ICE Wants to Build Out a 24/7 Social Media Surveillance Team

Together, these teams would operate as intelligence arms of ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations division. They will receive tips and incoming cases, research individuals online, and package the results into dossiers that could be used by field offices to plan arrests. [...] The scope of information contractors are expected to collect is broad. Draft instructions specify open-source intelligence: public posts, photos, and messages on platforms from Facebook to Reddit to TikTok. [...]
They would also be armed with powerful commercial databases such as LexisNexis Accurint and Thomson Reuters CLEAR, which knit together property records, phone bills, utilities, vehicle registrations, and other personal details into searchable files.

Arubis• 10 months ago

Which capability has been iteratively built out for decades across multiple administrations against the consistent professional recommendation and public outcry of engineers, civil rights advocates, and some citizenry, and has at last landed in the malicious hands we've been warning about.

Nothing here is either surprising or unpredicted. It's just ugly because it's finally happening.

fzeroracer• 10 months ago

Given their recent actions in Chicago and elsewhere, it's clear they already are a paramilitary force.

Refreeze5224• 10 months ago

And just in case people scrolling by haven't heard about the atrocities ICE has committed in Chicago, they were, quite literally, zip-tying naked children. They raided a residential building, detained multiple US citizens, wasted tax payer money, all to arrest a group of people who are statistically less violent than actual citizens.

And if anyone is still under the illusion that this is about "law enforcement" or "immigration", this should be a giant waving red flag that it's about racism and authoritarian control.

sixothree• 10 months ago

And half of the country is cheering them on.

colechristensen2• 10 months ago

A key lesson is that there is always a large proportion of the population which will cheer this kind of action.

You can't lay blame on the people doing this and feel like you're done. Unfortunately they're always going to exist. You have to lay blame on the people defending against them. They failed in their defense and here we are.

The difficulty in stopping it scales with how long you let it fester.

Last time it was a world war which could have threatened extinction.

We're still in the phase where people are hoping doing nothing will make it all better or denying outright the threat.

bilbo0s4• 10 months ago

Liberals and conservatives don't split support in the country 50/50.

It's more like 20/20 and then that apathetic majority who can't be bothered to care enough to even vote is the rest. Given the nature of liberal and conservative policies, we can all probably see why many of them would be apathetic if we're being honest. But I'm sure those people aren't cheering. They're moreso saying, "See. I told ya so." To any friends and family who thought Trump would be any different. Probably gleefully pointing out to friends who are liberal or conservative that now things are worse.

For that "apathetic majority", they probably now feel vindicated in their decision not to vote and their sense of hopelessness.

And that's sad.

CamperBob23• 10 months ago

Indeed. The timeline is probably going to play out like this:

2025: Get downvoted on HN for comparing Charlie Kirk to Horst Wessel

2026: Get upvoted for it

2027: Get banned for it

2028: No voting allowed, here or anywhere else

lemming• 10 months ago

The question is when in this timeline will you get arrested or at least detained for questioning for it? We’re already at the point where you might get fired or deported for it.

rockercoaster4• 10 months ago

I fully expect to see them take on more and more roles that e.g. the FBI traditionally performed. The strategy appears to be to expand, empower, and control them as the "MAGA law enforcement agency" and bypass all the rest, either seconding them to ICE or diminishing them to a tiny role.

Look to see them expand to general "counter-terrorism" enforcement in the near future, with only the barest veneer (if that) of its having anything to do with immigration enforcement. After all, if you can stop practically anyone on baseless suspicion of being in the country illegally (see: recent precedent that apparently "they looked foreign" is enough) then charge them with whatever after-the-fact even if they turned out to be legal residents or citizens, that sure looks like a neat little work-around for due process. Or you can just "accidentally" disappear them to El Salvador....

I think about the minor plot point of the President having dissolved the FBI, in the film Civil War, a lot more this year than I ever thought I would when I watched that movie the first time.

conception2• 10 months ago

Also, considering https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights/border-zone that’s the right group legally speaking to use to get around constitutional issues.

moomoo11• 10 months ago

Is it true there like 15 Million undocumented people in the country?

I thought there were like 1 million max.

rpjt9• 10 months ago

Nobody really knows the true number.

HankStallone• 10 months ago

They've been saying 11 million for at least a couple decades that I can remember. It's probably a lot higher now, but no one in a position to find out has ever wanted to know.

segmondy3• 10 months ago

You are naive if you think this is about undocumented folks.

pjc50• 10 months ago

By definition, it is impossible to count this accurately and can only be estimated from shadow variables.

paintly• 10 months ago

It'll be interesting to see how the Democrats use this ramped-up and militarized ICE when they're next in power. I don't imagine they'll be disbanding it.

tempodox2• 10 months ago

… Democrats … next in power.

I admire your optimism.

throwaway984393• 10 months ago

America's Gestapo

groby_b• 10 months ago

Hold, citizen, you shall be arrested for your impure thought. By masked goons.

Paratoner• 10 months ago

Goons arresting gooners. In the year of our Lord.

deeg2• 10 months ago

What happened to all those 2nd Amendment conservatives who needed their guns to protect us from the governments jack booted thugs?

watwut• 10 months ago

They joined ICE and proud boys.

skizm• 10 months ago

Didn't you read the article? They're building a 24/7 Social Media Surveillance Team.

diffrinse• 10 months ago

We ask things like this because we fundamentally misunderstand the MAGA movement. The MAGA movement's fundamental claim is that America is under attack by an insurgent force. The Trump regime (read: Heritage Foundation) is a counter-insurgency operating under emergency conditions.

vkou• 10 months ago

They are the jack-booted thugs, and they always have been.

ProjectArcturis• 10 months ago

The 2A guys have only ever been LARPers.

krapp• 10 months ago

The 2A guys overwhelmingly voted for this and will be more than willing to take up arms when it's time to put the untermenschen against the wall.

xyzelement2• 10 months ago

This is such a lame comment, sorry.

The fact 2nd amendment crowd had a chance to prove their principles a few weeks ago and they did it with flying colors when the NRA came out against any restrictions for trans people.

But as a 2A supporter I don't feel any obligation to rage against ICE assembling a social media team. These seem to be completely disconnected concepts.

ajross• 10 months ago

The reference was to the somewhat bombastic set that like to talk about the reason for the second amendment being a backstop against government tyranny or whatever. You seem to be hiding behind a variant definition that covers only advocacy for the second amendment itself. Maybe you're not in the demographic, but there are a lot of them here on HN.

Or were. They've been extremely quiet the last few months. Turns out tyranny isn't so bad when it's aimed at the people you already hate.

mediaman2• 10 months ago

The Federalist papers, Thomas Jefferson, and the Supreme Court as recently as 2008 have all identified the right to bear arms as a mechanism for protection against a tyrannical state. It's surprising as a 2A supporter that you seem unaware of why the amendment exists.

Is that true, or is there something more here?

apstls• 10 months ago

The fact 2nd amendment crowd had a chance to prove their principles a few weeks ago and they did it with flying colors when the NRA came out against any restrictions for trans people.

This is effectively a strawman argument.

We are not discussing their principles that pertain to whom should be allowed to own guns, nor is that question even relevant to the heart of this topic. We are discussing the core, underlying principle that has been used as the primary justification for WHY people should have a constitutionally-protected right to own mechanized, efficient killing machines. You of course already know: the rhetoric (for literal centuries) has been that the preservation of our system of democracy from hostile internal actors requires a citizenry that has the means to effectively fight back.

Without a noble-sounding pretense of existential importance for 2A defenders to shield themselves with, things start to look a lot more like weighing "guns are fun, plus think about hunters" vs "we should reduce our yearly slaughter rate for schoolchildren to match those of other 1st world countries" and choosing the former. So, when people see what they believe to be the increasingly-obvious beginnings of authoritarian overreach in this country, and at the same time seeing most of the 2A crowd saying absolutely nothing about it, it looks like a genuinely remarkable, thoroughly nauseating display of hypocrisy and selfishness.

But as a 2A supporter I don't feel any obligation to rage against ICE assembling a social media team. These seem to be completely disconnected concepts.

Dishonest framing aside ("assembling a social media team", like how drug cartels simply assemble a team of chemists, semantics be damned!) and with full context considered, I assume you are stating here that you see no problem with the current actions of this administration, both ICE-related and not, and have caught no whiffs of authoritarian overreach. Otherwise, social media monitoring and tracking teams within an organization that does not have the rules, oversight, requirements, or legal vulnerability of existing (previously) non-partisan agencies with similar teams, would be extremely concerning.

Though after writing this out, I'm not even clear on how much of this is a matter of opinion versus a matter of awareness and understanding of current events. One needs to only look at the events of the last 7 days to find egregious evidence of authoritarian movement, things that would've sent recent Democratic presidents into political exile and impeachment. I just learned that my neighbors and I are enemies of the US last Tuesday - literally, verbatim, "enemies from within" with no additional qualification beyond living in a blue city - for example.

analog31• 10 months ago

The 2nd amendment protects the 2nd amendment, that's it.

solid_fuel3• 10 months ago

The president is white so they can’t see any threat here. If Obama had tried this there would already be a revolt.

Dig1t5• 10 months ago

We all voted for this, we are getting what we voted for. Why would we try to stop it?

ICE is scanning public info anyway, nothing they’re doing is illegal or even new. Many parts of the federal government are already scanning social media, like the CIA, FBI, and NSA.

btbuildem• 10 months ago

Given how many accounts online are bots or anonymous, will they ever be able to shake out which real people which personas belong to? Or will it be a case of "we said this is you, so that makes it you"?

miltonlost3• 10 months ago

The latter. Checking for identity won't matter to ICE. They already break into apartment buildings without warrants and arrest children and US citizens. There's 0 logical reason to believe ICE will do anything in good faith considering their past and current behavior as well as by the words of Trump himself.

https://chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/2025/10/01/massive-...

SteveNuts• 10 months ago

Yes, they’ll use bots to detect the bots. I guarantee it’s not hard to detect outliers (bots) via many different heuristics at this point. It’s going to turn into a perpetual game of whack a mole just like SEO and ad blocking.

netsharc2• 10 months ago

I'm going to modify my keyboard to generate em-dash when I input "-"...

bilbo0s4• 10 months ago

There are already attribution technologies that are reliable and definitive. There's no real technical reason that they wouldn't have the capability to directly attribute accounts.

Now..

is any of that gonna stop John or Joan Q Public who has a running disagreement with their asian or hispanic neighbor from calling in a "tip"? Probably not.

Will that tip result in an automated digital proctology exam that may land them, or people they may have been communicating with (like grandma), in ICE custody?

I'm thinking probably so.

The danger here is not really technology. The danger here is people. They are essentially automating the "snitch-to-detainment" pipeline.

Hizonner3• 10 months ago

There are already attribution technologies that are reliable and definitive.

Gonna stop you right there and ask you to back that up. It's not plausible. Especially not if people are actively trying to mess up the "attribution".

PunchyHamster• 10 months ago

The causation chain here is "we don't like someone so we find dirt on him online and arrest them over thought crime"

jmclnx• 10 months ago

Yet another reason to dump Twitter, Meta, Tiktok and other social sites.

People can always go mack to USENET and IRC if they want to make it hard to be tracked :)

Imustaskforhelp• 10 months ago

Matrix, session, simplex seems like a interesting idea too.

Not sure if signal allows anonymous-ish personas for their groups but simplex definitely does but out of all the options given, maybe irc is the most well known :)

So irc it is lol

segmondy3• 10 months ago

They don't want you on there, they need your silence. Your posting about injustice gives them great fear. They don't want your unsolicited commentary on state of affairs. You are a friend only if you boost their propaganda. So yes, go hide away and say nothing and pretend the world is normal, you will eventually have to deal with it in the real world.

MandieD2• 10 months ago

Yeah, that's some Gestapo level business... or since they don't like that word, Stasi.

As in, there were loads of people in the DDR (East Germany, 1949-1989) whose job it was to read people's personal mail, along with the network of neighborhood snitches.

otterdude2• 10 months ago

All those out of work programmers here's an opprotunity to create some disruption, pad your resume, and possibly create a job.

While we still have a free internet, it would be great to see efforts to create technology to replace centralized social media, cloud-tech, and businesses.

We need to make it so fucking hard for the gov, advertisers to get access to your data that it very expensive to maintain a system like this. And please please please do not work for or lend talent these jerks!

01HNNWZ0MV43FF• 10 months ago

The network effect and the funding is the hard part. People want to be on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram because they spend billions hosting images for free and they have a million para social friends there

Any competitor will have to compete not on technical competence or privacy, but on "can I upload lots of HD video?" and "are my favorite celebrities there?"

Offramps to let people migrate easier, syndication to let people leave and still do POSSE, a solution to the problem that all free image hosting eventually attracts CSAM, those are difficult problems

swed420• 10 months ago

I've seen a lot of general support for the criticisms and concepts described in this article:

https://www.noemamag.com/the-last-days-of-social-media/

Anyone who builds what they describe there can expect it to take off faster than ever.

netsharc2• 10 months ago

They really should just create "report your fellow users" snitching website.

Oh, I should make such a website and sell it to the Stasi, I'm going to be rich!

Easier would be to hint at Zuck that Trump wants that feature built-in on Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, and the subservient billionaire will get right on it.

Dig1t5• 10 months ago

Reading public posts on a website is not the same as reading people’s private mail though. Not really an equivalent comparison IMO.

femiagbabiaka2• 10 months ago

The distinction between public and private is obvious to the initiated, but probably not to everyone. e.g. https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/charlie-kirk-assassination...

With the right sorts of access given by companies seeking to avoid the ire of the administration, I'm pretty sure even private profiles could be considered to be public.

conception2• 10 months ago

Hey, aspirations gotta start somewhere!

eej71• 10 months ago

re: the extensive surveillance network of the stasi...

In case you missed it, check out the movie _The Lives of Others_.

MandieD2• 10 months ago

Fantastic, heartbreaking film.

SergeAx• 9 months ago

Since the current US admin is right-wing, Gestapo is a correct term, whether they like it or not.

jonathanstrange• 10 months ago

The US is going down the gutter, it's sad and pathetic.

rpjt9• 10 months ago

Certainly depends on who you ask

an0malous• 10 months ago

What’s the steelman argument for the US actually doing well?

segmondy3• 10 months ago

going down? we are deep in cesspool

rpjt9• 10 months ago

Who would want to live in a cesspool?

DaSHacka• 10 months ago

Arguably, we have been for a long, long time, and this is merely the first step in a long line of small corrections so that we may finally one day prosper once again.

nicholasjarnold• 10 months ago

So if they are using information people freely share to social media sites as the seeds for their investigatory and enforcement actions it follows that there is a simple trick people can employ or minimize their effectiveness.

https://signal.org/download/

rpjt9• 10 months ago

Some people: "Great, this will help them get criminals and other bad people off the street."

Some other people: "More fascism. This is Trump's version of the SS. It's absolutely horrible and we are doomed if this continues."

The world continues to spin.

miltonlost3• 10 months ago

Some other other people: "i can't tell the difference between rotten apples and fresh oranges. therefore all fruit is shit."

But which one do you think is accurate? Here's an article to consider, where ICE broke into an apartment building without warrants to arrest citizens and children. Does this sound like Gestapo tactics or no?: https://chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/2025/10/01/massive-...

rpjt9• 10 months ago

It doesn't matter what I think. The reality is most people who voted, voted for this or something like this. This will only change at the ballot box, assuming you believe in fair elections.

solid_fuel3• 10 months ago

The world continues to spin.

It kept spinning while millions were murdered during WWII as well. Did you have an actual point to make or did you just come here to be dismissive?

rpjt9• 10 months ago

Yes, and has continued to spin over millions of years as various atrocities have occurred. The question for everyone: what are you going to do about it?

Hizonner3• 10 months ago

Any creative chaffing or deception ideas?

Ccecil• 10 months ago

I guess I had always just assumed this was the case for quite some time. Or I should say "someone" in the govt was always watching...not necessarily ICE.

photochemsyn• 10 months ago

Nationwide secret police with paramilitary capabilities only answerable to a few people in the executive branch? Completely unconstitutional, violating all the clauses on warrantless searches, detention without trial, etc.?

Looks like ICE should be abolished and its entire staff fired, just have INS take over all immigration issues.

justahuman74• 10 months ago

The social media companies must dislike this as it'll make people even less likely to post anything

sgnelson• 10 months ago

And of course it's flagged. Because the use of technology built from companies funded by VC has nothing to do with Hacker News and Ycombinator.

Dang and company are such a joke (yes, that's a direct violation of the rules, maybe it'll get their attention) for allowing these sorts of stories to be flagged.

The idea that this is only about "politics" or it's "controversial" and thus should be hidden from view is such a copout. These are the important stories that should absolutely be discussed in a place like this.

Save your breath in replying: "well, it might make people upset and we want to have nice conversations here." And whatever other platitudes arguing for censorship of obviously important topics that deal directly with the technology, companies and employess that frequent this site.

mzajc• 10 months ago

For a more proactive approach, browse https://news.ycombinator.com/active to catch these kinds of stories. As far as I know, it ignores flags completely.

Schmerika2• 10 months ago

They don't care about making no one aware of these stories. Blocking 98% will do just fine for them.

Gud• 10 months ago

We need a diverse set of online communities again.

jemmyw• 10 months ago

for allowing these sorts of stories to be flagged

I believe, from reading responses on other stories, that they need to manually do something to prevent a story being flagged. So there's no allowing, it just happens.

I don't disagree with you though. I haven't found "flagged" a good indicator on whether a story is interesting or has worthwhile discussion in it. It's just "some small number of people don't want this link here". It would be nice if instead people put their energy into upvoting the stories they do like.

Or add a downvote instead of flag so we actually have a consensus.

28304283409234• 10 months ago

These are the important stories that matter.

This. A thousand times this.

Schmerika2• 10 months ago

After having been here a long time and paid close attention to what gets flagged: They're not a joke. They're collaborators. The wave of flags around everything Thiel and Musk and Israel in the last year has been extraordinarily disturbing, and the rationalizations for it have been tissue thin.

When people call it out they tend to quickly catch bans for minor slights (plausible deniability). Start working on some alts with a VPN now if you want to keep a voice here.

dredmorbius3• 10 months ago

Moderators don't flag content, members do: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39169622>.

If you believe a story shouldn't have been flagged, email mods at hn@ycombinator.com.

(Mods also don't see mentions of their names, email is how you attract moderators' attention.)

JumpCrisscross2• 10 months ago

Moderators don't flag content, members do

Moderators are ultimately responsible for moderation. The moderation system is failing when it comes to technology issues with a political tint. (In contrast, it has been pretty good with rage bait foreign policy stuff. Genuinely good discussions around quality content.)

If folks are bandwagon flagging content with a consistent bias, the system should shadow ban their flags for a while.

h05sz487b• 10 months ago

That would create the risk of people generating, hundreds and thousands of fake profiles and giving ice the runaround, wouldn’t it?

southernplaces7• 10 months ago

That this post got flagged, and was allowed to stay flagged (as far as I can see) is one more excellent example of the selective idiocy of the moderators on this site, or if not their idiocy, than tacit support for dampening certain narratives. It's very much a tech-related post, that talks about a very worrying authoritarian digital surveillance tendency, and it gets flagged on a site that calls itself "hacker news"? Get the fuck out of town.

tartoran• 10 months ago

Why is this flagged??

ICE Wants to Build Out a 24/7 Social Media Surveillance Team

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