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Facebook Communications Government Social Networks United States Technology

ICE Uses Facebook Data To Find and Track Immigrants, Internal Emails Show (theintercept.com) 122

Posted by BeauHD from the tools-of-the-trade dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Intercept: ICE, the federal agency tasked with Trump's program of mass deportation, uses backend Facebook data to locate and track immigrants that it is working to round up, according to a string of emails and documents obtained by The Intercept through a public records request. The hunt for one particular immigrant in New Mexico provides a rare window into how ICE agents use social media and powerful data analytics tools to find suspects. In February and March of 2017, several ICE agents were in communication with a detective from Las Cruces, New Mexico, to find information about a particular person. They were ultimately able to obtain backend Facebook data revealing a log of when the account was accessed and the IP addresses corresponding to each login. Lea Whitis, an agent with Homeland Security Investigations, the investigative arm of ICE, emailed the team a "Facebook Business Record" revealing the suspect's phone number and the locations of each login into his account during a date range. Law enforcement agents routinely use bank, telephone, and internet records for investigations, but the extent to which ICE uses social media is not well known.
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ICE Uses Facebook Data To Find and Track Immigrants, Internal Emails Show More

ICE Uses Facebook Data To Find and Track Immigrants, Internal Emails Show

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  • Is this a surprise to anyone? (Score:3, Informative)

    by waspleg ( 316038 ) on Monday March 26, 2018 @04:42PM (#56330357) Journal

    It has billions of users. Of course law enforcement is going to use it.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      i would probably google using the facebook.com tag specification. i mean google probably has better records on facebook than facebook.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by shubus ( 1382007 )
      Yes billions of users. I am so glad not be one of them. #DeleteFacebook.

  • Law enforcement tracks law breakers (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 26, 2018 @04:49PM (#56330421)

    "Federal immigration officials enforce federal immigration law."

    This only seems to be a"controversy" because it hurts Democrat electoral chances...

    • "Federal immigration officials enforce federal immigration law."

      This only seems to be a"controversy" because it hurts Democrat electoral chances...

      Actually.. It is only an issue because it HELPS the democrats in their campaigns... That and the demographic most represented by illegals tends to vote democratic. So democrats get votes from today's voters from that demographic and if amnesty is given again they will have a huge influx of new voters from the same demographic.

      You can bet that if the demographic was more likely to help republicans this wouldn't be a controversy unless amnesty was being discussed.

      • Re: (Score:1, Troll)

        by Ed Tice ( 3732157 )
        Yes that's correct, compassion for people who committed a minor civil violation in order to come here and help their families is purely a political issue and ther's no moral authority behind it. And it was entirely invented by the Democrats. It's not that it used to be a bi-partisan issue supported by presidents from both parties and then Republicans threw immigrants under the bus in order to appeal to the more extreme part of their base. [/sarcasm] There should be a -1 Uniformed Partisanship moderation

        • Re:Law enforcement tracks law breakers (Score:4, Informative)

          by tsqr ( 808554 ) on Monday March 26, 2018 @06:03PM (#56330785)

          Yes that's correct, compassion for people who committed a minor civil violation in order to come here and help their families.

          Well, that depends upon how they "come here".

          The civil violation is "unlawful presence", and can come about a number of ways, such as illegal entry or overstaying a visa.

          Illegal entry, aka, border jumping, is most definitely a criminal -- not civil -- offense that carries a penalty of not more than 6 months in prison, and a fine of up to $250.

          There should be a -1 Uniformed Partisanship moderation.

          I agree with you on that one.

          • What is the difference between Illegal and criminal? Is an illegal automatically a criminal? And then a criminal who is illegal, does he lose his illegal status?

        • Re:Law enforcement tracks law breakers (Score:5, Insightful)

          by bobbied ( 2522392 ) on Monday March 26, 2018 @06:21PM (#56330889)

          Yes that's correct, compassion for people who committed a minor civil violation in order to come here and help their families is purely a political issue and ther's no moral authority behind it. And it was entirely invented by the Democrats. It's not that it used to be a bi-partisan issue supported by presidents from both parties and then Republicans threw immigrants under the bus in order to appeal to the more extreme part of their base. [/sarcasm]

          Well now, hit a nerve have I?

          Why do you somehow think your side in this debate is the ONLY one with compassion for these people? Your assumption is wrong and shows your political bias and an active unwillingness to actually SOLVE the problem. You don't want a solution, you want the election issue to campaign on.

          I think if you where to really discuss this with the opposing party, you'd find them wiling to deal with this issue in a fair and compassionate way. However, you have pretty much cut off all possible avenues of discussion with your "Only we have Moral high ground" perspective that precludes any solution except yours from consideration. This has all the hallmarks of a demagogue worthy campaign issue which has more value to you unsolved. You don't want to solve this, you want to run on it.

          • So can you at least inform us of the fair and compassionate policy you're talking about?

            • Re:Law enforcement tracks law breakers (Score:5, Insightful)

              by bobbied ( 2522392 ) on Tuesday March 27, 2018 @09:32AM (#56333707)

              Yep, I can...

              FIRST - Stop as much illegal immigration and encourage illegals to self deport by doing the following things:

              1. Implement E-Verify nation wide and require it be followed by all employers. Follow up that requirement with strict enforcement. If you are not a citizen and don't have a work visa, you don't work here.

              2. Visa exit tracking - Implement tracking of visa entries AND exits so we know who's here that have overstayed their visas. Step up enforcement of visa overstays.

              3. Deport Criminals - Start deporting illegal immigrants who commit felonies after they are done with their prison time.

              4. No access Social Services - Eliminate ALL social services for illegal immigrants including welfare, public education systems (including college).

              5. Build the wall - Maybe not a physical wall, but a practical one. Protect our borders.

              6. End "born here" citizenship for children of illegals. Make it necessary for at least one parent to be here legally before we confer US citizenship on a child.

              SECOND - After the above are in place and starting to work....

              1. Implement/Expand a "guest worker" visa program which allows foreign nationals to serve in seasonal labor. Make it easy to get such a visa, but make it necessary to apply for and receive it in your home country.

              2. For those with existing DACA exemptions, citizenship is available after an extended wait of at least a decade if they stay here. If they wish, they will be given preferential treatment for guest worker permits. However, if they self deport, they will be able to immediately apply for citizenship and a guest worker permit with preferential treatment (the front of the line).

              3. Open a path to citizenship for LEGAL immigrants based on merit. Preference given to immigrants with H1b's then seasonal work permits followed by other immigrants who apply. But, we need to end the visa lottery and chain migration beyond immediate family (To include parents, children and siblings only).

              • Sound good. Let me know when the Republicans take up the bill.

                • This will take TWO bills.... The first has to work before the second can be done.

                  Feel free to offer them yourself too.

              • Number 1 and 2 make sense and could reasonably be done.

                Number 3 we already do, number 4 would require the Supreme Court overturning its precedent and/or a constitutional amendment (for the school part). Immigrants already do not qualify for most social services such as welfare, in-state tuition, cash aid, housing subsidies, medical (state or federal) etc. They do typically qualify for SNAP (food stamps, for maybe a couple hundred a month) and emergency room visits. This is largely because ERs CANNOT sto

                • Hmmm... I did some investigation on this...

                  The 14th amendment has been interpreted as 'birth right citizenship" for the most part but this is not universally agreed too. There is one test case for LEGAL immigrants, which confers citizenship to their children born here and that I fully accept as fine. There has been no interpretation for ILLEGAL immigrant's children born here. I suggest we test that in the courts by passing a law that says only persons who are children of parents who are LEGALLY here are

        • And it's not like we have a decent immigration law on the books already that congress refused to fund.

          Republicans are cutting off their noses to spite their face. Business needs cheap labour in order to make gobs of money.

          Immigrants (legal or no) are a positive net income [time.com] for America.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AHuxley ( 892839 )
        Illegals should not be voting in the USA.
        Voting is for people who can legally vote.
        Would anyone who got to the USA legally really want to see their tax money supporting vast illegal communities all over the USA?

  • wow (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Someone really has it in for facebook

  • Any means possible (Score:5, Insightful)

    by nwaack ( 3482871 ) on Monday March 26, 2018 @04:58PM (#56330485)
    Good. They should use any means possible to find these law breakers. Why the hell should we have to put up with this rampant illegal immigration? Canada has even stricter immigration laws but no one says boo about that.
    • But Justin Trudeau is so dreamy...[girlish giggle]...
    • And Australia even more strict that that. More to the point, though, using Facebook for "round ups" is something we could probably debate. But when ICE is looking for a *particular* person, it's almost always the case that said individual has committed some sort of crime above and beyond any immigration status issue. At that point, they're just another fugitive.

      • More to the point, though, using Facebook for "round ups" is something we could probably debate.

        If they had actually used Facebook, we should. They didn't, any more than they used "social media". They got logs from a computer service, which could have been the web, or twitter, or ftp, SMTP, IMAP, or anything else. The fact that it was Facebook is irrelevant to the discussion.

        "Used social media" means they actually did something ON Facebook, like looked at friend's lists or timeline postings or such stuff. "Using twitter" means they look at the content and get information from that. They didn't do tha

    • Re: (Score:3, Troll)

      by jwhyche ( 6192 )

      Yup, labeled a troll. Typical way SJW, aka snowflakes, deal with speech they don't agree with. They would rather silence you than debate you on the merits of their beliefs.

  • I can also track down where you're sitting because IP address shows up in the server log each and every time you visit my site, regardless of whether you log on or not. That's how the internet works. Doesn't matter if you're using SSL or plain old HTTP. If you're not going over a proxy, I know where you are. And if you are using a proxy...you better hope it's trustworthy. Tor sort of works too, but nothing is fool-proof when you've got a fucking wire going to your house that you pay for under your own name

  • ICE = WMD (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Weapon of Mass Deportation.
    This country has THRIVED on immigrants. Treating them like gabage because of a few bad actors is bullshit.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Z80a ( 971949 )

      Legal immigrants.

    • We continue to treat immigrants well (Score:5, Insightful)

      by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Monday March 26, 2018 @05:27PM (#56330615)

      Most people support immigrants anywhere I've been in the U.S.

      Just as most people I've seen do not support ILLEGAL ALIENS. They are not immigrants; they are criminals, who have screwed over REAL immigrants that have been trying to come here legally but we don't allow very many because we already have so many people here illegally.

      Why should criminals be treated with any respect whatsoever? They are taking the place of immigrants.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by fonos ( 847221 )

        Plenty of undocumented immigrants aren't criminals. Immigration violations are mostly civil offenses.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by AHuxley ( 892839 )
          Entering a nation without been allowed to enter that nation is illegal.
          Normal people have documents and line up outside an embassy.
          They enter anther nation legal and work, study.
          Normal people ask another nation if they can move in and stay.
          Nations then look over that persons documents and grant that request.
          The person is then legal in another nation.
          Just wondering in and taking gov support services, jobs, using fake documents, using education, health care is illegal.

        • Immigration violations are mostly civil offenses.

          You are wrong. 8 U.S. Code Section 1325 [cornell.edu] "Improper entry by alien" makes it a criminal offense. Where did you get the idea that it wasn't a crime?

          • Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by fred911 ( 83970 )

          Wrong. If they work, they're felons. If they entered without permission, they're felons. If they let their visa expire and did nothing about it, felons.

          Even if they're just trying to survive.

      • We were smart enough to be born in the US. We chose educated parents with a privileged lifestyle and disposable income. Take a moment right now to pat yourself on the back for your well deserved advantages. Why should we be concerned about some fool who chose to be born in a dirt-poor family of seven far from 'civilized' life? Why should a billion refugees concern us? Why should we care that no education is available to those people, no paying work available and no hope for the future?

        If by some odd acciden

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Immigration has become a lot like the war on drugs. Rather than fight it so hard, it would be better to offer more legal options and provide more support for immigrants and communities with a lot of immigration.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by nagora ( 177841 )

        It is, of course, more complex than that. I don't know about the US but in the Africa->Europe flow many of the the immigrants have been lied to by the trafficers. So, Sipo starts off in a shithole country south of the Sahara with no prospects except that at least he'll die young. Pavel turns up in the village, or one of his agents does, and says that he can arrange for Sipo to get a legal work permit for the EU. There's even a promise of some work. Sipo is dubious but Pavel's guy has testimonies and samp

  • The article discusses that the government agency in question obtains legal approval and that is provided to the company to obtain information. It would appear legal requirements are met.
  • I don't care what color you are, what religion you are, what sex you are. Just a couple things. 1. Come here LEGALLY 2. Learn ENGLISH 3. Live within the laws of THIS country 4. Get a job and don't mooch off the government (same should go to those able to work that are born here) Other than that, I don't give a flip what you do, in the privacy of your own home... If you came to this country ILLEGALLY, even as a small child, go back to your home of origin, apply to come here legally. The so called "dreamers

  • Facebook would comply, just like IBM did, because corporates have no morals, only greed.

  • Why would they want to track immigrants? - Perhaps they're only interested in ILLEGAL immigrants? - That would make sense.

  • Boot the fuckers out.

  • "ICE, the federal agency tasked with Trump's program of mass deportation"

    Hate to ruin your agenda, but...
    https://www.politico.com/story... [politico.com]

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