nationwide, ICE quickly applied its own spin.

As criticism escalated, ICE shifted to downplaying the operation as “no different than the routine,” telling reporters that the raids were the same “targeted arrests carried out by ICE’s Fugitive Operations Teams on a daily basis,” and suggesting off the record that claims to the opposite were “false, dangerous, and irresponsible.” As it became clear that dozens of individuals with no criminal history had been apprehended, ICE shifted gears and told reporters that in addition to targeting safety threats, the raids were always meant to target those whose only crimes were immigration-related, like re-entering the U.S. after deportation…

By spinning it this way, ICE can pay needed lip service to the administration's "dangerous immigrants" narrative and portray the lack of egregious cases as the result of the banal day-to-day work of immigration enforcement. But in doing so, it undercuts the narrative it's trying to serve. If there are so many dangerous criminals out there, why isn't ICE focused on them, rather than dozens of people whose only criminal act is a lack of documentation? ICE can't have it both ways. Neither can the White House.

Filed Under: crime, dhs, doj, exaggerations, ice, immigrants

ICE Demands Journalists 'Return' Snitch Hotline Data It Left Exposed For Three Days After Being Notified

from the people-are-awful,-and-ICE-is-no-better dept

Daniel Rivero and Brendan O'Connor of Splinter recently acquired documents pertaining to ICE's snitch program -- a "see something, say something" but for suspected undocumented aliens. What's contained in these documents is nasty, petty abuse of a crime victim hotline by Americans who don't mind turning the government into their own personal army.

This is part of new program started by the Trump Administration -- one presumably meant to pump up numbers for its weekly "Two Minutes Hate" reports, which document the criminal acts of people roaming the county without the proper papers.

Splinter didn't find much evidence backing up the administration's fervent belief that "undocumented" equals "hardened criminal." What it did find was Americans using the VOICE tip line to engage in a low-level variant on SWATting: sending ICE to round up people they just don't like.

In April, the Trump Administration launched what it called the Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement (VOICE) hotline, with a stated mission to “provide proactive, timely, adequate, and professional services to victims of crimes committed by removable aliens.” But internal logs of calls to VOICE obtained by Splinter show that hundreds of Americans seized on the hotline to lodge secret accusations against acquaintances, neighbors, or even their own family members, often to advance petty personal grievances.

[...]

Together, the logs are a grim running diary of a country where people eagerly report their fellow residents to the authorities, or seek to bring the power of the immigration police to bear on family disputes.

One man called to report his stepson, who he didn't like parking near his house. Another caller reported some in-laws. One claimed his ex-wife was undocumented. This is the sort of "intelligence" being gathered by the VOICE program. Unbelievably, those reports may be some of the better ones.

In the first two weeks of the program, from April 26 to May 10, the logs show that the call center handled 1,940 calls from across the country. Most were pranks, or in the bureaucratic words of the record keepers, “concerned citizens,” who unleashed streams of profanity or talked about green aliens until the operator hung up.

ICE should have expected this. While the tip line was supposed to be used to find assistance for victims of criminal acts by undocumented immigrants, it became a clearinghouse for BS complaints from "tipsters" hoping to have the government solve their personal problems.

But there's more to this story than the low-grade ugliness of certain Americans. ICE somehow managed to expose a whole lot of personal data while compiling the spreadsheets it turned over to Splinter. The information left out in the open contained details about callers and who those callers were reporting.

[A]fter conducting Google searches for some data in that spreadsheet, including local police report numbers provided by callers, we were able to find a second spreadsheet, covering April to mid-August, hosted on the ICE web site. That spreadsheet appears to have been partially redacted to prepare it for release under the FOIA, but two columns containing intimate personal details—names, cell phone numbers, alleged crimes, addresses, and Social Security numbers—of both callers and the alleged undocumented immigrants they were calling about remained completely unredacted and publicly available. In several cases, the details would make it possible for people to figure out who informed on them.

Why ICE moved a work-in-progress document into a publicly-accessible space is something ICE has yet to explain. The agency has refused to directly respond to queries about the exposed spreadsheet. Nor was it particularly interested in ensuring this personal data remained out of the public's hands. Splinter gave ICE three days' notice before publishing, but the document wasn't removed until several hours after the Splinter article went live.

ICE's official response has been overkill. It took its entire FOIA document library offline on October 4th. As of October 9th, it is still down. Ridiculously, ICE is now demanding Splinter "return" the partially-redacted spreadsheet the agency left exposed online.

On Wednesday, an ICE lawyer sent a letter to Jonathan Schwartz, the chief legal and corporate affairs officer of Splinter’s parent company Univision, demanding that we destroy or return the spreadsheet. The letter, which was sent to Schwartz via UPS as well as emailed to the two Splinter reporters who wrote the story, is the first official acknowledgement that ICE had accidentally published private and potentially dangerous information on its web site for anyone to download. ICE had previously declined to confirm or deny the breach.

I'm sure it's boilerplate, but the wording used suggests ICE wants Splinter to box up all the bits and send them back to ICE HQ. Even stupider, the letter warns Splinter of the consequences of exposing this information, as if it wasn't ICE that exposed the document in the first place.

Please note that any further use or disclosure of the information contained in these records could impede or interfere with law enforcement activities and violate the privacy rights and interests of the people whose information is contained in the records. Further, should you perpetuate the use of disclosure of any of this information, you may endanger the persons to whom the information pertains.

This sounds like ICE is hoping to blame Splinter for any fallout from the exposed data. But this is ICE's fault entirely. As is noted (again) in the follow-up post, Splinter informed ICE of the exposed data three days before publication. The spreadsheet wasn't removed until almost 8 hours after Splinter's post went live. The data has now been accessed by any number of people who won't be affected by ICE's very belated attempt to stuff Pandora's personal data back in the box.

And that brings us to one more salient point: if you're going to hand over personal info to the government, be aware it's repeatedly shown it can't be trusted to keep citizens' data protected. People who thought they were going to get away with turning in exes, stepkids, and in-laws now need to be worried about retaliation from those they snitched on. Others using the line for more legitimate reasons are in no better shape -- victims of crime exposed by the agency they turned to for help.

Filed Under: dhs, exposed data, hotline, ice, return data, voice

Arizona Motel 6 Branches Start Handing Out ICE To Unsuspecting Customers

from the KNOCK-N-TALK-Room-Service™ dept

Motel 6 sure seems to love handing over guest info to law enforcement. A couple of years ago, a Rhode Island branch decided to start faxing its guest list to local police every night -- something the PD had never asked it to do. This pleased the mayor, who proudly noted he knew everyone who was staying at the motel every night. Backlash followed and the police chief announced he would no longer accept Motel 6's guest list faxes.

Two years later, Motel 6 branches in Arizona are doing pretty much the same thing. This time, however, the info appears to be going straight to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Free ICE in motel rooms never goes out of style. An undocumented motel guest detained under suspicious circumstances led to local journalists digging into public records.

A Phoenix New Times review of court records found that between February and August, ICE agents made at least 20 arrests at Motel 6s, showing up roughly every two weeks. (Since many of the documents we reviewed contained only vague details about where ICE encountered an individual, the actual number is likely even higher.)

All took place at one of two Motel 6 locations: 4130 North Black Canyon Highway or 1530 North 52nd Drive. Both are in predominantly Latino neighborhoods. New Times was unable to find records indicating that ICE conducted arrests at other local motels during this same time period.

So far, nothing all that conclusive. Some things can be inferred from the New Times' investigation of public records, but there's nothing specifically noting ICE agents are working from motel guest lists. However, nothing in the records indicates how ICE is locating these undocumented motel guests. The only thing stated in the documents is agents were "following up on tips."

The New Times decided to go right to the source -- motel employees -- and got some very straightforward answers.

“We send a report every morning to ICE — all the names of everybody that comes in,” one front-desk clerk explained. “Every morning at about 5 o’clock, we do the audit and we push a button and it sends it to ICE.”

[...]

[F]ront desk staff at multiple Motel 6 locations in the Valley said that they regularly share guest information with local police.

“I don’t know how it works, but if you check in and you have a warrant, you’re going to get picked up,” one young woman explained.

ICE has refused to comment on the veracity of these employees' claims, saying doing so would compromise investigative techniques. However, if this is what's happening, it's neither "investigative" nor much of a "technique." It's just someone running a list against DHS/ICE databases and hoping for a hit. The motel is doing all the legwork, and there's precious little of that being done.

Even if you consider the employees' statements to be unreliable hearsay, there's the corporate response to the New Times story, which makes it explicitly clear sending guest lists to ICE was exactly what was happening:

Regarding your media story on the Phoenix-area location, this was implemented at the local level without the knowledge of senior management. When we became aware of it last week, it was discontinued. We are currently further investigating and will provide more information shortly.

This is better but far from completely comforting. ICE can't demand any motel hand over guest lists in perpetuity, but there's nothing in the law (or even on-point Supreme Court decisions) that forbids agents from popping in and checking out lists in person. The same goes for local law enforcement, which may take its own look-see and pass that on to the feds if anything catches their eye. Motel 6's corporate rollback of an extremely localized unofficial policy may return a little privacy to its guests, but the law and the courts see very little that's protected in information turned over to third parties.

Filed Under: hotels, ice, law enforcement, privacy
Companies: motel 6

EFF, ACLU Sue Government Over Warrantless Electronic Searches At The Border

from the still-in-US-territory,-but-none-of-your-rights-apply dept

If all goes well, we might have the US border join the rest of the United States in recognizing citizens' Fourth Amendment rights. The Supreme Court's Riley decision made it clear law enforcement needed to obtain warrants before searching people's cellphones. Unfortunately, the so-called "border exception" -- upheld by at least one court -- says securing the border is more important than recognizing people's rights.

The EFF and ACLU -- along with the 10 US citizens and one permanent resident they're representing -- are suing DHS, CBP, and ICE for violating the Constitutional rights of the plaintiffs by warrantlessly searching their devices. Not only did the government search their devices, but in some cases, held onto the devices for weeks. One plaintiff's phone is still in the hands of the CBP, having originally been taken from the plaintiff in January.

The filing [PDF] provides details of the plaintiffs' interaction with government agents at US borders. All plaintiffs were taken to secondary screening where they were coerced into handing over their devices and, in some cases, passwords. This is all being done with zero articulable suspicion or probable cause. Agents imply devices will be returned sooner if those they've detained are compliant. But even complicity can result in citizens having to leave their devices in the hands of the government.

Even when travelers comply with officers’ demands to unlock their devices or provide their device passwords, officers sometimes confiscate the devices anyway. For example, even though Ms. Alasaad provided the password to her phone, and CBP officers had already searched Mr. Alasaad’s unlocked phone, officers still confiscated both of the couple’s phones. CBP kept both phones for approximately 15 days.

These lengthy device confiscations cause significant harm. Many travelers, including Plaintiffs, rely on their electronic devices for their work and livelihoods, as well as for communicating with family members. Losing access to electronic devices and the information they contain for extended periods of time can disrupt travelers’ personal and professional lives. Confiscation of electronic devices is especially harmful to those who need, but do not have or cannot afford, replacement devices, and those who need but did not back up stored data.

As a result, the plaintiffs have spent thousands of dollars replacing devices the government kept without offering a legitimate law enforcement/national security reason for doing so. As the lawsuit points out, this type of behavior is unconstitutional.

When CBP and ICE officers confiscate electronic devices pursuant to their policies and practices for the purpose of searching those devices’ content, such confiscations violate the Fourth Amendment in at least three distinct ways:

a. First, these confiscations are not justified at their inception when they are affected absent probable cause.

b. Second, these confiscations are excessive in scope, because officers confiscate not just the locked devices they are unable to search at the port of entry, but also the unlocked devices they are able to search and that they sometimes have already searched.

c. Third, these confiscations are excessive in duration where the duration of confiscation of locked devices is unreasonable in relation to the time actually needed to search the devices.

In addition to the Fourth Amendment violations, there are also concerns about the First. A few of those participating in this lawsuit are journalists. CBP officers not only searched their phones, but questioned them directly about sources and subjects.

Even the plaintiffs who aren't journalists have valid First Amendment complaints. If the government's going to demand access to writings, photos, videos, and other forms of expression stored on electronic devices, this limits future expressive acts. People whose devices have been seized and searched are less likely to give the government as much to dig through the second time around. This means less writing, fewer photos, and steering clear of any artistic creation the government might somehow misconstrue as threatening, criminal, or simply critical of rote government abuse.

As the plaintiffs point out, these searches aren't Constitutional, but they are allowed by DHS and CBP policies -- which state agents may search and seize phones without reasonable suspicion. To that end, the lawsuit asks the court to find the policies officially unconstitutional and ban the government from searching devices at the border without a warrant.

It's a long shot, given the judicial branch's general deference to all things national security-related. But it will be nice to see the government explain how the Supreme Court's Riley decision somehow doesn't apply to American citizens just because they're entering or leaving the country.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, 4th amendment, border exception, border searches, cbp, computers, doj, ice, phones, warrantless searches
Companies: aclu, eff

NFL Tells ICE That Parody Shirts Are Counterfeits

from the beck-and-call dept

For years now, we've pointed out that ICE -- Immigration and Customs Enforcement -- has this weird habit of acting as the private police force of various big sporting leagues, almost always timed to big sporting events. Every year, right before the Super Bowl, for example, ICE seizes a bunch of websites. And ICE also goes way overboard in seizing physical merchandise, even if that's at least slightly closer to its mission. But it's been painfully obvious that ICE more or less sees itself as an arm of these sports leagues, rather than employees of the US government, and thus, the public. Last year, I filed some FOIA requests about ICE seizures leading up to the Super Bowl, but had them rejected on the basis that it was an ongoing investigation.

However, law professor Rebecca Tushnet is much more persistent than I am, and has been pursuing documents related to ICE seizures in the courts, and has had the court force ICE to hand over details -- including the not-at-all surprising, but still horrifying discovery that the NFL gives ICE guidance on what to seize, and it includes obvious parodies which are clearly not infringing, as they're protected by fair use. This is from the manual that the NFL provided ICE:

And, sure, perhaps it's true that NFL licensed merchandise won't favor one club over or another or make derogatory use of another's marks... but it's easy to argue that this is parody and thus not infringing. Just because it's not licensed, doesn't automatically make it infringing. But the NFL doesn't care. And I guess that's not surprising that the NFL doesn't care -- but it's astounding that ICE just agrees to follow the NFL's marching orders. Because unlike the NFL, ICE should actually follow what the law says, and not what a very wealthy sports league wants to happen.

As Tushnet points out in response to this:

So, what do we know? (1) Despite ICE's initial claims to me via its spokesperson and a lawyer, ICE relies only on industry guides to identify counterfeits, not on any independent sources. (2) Those industry guides identify what they don't like, not what is within the scope of counterfeit goods. (3) Most of what ICE seizes is truly counterfeit, but when it seizes parody merchandise, it implicates First Amendment interests in free speech.

Considering that this is ICE, who has a history of seizing blogs based on big industry claims, it seems quite clear that ICE couldn't care much less about the First Amendment interests of the public. Just the profits of big industry.

Filed Under: counterfeit, football, ice, trademark
Companies: nfl

ICE Says The Hell With The President, DHS; Orders Officers To Remove ALL Undocumented Immigrants

from the pretty-much-Eric-Cartman dept

The travel ban, extreme vetting, and vastly increased deportations of undocumented immigrants were all sold to us under the theory these methods would eject the worst of the worst from our country and keep those worsts from returning. In the president's own words, these tactics were not supposed to turn the entire US into Maricopa County, Arizona with a few thousand mini-Sheriff Arpaios running "get the brown out" fiefdoms.

That isn't how any of this has turned out. The travel ban the government's lawyers insist isn't a ban is being contested in court, even as the president himself repeatedly refers to it as a "ban." Extreme vetting has morphed into greater intrusiveness for everyone at the borders, even US citizens. The TSA -- under new DHS leadership -- has raised and abandoned a variety of new boarding measures, each one seemingly more invasive than the last.

Mission creep is the mission, as Immigrations and Customs Enforcement has (inadvertently) made clear.

A new document received by ProPublica under a Freedom of Information Act request demonstrates that the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has adopted a policy that conflicts with both President Trump’s executive order (EO) and public Department of Homeland Security (DHS) guidelines on immigration enforcement. I commented for the story, which you can read here.

The bottom line is that the memo shows that for months, ICE has been requiring agents to arrest all unauthorized immigrants whom they “encounter,” regardless of whether they are otherwise priorities for removal. Previously, ICE had admitted that it sometimes arrests non-prioritized immigrants, but this memo goes much further, requiring them to do so in all cases.

Presidential directives and DHS memos have given ICE plenty to work with. Both insist on prioritizing deportations but contain enough wiggle words like "may" and "shall" that ICE can toss prioritization out the window without severely distorting the guiding directives. But a plain reading of the obtained ICE memo shows the agency completely disregarding outside guidance. ICE would rather deploy its limited workforce as inefficiently as possible.

Under the Trump EO, no one is “exempt” from potential removal, but officers are instructed to use their discretion to focus on those who fit these priorities. Notably absent from this list: every unauthorized immigrant “encountered” by an ICE officer.

This wording is in the excutive order for two reasons: to avoid legal challenges and to prevent manpower waste. ICE apparently feels it's been ordered to toss out every immigrant agents come across, whether or not they pose a safety risk and/or have a criminal record.

The ICE memo [PDF] cuts the waffling fat from the EOs and directives:

Effective immediately ERO officers will take action against all removable aliens encountered in the course of their duties.

The memo belatedly tries to hedge this sentence by instructing officers to apply their better judgment to alien encounters. Personal discretion can be a wonderful tool, but it's blunted by the first sentence, which contains no wiggle words: only the word "will." Trying to reconcile contradictory instructions is more likely to result in officers feeling the first sentence overrides the guidance following it. ICE's new prime directive is REMOVE ALL.

As Cato's David Bier points out, the ICE memo has "rogue agency" written all over it.

The memo proves that the agency wants to have as few limits as possible on its authority, and it believes that no one in the White House or in DHS will stop them, even when it ignores their orders. This effect is not new to the Trump administration. ICE flouted the executive actions of President Obama as well. It is new, however, to see that the agency is spelling out its defiance in written instructions to its agents. This makes sense given that the agency’s performance metrics are mainly the quantity of removals, not the quality of removals.

When all you care about is numbers, safety is a distant priority. ICE won't be removing the worst of the worst. It may eventually, but only after it's booted everyone standing between it and the targets it's been ordered to remove.

Filed Under: deportations, dhs, donald trump, executive orders, ice, immigration

ICE Using Stingrays To Track Down Immigrants Because Of Course It Is

from the high-value-targets-just-means-everyone dept

As information about police use of cell tower spoofers began leaking out, those who had kept the public (including defendants, judges, and even some prosecutors) out of the loop began defending their use of domesticated military technology. They said pay no attention to the possible civil liberties violations. Just think of all the good they're doing. They promised Stingrays would only be used on the worst of the worst, and only when time was of the essence: terrorists, murderers, kidnappers, etc.

But then even more Stingray documents made their way into the public domain. These showed the devices were deployed in bog-standard drug investigations or, worse, used just because agencies had them. This perhaps reached its nadir when a police department fired up its Stingray to hunt down someone who had stolen less than $60 worth of fast food. To make matters worse, the Stingray failed to track down the alleged thief.

Of course, anyone paying attention knew Stingrays would be used for nothing of importance, despite public officials' statements otherwise. The first person to start digging into Stingray use was Daniel Rigmaiden, who was doing time for fraud. Not exactly the sort of crime one would associate with exigent circumstances and possible danger to the public.

And, of course, because it's now the government's foremost priority to toss undocumented immigrants out of the country, Stingrays are being used to accomplish this goal. And, just like the defensive statements made on behalf of IMSI catchers, the federal government has claimed it's only interested in removing the most dangerous of undocumented individuals first. These statements are also false.

Federal officials in Detroit used a secretive tool known as a "Stingray" — which tricks cell phones into revealing their location — to find an undocumented man for deportation.

The cell-site simulator has been used in the past by federal and local law enforcement to find murder suspects, kidnap victims, drug dealers and terrorists — but sometime in March, FBI and ICE officials used it to find a 23-year-old native of El Salvador to deport him.

The alleged criminal act being used as leverage -- both for the Stingray deployment and the use of ICE's "eject" button -- is a long ways from the Parade of Horribles used to justify the acquisition and use of cell tower spoofers.

According to the warrant, Carcamo-Carranza was deported in 2012 and 2015 to El Salvador, but returned to the US.

In Feb. 28, 2016, he was arrested in Shelby Township, Michigan, on suspicion of hit-and-run, but was released by local police before he was detained by ICE agent.

Also of note: ICE used a warrant to pry loose this phone number, serving one to Facebook which gave it access to Carranza's private messages. Just throwing that in there to add a bit more skepticism for the "Going Dark" theory. A phone that might be locked isn't the end of the line for investigators, no matter how loudly law enforcement officials sigh during press conferences while gesturing ineffectively at a pile of seized devices.

As we always knew would happen, Stingray technology would soon shift from its more limited, "higher cause" deployment into just another tool for rote policework.

Filed Under: ice, immigration, privacy, stingrays, tracking, warrants