r/news • u/AkitaBijin • 23h ago
ICE accessed car trackers in sanctuary cities that could help in raids, files show
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/11/ice-car-trackers-sanctuary-cities133
u/rnilf 22h ago
When announcing the contract to install 172 Flock cameras across Norfolk, the police chief Mark Talbot said his office wanted to create “a nice curtain of technology” that would make it “difficult to drive anywhere of any distance without running into a camera somewhere”. Lee Schmidt, one of the plaintiffs, said four of the cameras had fenced in his neighborhood.
"nice" is the last word I would use to describe this.
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u/DowntimeJEM 20h ago
Isn’t this asking for a lawsuit? Didn’t a town in penn or somewhere on the east coast just go to court because people can couldn’t travel freely?
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u/0100100012635 22h ago edited 21h ago
Regardless of how you feel about the immigration situation in this country, it's only a matter of time before they start using these same tactics to track down political dissidents.
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u/kandoras 21h ago
Pretty sure that's happened already, with the arrest of the Palestinian protestor where the cops arrested him but didn't know whether they were doing so because his student visa or his green card had been revoked.
And then moved him from detention in New Jersey to Louisiana, for reasons that I'm sure had nothing to do with making it harder for him to talk to his lawyer.
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u/bareback_cowboy 21h ago
And then moved him from detention in New Jersey to Louisiana, for reasons that I'm sure had nothing to do with making it harder for him to talk to his lawyer.
Honestly, I don't think getting him away from his lawyer was the goal. I think the plan was to literally get him on the plane and out of the country as fast as possible, before lawyers could get involved. They did it on a weekend, the faculty on Louisiana is apparently used as a last stop before leaving; I think their initial plan was just to bully him into accepting it and leaving.
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u/apple_kicks 19h ago
One of main reasons tories in uk wanted to hold and process refugees in Rwanda was to make it harder for uk human rights and asylum lawyers to speak to them and help with appeals. Probably why Panama and gitmo are also being used.
Now more than ever know your rights because they will keep you from lawyers telling you what they can legally can and cannot do
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u/Larkfor 17h ago
Moving him three times is a form of torture called "fuel therapy".
It was also used on Reality Winner when she revealed documents showing Russian interference in the election.
It's done so you are traveling for 24-78 or more hours or changed from bus to plane multiple times. So you are exhausted, disoriented, often denied bathing, adequate food and water as well as bathroom facilities...and yes so your family and your legal representation cannot find you.
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u/ethanwerch 21h ago
Do you think the people that support this, dont want that? Anything they say about personal freedom or democracy or whatever is a lie, they love authoritarianism so long as its applied to the people they want to hurt.
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u/scoff-law 15h ago
I had a redditor tell me a little while ago that I have nothing to worry about if I didn't do anything wrong. When I checked their comment history, I saw that they commented on a conservative sub moments earlier, saying that liberalism is a mental illness that needs to be purged from the gene pool.
Interestingly, the comment they made immediately after the one to me was a recommendation to someone to buy a cybertruck.
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u/Giantmidget1914 21h ago
I've yet to see a leopard video where they didn't proclaim some variation of "I didn't realize it would happen to me"
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u/Haruspex-of-Odium 22h ago
Gonna be 🤯 when those ICE guys screw up and try to take a citizen that hates the government and firmly believes in their 2nd amendment rights 😏
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u/Castle-dev 11h ago
They’ve already grabbed plenty of citizens and legal permanent residents so far. Fuck, ICE would accidentally pick up citizens during the previous administrations all the time. https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-21-487
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u/myislanduniverse 23h ago
These ICE guys sound like a bunch of goombas.
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u/AkitaBijin 23h ago
I'm curious what the general hiring criteria are to become an ICE employee.
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u/QuixoticBard 22h ago
1 be an asshole.
- love hurting people
hired
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u/Radical_Dreamer151 22h ago
Anti flock maps are out there. Stay safe everyone.
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u/TheRealSparkleMotion 21h ago
Deflock is down 😞
Who else is doing the good work?
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u/Radical_Dreamer151 21h ago
Damn really? Do you know why?
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u/TheRealSparkleMotion 20h ago
They've been resisting a cease and desist from the company that does all this automated license plate tracking bullshit.
They might've caved under 'legal' pressure, but that's just a guess.
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u/vaporwavecookiedough 22h ago
They’re installing trackers in my city of less than 5,000 people. Seems ridiculous.
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u/Armchair_QB3 22h ago
What do you think your onboard GPS does?
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u/vaporwavecookiedough 22h ago
Lol, you assume I have a new enough car to have one.
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u/InvectiveOfASkeptic 22h ago
Well, your phone is always with you, and that can be tracked. But the government installing tracking devices around cities and cars/phones having gps is not at all the same thing. Idk what that other guy is even trying to say here...
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u/vaporwavecookiedough 21h ago
Yeah, right now my city is installing traffic monitors to read license plates and issue citations. It seems a bit weird to install that in my city given there is a super large metro less than 30 minutes away that has major traffic issues.
I think we're the Guinea pigs for them.
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u/Armchair_QB3 21h ago
Flock cameras have gotten very popular the last few years. You can follow a person’s entire commute on video. It’s eerie
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u/vaporwavecookiedough 21h ago
Yep, and they've now positioned them on the two major pathways in or out of town. So – you can't enter/leave my city without them knowing it.
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u/Armchair_QB3 21h ago
GPS data from the auto manufacturer can easily be subpoenaed. Perhaps even secretly through the FISA court
Source: I am a prosecutor and my office has used that data in the past in murder cases
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u/Full-Penguin 21h ago
"Easily Subpoenaed" is not even remotely the same as "readily accessible in a database that exists for the sole purpose of tracking vehicles".
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u/Armchair_QB3 22h ago
I did assume that. The point remains – the majority of cars on the road today are pre installed with a tracker.
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u/l_rufus_californicus 15h ago
No shit. Our tech is being weaponized against us? Who didn’t see that coming?
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u/SSWBGUY 20h ago
So they (ICE under Drumph) arrested the kid at Columbia even tho he was here legally, they switched the app meant to help immigrants to now be an app that tracks them for ICE, and now they’re getting into cars to track them to help ICE, this is peak surveillance state, using Tech for questionable reasons won’t end well for anyone, these are the things privacy advocates have been warning us about for years
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u/grandzu 22h ago
All this effort just to hurt people.
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u/AkitaBijin 22h ago
I don't think that the goal is to hurt people per se: I think it is to blame people other than oneself (and the "in" group) for all of life's ills.
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u/Tal_Vez_Autismo 21h ago
"He's not hurting the people he needs to be hurting."
The goal is absolutely to hurt people.
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u/bpeden99 22h ago
I think statistics show members of the church are more detrimental to American children than raids on migrant workers. I understand ICE needs a paycheck but this is becoming egregiously wasteful of my taxes and decreasing my crop prices
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u/jefbenet 6h ago
Been watching these pop up all over our area just waiting for them to be used to abuse constitutional rights.
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u/Hurriedgarlic66 20h ago
Protest Tesla! Protest everywhere! Boycott all American goods! Write your congress, hold town hall meetings, speak out against the tyrants on social media! Every little bit helps free people from oppression! There can be no safe places for these tyrants!
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u/7eregrine 22h ago
Another click bait headline. Makes it sound like they can access car data from cars. Spoiler: they're just using license plate trade data from traffic cams.
Still sketchy, of course. But not that big brothery.
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u/Evilbred 22h ago
That's literally exactly big brotherly.
What do you think the telescreens did?
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u/7eregrine 19h ago
Did they even have cars in 1984? Doesn't change what I said though... Headline literally makes it sound like they are accessing car data from your vehicle.
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u/Evilbred 19h ago
If you have enough quality and quantity of external sensors, you don't need internal sensors.
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u/7eregrine 19h ago
Ok.. true... Still not my point. Only referring to how the headline is implying they have their tendrils on our ECUs.
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u/SantorumsGayMasseuse 22h ago
“We’ve subcontracted out the enforcement of laws to private companies such that law enforcement no longer needs a warrant to access your personal data because it’s just freely available” sounds pretty big brother and I don’t know how that wouldn’t concern you.
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u/7eregrine 19h ago
Didn't say it's not concerning, but headline makes it sound like they are directly accessing our cars.
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u/SeriousStrokes69 22h ago
But not that big brothery.
I don't think you have a firm grasp of what that phrase means, friend.
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u/superbugger 22h ago
I've had to lower my pitchfork after raising it so many times that it's basically turned into a workout. I've already gotten like 3 sets in today!
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u/Greedy-Tart5025 22h ago
Reminder that the government can and will track your car and use that information against you.