This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
They use facial recognition on us while we are not allowed to see their faces.
These guys need de-masking.
They need lifetimes in prison for treason and domestic terrorism.
We will never get there while they are anonymous. The path to prison starts with de-masking.
You can’t prosecute what has no identification.
Every single one of them has a timecard they're punching with a name, collective punishment against the entire agency should be on the table.
Even those sitting back behind a desk pushing paperwork are enabling the thugs in the streets.
If they can, they will. That's the only rule you need to know about business and politics.
Does the US legal system still exist in any sense that it should in a democracy?
I ask because I don't understand how all this is possible in a constitutional state: Masked brutes who arbitrarily kidnap people on the open street without even identifying themselves, people who are interned without due process and then often simply disappear without a trace in the administrative system, total surveillance without cause, and many other massive violations that the US legal system seems to enable rather than prevent, as it should.
All of this already looks very much like a dictatorship to me, i.e., an unjust state, as none of this can be possible with a democratic constitution - at least not with one that is actually upheld by the legal system.
It does not. The legal system has essentially lost the ability to be a check on the power of the executive branch. Partly because of the capture of the judiciary and regulatory bodies by right-wing extremists and partly because of the speed at which the executive branch is acting illegally - it takes time to build cases and the jsutice system can't keep up.
From a distance it looks like the American people don't realize what's happening and accept it because "it will be over in 4 years". Keeping them frightened of losing their breadcrumbs also works very well.
That's my impression too. After everything the regime has done so far, I think it's pretty clear that it can no longer be removed by legal means - the legal system already seems to me to have been infiltrated too deeply for that.
It also seems likely to me that MAGA will no longer allow free elections, because that would carry the risk of being voted out of office, which, even in the corrupt US system, could mean severe legal consequences for many of the regime's followers and for all the misdeeds that have already been committed in less than a year. I don't think MAGA will take that chance, especially since ICE is already set up as a kind of secret police force with a budget equivalent to the military spending of a medium-sized country. I mean, what else could an agency like this possibly need such an astronomical budget for other than as a private army loyal to the regime and thus a safeguard in case of resistance from the regular army or the police?
In short: I think the outlook is very bleak, and like you, I'm not convinced that the majority of US citizens are aware of how dangerous the situation is.
Does the US legal system still exist in any sense that it should in a democracy?
Hybrid Regime is how I describe the US. It's a weird limbo state between Democracy and Autocracy (because if this was a full autocracy, I wouldn't have access to Lemmy and most anti-trump media would've been raided and shut down). Afaik, they aren't doing exit controls yet.
The major difference between the US and PRC (where I came from), is that Americans seem more willing to resist the government compared to mainland Chinese, and these demonstrations in the US are actually being reported on, in China, its absolute silence, nobody even knows about the very little protests that do happen.
But, by the time EU starts accepting American Refugees, it'd probabably be too late and they would've imposed exit controls by then.
Idk what will happen, only time will tell.
No.
The people are so gaslit they will attack you if you say otherwise.
I wonder why our allies aren’t helping at this point. Surely they understand where this goes if they don’t stop it sooner rather than later. Europe is laughing at Americans ignoring the tiger that will eat them soon.
I am German and I am appalled by the behavior of our government: Instead of standing up to Trump and his henchmen and becoming independent from the US, they are kowtowing to him, even though it is completely obvious how little Trump cares about his so called allies—and since the US is nowadays blackmailing Europe with tariffs and so on, it takes a lot of imagination to still call them allies, especially when all halfway rational people are particularly disturbed by all the inhuman Nazi shit.
Unfortunately, however, the weak position of the current German government was already absolutely foreseeable before the last federal election, because the Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, is actually more of a US lobbyist than a politician (among other things, he was chairman of the supervisory board of Black Rock Germany until 2022 and held various positions in business lobby organizations such as the Atlantik-Brücke – a conservative think tank). Nothing can be expected from these people, although I unfortunately also think that US citizens should not count on any external support anyway.
Is it illegal to have a facemask? People should start carrying around ski masks in their vehicles in case ICE approaches them. If they claim it's illegal then why the fuck is ICE wearing them?
Because it is an authoritarian regime now, and not a state of law and order anymore.
It's harder to racially profile a masked person or identify them in general.
An ICE officer may ignore evidence of American citizenship—including a birth certificate—if the app says the person is an alien
Cool, so I guess that means I can ignore evidence of the person/people at the door being law enforcement before enforcing my 2nd Amendment rights and state self-defense laws that also allow me to shoot to protect others.
Yeah you can, but you'll probably get killed. If you're willing to do that though, then at least make it worthwhile
So hypothetically, what if a bunch of protestors showed up with IC E shirts/pants/etc.... without license plates and started to protest? How would they know who was who at that point?
It doesn't even look that hard to do given how much memorabilia there is online.
Well, Halloween just happened, so there are probably convincing costumes available on discount. Just saying...
Um, Americans also realize they’re ABDUCTING people without their consent too, right? And have been, for like months now?
Most of us are well aware of that. I live in a neighborhood with a pretty high Hispanic population. ICE was reported just a few blocks from my house on Thursday, zero trick-or-treaters on Friday. There are still a discouraging about of people saying they support Trump and what he's doing on Nextdoor. I want to believe they're bots.
Time to start wearing face paint / face tattoos that fuck with facial recognition.
In their world, resisting surveillance will be probable cause for arrest, because you must have something to hide and need to be investigated.
It doesn’t matter. At this point resistance is a responsibility. They will lie and make shit up either way so challenge them while you still can.
Reminder to everyone that it is COVID season, so wear a mask for your health.
And flu and cold season. Consider wearing gloves to keep your hands safe from diseases as well. Consider tinted glasses as well to keep the sun out of your eyes, and a hat or hoodie to protect from rain or snow.
Just basic health things, completely unrelated to cameras or anything.
Remember kids, Juggalo makeup defeats facial recognition. Woop woop!
Everybody wear drag queen makeup!
So look, this is just gonna happen. It's legal to film people in public (in the US) and we all know stores, etc. are already using facial recognition.
The real problem here is the (apparent, though almost certainly assured) lack of responsible use of the data. Scanning faces means you also get time, place, and event/activity, and the citizens then have zero control of what the govt does with this, who they share it with (e.g. Palantir), etc. All prior collection of US person data required appropriate approval, limited scope of access, and timely adjudication/disposal. But ICE is (again, apparently) operating outside the law.
At this point there is no voting your way back to normal anymore. As others have pointed out, the Democrats will ratchet their way further to the right in order to take office again, and the surveillance state will continue to expand under their authority (albeit somewhat less rapidly)
The lower classes must wake up to this reality and take meaningful steps to remove the ownership class from power once and for all. Holding signs and chanting in a public square during a weekend won't be enough, the rich and powerful must be in fear of losing their wealth and their lives.
Facial Recognition has always been racist this is nothing new in a broad sense.
