Any time I see people say "I don't see why I should care about my privacy, I've got nothing to hide" I think about how badly things can go if the wrong people end up in positions of power.
The classic example here is what happens when someone is being stalked by an abusive ex-partner who works in law enforcement and has access to those databases.
This ICE stuff is that scaled up to a multi-billion dollar federal agency with, apparently, no accountability for following the law at all.
It doesn't even need malicious intent. If nobody rational is monitoring it, all it will take is a bad datapoint or hallucination for your door to get kicked in by mistake.
The same people saying that will also defend police wearing masks, hiding badges, and shutting off body cameras. They are not participating in discussions with the same values (truth, integrity) that you have. Logic does not work on people who believe Calvinistic predestination is the right model for society.
This statement isn't necessarily wrong because about half of elected government officials are Republican, but I want to point out that less than 60% of eligible Americans voted in 2024, so we're talking about <30% of Americans who vote Republican.
And honestly, with a Congress that allows every state, irrespective of population, two Senators, it is somewhat skewed. I mean San Jose, California is about double the population of the entire state of Wyoming.
i don't know why this is downvoted, it's a legit complaint.
wyoming has ~800k people. ohio has 11 million. the greater NYC area (parts of NJ, CT, etc.) has ~22 million. california has 40 million.
and as a parent poster mentioned, just slightly 1/3 of eligible voters chose trump; if "no candidate" was a choice it may have one most states, beating out kamala and trump.
I didn't downmod, but it's probably because they are represented by population in the House, a coequal chamber which approves the budget (and the Speaker of which is next in line for POTUS after the VP). States have equal representation in Senate so one high-population state can't write laws that only benefit them, or are disadvantageous to smaller states.
I don't believe there is any sort of conservative intellectual movement at this point. The right believes they have captured certain institutions (law enforcement, military), in the same way they believe the left has captured others (education/universities, media), and will use them to wage war against whichever group the big finger pointing men in charge tell them to.
Republicans are overwhelmingly Christian, and even though Calvinism, or its branches, may not be the religion a majority of Republicans “exercise”, predetermination is a convenient explanation of why the world is what it is, and why no action should be taken - so it gets used a lot by right wing media, etc.
A lot of American Christians aren't hyper committed to the specific theology of whichever flavor of Christianity they belong to, and will often sort of mix and match their own personal beliefs with what is orthodoxy.
That said, I'm ex-Catholic, so I don't feel super qualified to make a statement on the specific popularity of predestination among American evangelicals at the moment.
That said, in a less theological and more metaphorical sense, it does seem that many of them do believe in some sort of "good people" and "bad people", where the "bad people" are not particularly redeemable. It feels a little unfalsifiable though.
Some, probably; not all (and certainly not the current president, who in his more senile moments muses about how his works have probably earned him hell [0]).
But the same observation applies to lots of other attitudes, too—like “might makes right” and “nature is red in tooth and claw” or whatever else the dark princelings evince these days. I feel like “logic matters” mainly pertains to a liberal-enlightenment political context that might be in the past now…
Does reality always find a way to assert itself in the face of illogic? Sure! But if Our Side is righteous and infallible, the bad outcomes surely must be the fault of Those Scapegoats’ malfeasance—ipso facto we should punish them harder…
Calvinistic predestination is a TULIP sense (Total depravity, Unconditional election, Limited atonement, Irresistible grace, and Perseverance of the saints) is an extreme minority position, like 7% to 5% of the American Church (Reformed Camp)
It's amazing how quickly the party of small government, states rights, and the 2nd amendment quickly turned against all their principles. It really shows how many people care more about party than principle.
shows how many people care more about party than principle
"Trump’s net approval rating on immigration has declined by about 4 points since the day before Good’s death until today. Meanwhile, his overall approval rating has declined by 2 points and is near its second-term lows" [1].
I'd encourage anyone watching to actually pay attention to "how many people care more about party than principle." I suspect it's fewer than MAGA high command thinks.
The people who still support the orange troll live in an echo chamber where they've been sold the bullshit that quran waiving communist terrorists and the deep state are behind all of this, and it's a con job.
It's not that amazing. The Republican party has repeatedly demonstrated my entire life that their goal is power and all stated ideals can and will be sacrificed as needed to achieve that goal.
We get things like philandering individuals running on family values platforms, anti-gay individuals being caught performing gay sex acts in restaurant bathrooms, crowing about deficits and the national debt during Democrat administrations while cutting taxes and increasing spending during Republican administrations, blocking Supreme Court nominations because it's "too close to an election" while pushing through another Supreme Court nomination mere weeks before a subsequent election, etc.
The fuel running the Republican political machine is bad faith.
They haven’t turned against their principles. Party is the principle. You’re just confused because you thought their stated principles were real.
I spent too much of the 90s listening to Rush Limbaugh and consuming other conservative media and the exact same contradictions were prominently on display then. They absolutely excoriated law enforcement for things like the Waco siege. The phrase “jack-booted thugs” got used. But when LAPD beat the shit out of Rodney King on video, suddenly police could do no wrong.
I guess this is an example of FAFO? This is what the NRA wanted, now they got to find out how what happens when there are too many guns and too many idiots with guns masquerading as law enforcement. The guy had every right to have a gun, and the masked tyrants had no right to kill him for it.
They are not where I would hold them to if they were truly a principled organization and not largely a political tool for the far-right on any and every talking point, but we got far more out of them than we usually do.
They publicly called out a Trump appointee for saying you're not allowed to bring a gun to a protest, and have urged that there be an investigation in to what occurred.
They also then blamed it on the MN government, because for some reason CBP (250 miles from a border, and thus 150 miles away from their remit...) pretending to be police officers when they also lack a remit to do that and them then fucking things up and murdering people because of the lack of remit, lack of training, lack of screening on the hiring... is because of Walz and co.
So... better than I expected, but still pretty dogshit.
Police absolutely should have body cameras - quite frequently they’ve proven law enforcement officers handled things correctly where activists have tried to say otherwise.
Yet law enforcement officers are some of the most resistant to the idea, and Trump and DHS are extremely resistant to the idea of utilizing them for ICE and CBP, and have even cut funding for it.
When we know that the body cams are frequently used in a way that benefits the people wearing them, I find it quite telling when those people are railing against the idea and those in power actively work to block it.
This is the moment for Europe to show that you can do gov and business differently. If they get their s** together and actually present a viable alternative.
The classic example here is what happens when someone is being stalked by an abusive ex-partner who works in law enforcement and has access to those databases.
There’s a world of difference between a government using legally collected data for multiple purposes and an individual abusing their position purely for personal reasons.
The parent's example is of an individual using that "legal" state collected data for nefarious purposes. Once it's collected, anyone who accesses it is a threat vector. Also, governments (including/especially the US) have historically killed, imprisoned and tortured millions and millions of people. There's nothing to be gained by an individual for allowing government access to their data.
& effectively if there is no checks on this is there actually a difference? There only difference is that the threat is to an entire cohort rather than an individual.
The whole social battle is a constant attempt to align our laws and values as a society. It's why we create new laws. It's why we overturn old laws. You can't just abdicate your morals and let the law decide for you. That's not a system of democracy, that's a system of tyranny.
The privacy focused crowd often mentions "turnkey tyranny" as a major motivation. A tyrant who comes to power and changes the laws. A tyrant who comes to power and uses the existing tooling beyond what that tooling was ever intended for.
The law isn't what makes something right or wrong. I can't tell you what is, you'll have to use your brain and heart to figure that one out.
Musk and his flying monkeys came in with hard drives and sucked up all the data from all the agencies they had access to and installed software of some kind, likely containing backdoors. Even though each agency had remit for the data it maintained, they had been intentionally firewalled to prevent exactly what Palantir is doing.
There is also a world of difference between a government using data to carry out its various roles in service of the nation and a government using data to terrorize communities for the sadistic whims of its leadership.
Think I'm being hyperbolic? In Trump's first term fewer than 1M were deported. In Obama's eight years as president, 3.1M people were deported without the "techniques" we are witnessing.
There is 0 difference. None. There's not even a line to cross.
legally collected data
In both cases, the information is legally collected (or at least, that's the only data we're concerned about in this conversation).
- government using
- individual abusing
^ Both of those are someone in the government using the information. In both cases, someone in the government can use the information in a way that causes an individual great harm; and isn't in the "understood" way the information would be used when it was "pitched" to the public. And in both cases, the person doing it will do what they want an almost certainly face no repercussions if what they're doing is morally, or even legally, wrong.
The government is collecting data (or paying someone else to collect that data, so it's not covered by the rules) and can then use it to cause individuals great harm. That's it, the entire description. The fact that _sometimes_ it's one cop using it to stalk someone or not is irrelevant.
Also always keep in mind that what is legal today might be illegal tomorrow. This includes things like your ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation and much more.
You don't know today on which side of legality you will be in 10 years, even if your intentions are harmless.
The reaction from the masses: "But that isn't true today, anything could happen in the future, and why should I invest so much work on something that's only a possibility?"
People do not have justifications for most choices. We watch YouTube when we would benefit more from teaching ourselves skills. We eat too much of food we know is junk. We stay up too late and either let others walk over us at work to avoid overt conflict or start fights and make enemies to protect our own emotions. If you want to know why Americans are allowing themselves to be gradually reduced to slavery, do not ask why.
It's disingenuous to say Americans are "allowing" themselves to do anything in the face of countless, relentless, multi-billion corporate campaigns, designed by teams of educated individuals, to make them think and act in specific ways.
This. As much as I would like to say 'individual responsibility' and all that, the sheer amount of information that is designed to make one follow a specific path, react in specific way or offer opinion X is crazy. I am not entirely certain what the solution is, but I am saying this as a person, who likes to think I am somewhat aware of attempts to subvert my judgment and I still catch myself learning ( usually later after the fact ) that I am not as immune as I would like to think.
Who is most responsible for stopping Trump from doing horrible shit? Besides of course, Trump himself. Surely that must be his base, yes? Then followed by Americans at large. It’s surely not, say, Canada’s responsibility, no? There’s a spectrum of responsibility, and you can find out who is at the top of that spectrum of those that think the thing is bad, and hold them at least morally responsible. In this case, yes, that is individuals.
His base are the 0.01%. They could end this tomorrow by phoning their pet senators and having a quiet word.
The people on the front lines - including the ICE thugs - are entirely disposable. They people using them have zero interest in their welfare or how this works out for them in the long term. (Spoilers - not well.)
Of course they don't understand this. But this is absolutely standard for authoritarian fascism - groom and grudge farm the petty criminals and deviants, recruit them as regime enforcers with promises of money and freedom from consequences, set them loose, profit.
Who is most responsible for stopping Trump from doing horrible shit?
The Supreme Court. Then congressional leadership of both parties. After that perhaps we could look to governors of large states like New York or California.
There are, admittedly, layers do this post I don't think I have time to properly analyze, but I will do my best to be brief.
<< Who is most responsible for stopping Trump from doing horrible shit?
First, note that I did not mention anyone specific, but the poster chose to read my words that described a generic state of propaganda wielded by various power centers specifically as related to Trump.
Apart from the obvious that it now forces us to read the remaining posts with that lens, it also suggests that the poster is oblivious to other sources of propaganda.
<< Surely that must be his base, yes?
I am not particularly certain where that incessant need to end each sentence with a question demanding approval/acknowledgement comes from, but I did see it pop up in other languages suggesting it is not exactly an organic growth.
That said, as phrased, if it is his base, then the answer seems to be that his base is ok with it. But, and it is not a small but, base is not an individual and I would like you to carefully consider whether applying the same lens based on political leaning is.. well.. smart. Things tend go awry with group punishments.
A valid perspective, and I agree that a democracy only works as long as its citizens remain civically engaged. Unfortunately, I think it's too late for the US in its current form, and it might not be long before we see it split up into smaller regions, unless something suddenly kicks Congress into gear and people break ranks to impeach and disparage the Trump administration.
I can’t understand republicans in congress. They’d rather be a powerful dung eater than a respectable ex-congressman. Jan 6th should have been the last straw.
Its never too late, eventually things will turn and when that happens, you will be in either the right position, or the wrong position, depending on your actions.
with the kind of images that are out in the open for everybody with their own eyes to see, if that does not move you in your heart of hearts, where no government or anyone else can touch you, there is something rotten in that person.
Governments and authority figures can show you a lot of things but the amount of people who not just accept it, but gleefully celebrate the most vulnerable people in society beaten by government thugs, there is no excuse. People can show you false images, false numbers but they can't make you feel proud for the strong abusing the weak. It's particularly appalling if you see the amount of them who call themselves Christians.
The problem is that by the time some people encounter these shocking images and videos of mass human torture, their priors have already been developed to reject their eyes and ears in favor of what the people with whom they've entrusted their safety tell them.
These people think Charlie Kirk was on the frontlines of personal freedom, but look the other way when a man gets tackled and shot in broad daylight for trying to help a woman who's just been maced.
It's horrible, and inexcusable, but still crucial to understand through a framework that accounts for the effects of multi-generational propaganda peddled by the ultra-rich who have been shaping our thoughts and behaviors through advertisement and capital for hundreds of years.
<< shot in broad daylight for trying to help a woman who's just been maced.
Yes.. do I get to get between DEA and their intended target? No? If not, why not. If yes, why yes? The framing is silly.
The death may be tragic and very much avoidable, but it was avoidable on both ends of this interaction. There is no comparison to Kirk here at all. He came to talk to people. Pretti went there as part of a signal group coordinating to obstruct a federal enforcement agency..
Ngl.. how people choose their heroes is beyond me.
I can point to countless times in history where belief in the Christian God was used to murder, subjugate and torture "others". The reality is that, regardless of what nice things Jesus may or may not have said, Christianity as an institution has always been used as a tool for power and coercion. That goes for all Abrahamic religions.
I sometimes imagine that HN was a professional collective. Maybe working with the supply chain of foodstuffs. Carciogenic foodstuff would be legal. Environmental harzards getting into foodstuff would be legal. But there would be a highly ideological subgroup that would advocate for something that would very indirectly handle these problems. And the rest of the professional collective are mixed and divided on whether they are good or what they are actually working towards. A few would have the insight to realize that one of the main people behind the group foresaw these problems that are current right now 30 years ago.
That people ingest environmental hazards and carciogens would be viewed as a failure of da masses to abstractly consider the pitfalls of understanding the problems inherent to the logistics of foodstuffs in the context of big corporations.
The older I get the more disconnected I feel from some of the posters on this site. I can't remember exactly when I joined, 2012ish maybe? But the takes people have seem to be getting wilder and wilder.
Most users here are American, have you seen what is happening in America?
The funny (sad) thing is all the hot takes about the UK or Europe being a "police state" because porn is being blocked for kids, or persistent abuse on social media actually has repercussion (as it does in the real world already).
Meanwhile ICE are murdering US citizens in the streets. Turns out American "free speech" doesn't prevent an authoritarian regime taking hold.
To clarify, i do believe in free speech. But until you are bundled into a black car for holding up poster with a political statement (like in Russia or China), you have free speech. Attempting to stop abuse on social media is not the same. The closest we have to preventing free speech in the UK is the Israel/Gaza "issue".
Lucy Connolly was imprisoned for about a year in the UK for posting an inflammatory anti-immigration social media post which was deemed illegal under UK law, and is currently being threatened (https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/2157938/lucy-connolly-pris... ) with being returned to jail for posting social media content attacking the current UK government.
This is hardly the only example of the UK, or other Anglophone democracies, criminalizing speech with actual prison time. I'm not happy with UK laws trying to block VPNs under the pretense of blocking porn for minors either.
Can’t even incite murder anymore without being put in prison; it’s political correctness gone mad!
There is no country in the world where inciting arson of housing counts as free speech. The UK has actual problems with free speech (particularly the Online Safety Act), but this isn't one of them.
In whatsapp:
She said that if Ofsted were to get involved, she would tell them it was not her and that she had been the victim of doxing
Bit more crime, there (she worked in a regulated industry around kids; lying to the regulator isn't allowed).
She went on to say that if she got arrested she would “play the mental health card”.
PLEASE STOP SAYING YOU WILL DO CRIMES.
(I'm always amazed that so many criminals end up having these incriminating conversations on WhatsApp and similar; have they never read the news or watched any crime drama? In a vacuum she'd probably have got off!)
My interpretation: advocating for privacy without making effort to avoid a large part of the society goes "crazy" will not protect you much on the long term.
I do like "engineering solutions" (ex: not storing too much data), but I start to think it is important to make more effort on more broad social, legal and political aspects.
EU is literally debating about "Chat Control". Its purpose is to scan for child sexual abuse material in internet traffic. But its at the cost of breaking end to end encryption.
The real purpose is to break end to end encryption to increase government surveillance and power. "But think of the children" or "be afraid of the terrorists" are just the excuses those in power rotate through to to achieve their true desired ends.
These are both true statements, but there's a huge difference in scale.
The UK arrests 12,000 people per year for social media posts ( https://freedomhouse.org/country/united-kingdom/freedom-net/... ), for a broad range of vague reasons including causing offense. That's far more than much larger totalitarian nations like Russia and China.
The US arrests folks for direct online threats of violence - a much higher bar.
Yes, that was egregious and well-publicized. I've seen another case of a small-town sheriff arresting someone for a Facebook post that absolutely was not a threat of violence. Both were released and I believe the latter won a lawsuit for wrongful arrest.
But in general in the US "offending" others is not a legal basis for arrest, as much as some in power would like it to be.
If the sheriff who arrested this person has zero personal consequences that make him change his behavior, then it is de facto legal for them to arrest you for your speech.
They can do what they like, and your compensation if the courts think you were harmed, comes out of your own pocket as a taxpayer.
Show me the incentives and I’ll show you the outcome. The incentive here is that someone the government don’t like got put in a cell for a month and couldn’t speak, and they get no downsides. I wonder what will keep happening more and more.
The UK arrests 12,000 people per year for social media posts ( https://freedomhouse.org/country/united-kingdom/freedom-net/... ), for a broad range of vague reasons including causing offense. That's far more than much larger totalitarian nations like Russia and China.
No they do not. Quote, from your own link:
According to an April 2025 freedom of information report filed by The Times, over 12,000 people were arrested, including for social media posts, in 2023 under section 127 of the Communications Act 2003 and section 1 of the Malicious Communications Act 1988.
Emphasis mine. "Including". Not exclusively, not only, including.
Now what does the law being cited actually say[1]?
It is an offence under these sections to send messages of a “grossly offensive” or “indecent, obscene or menacing” character or persistently use a public electronic communications network to cause “annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety”.
A spokeswoman for Leicestershire police said crimes under Section 127 and Section 1 include “any form of communication” such as phone calls, letters, emails and hoax calls to emergency services.
“They may also be serious domestic abuse-related crimes. Our staff must assess all of the information to determine if the threshold to record a crime has been met.
So you're deliberately spreading misinformation here, as was the original article by the Times and as is everyone else who keeps quoting this figure. Because by means of lying by omission they want to imply one very specific thing: "you will be arrested for criticizing the government on social media". But the actual crime statistic is about a much more common, much broader category of crime - namely: harassment. That 12,000 a year figure includes targeted harassment by almost any carriage medium, as well as crimes like "prank" calling emergency services. It means it includes death threats, stalking, domestic abuse and just about every other type of non-physical abuse or intimidation.
Of course you could've also figured out this is bullshit with a very simple litmus test: 12,000 people a year wouldn't be hard to find if the UK was mass-jailing people on public social media. But it's not what's happening.
There weren't ex post facto laws being passed during the holocaust.
the argument isn't that states can't create ex-post facto laws (even though they can, see: any country with parliamentary sovereignty)
it's that what the law says doesn't matter when the executive no is longer bound by the rule of law
see: the United States under the Trump regime
the fact that some previous legislature has passed a law saying that "using the gay/jewish/disabled/... database for bad things is illegal" is of no consequence when the state already has the database and has no interest in upholding the rule of law
This type of thinking is what is leading to the destruction of order there.
Are you sure it's this kind of thinking that's at fault? I would've said that it's actually caused by giving people without training and any serious screening extreme power with absolutely zero accountability. Would love to hear your take on this though.
This type of thinking is what is leading to the destruction of order there.
Yes, we are seeing a destruction of order in MN. US citizens being terrorized by ICE and CBP agents with 47 days of training, no understanding of the legal limits of their authority, and no consequences when they go beyond those limits.
But that's not being caused by people pushing back against the beginnings of autocracy. That's being caused by the people who want to become autocrats.
The US is currently descending into fascim. With each passing day, we see more bold and obviously illegal actions that we would not have dreamed up in our wildest nightmares.
Wait, so you think government that will make some "ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation and much more" illegal is probable enough to consider such hypothetical situation, but government that will ignore law is where you draw the line?
Laws cannot an action a crime after it was committed. However,
- Civil rules can and do impact things retroactively
- Laws may not make something illegal retroactively, but the interpretation of a law can suddenly change; which works out the same thing.
- The thing you're doing could suddenly become illegal with on way for you to avoid doing it (such as people being here legally and suddenly the laws for what is legally changes). This isn't retroactive, but it might as well be.
It is _entirely_ possible for someone to act in a way that is acceptable today but is illegal, or incurs huge civil penalties, tomorrow.
They want to declare "Antifa" a terrorist organization. So anyone that is against fascism (ANTI-FAscist) will be labeled a terrorist. Let that sink in for a moment.
The simple response to that line of thinking is: "you don't choose what the government uses against you"
For any piece of data that exists, the government effectively has access to it through court orders or backdoors. Either way, it can and will be used against you.
The true problem is that it happens no matter who is in charge. It's like that old phrase about weapons that are invented are going to be used at some point. The same thing has turned out to be true for intelligence tools. And the worst part is that the tools have become so capable, that malicious intent isn't even required anymore for privacy to be infringed.
From everything we are seeing, the tools are not actually that capable. Their main function is not their stated function of spying/knowing a lot about people. Their main function is to dehumanize people.
When you use a computer to tell you who to target, it makes it easy for your brain to never consider that person as a human being at all. They are a target. An object.
Their stated capabilities are lies, marketing, and a smokescreen for their true purpose.
This is Lavender v2, and I’m sure others could name additional predecessors. Systems rife with errors but the validity isn’t the point; the system is.
For me, the angle is a bit different. I want privacy, but I also sense that the people who are really good at this (like Plantir) have so much proxy information available that individual steps to protect privacy are pretty much worthless.
To me, this is a problem that can only be solved at the government/regulatory level.
In principle, I agree with your point; in practice, I think the claims made my these surveillance/advertising companies are likely as overstated as Musk's last decade of self-driving that still can't take a vehicle all the way across the USA without supervision in response to a phone summons.
The evidence I have that causes me to believe them to be overstated, is how even Facebook has frequently shown me ads that inherently make errors about my gender, nationality, the country I live in, and the languages I speak, and those are things they should've been able to figure out with my name, GeoIP, and the occasional message I write.
Do any of these actually prompt someone to reconsider their position? They strike me as more of argument through being annoying than a good-faith attempt to connect with the other side.
“Ultimately, arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say.”
Not as clever as it may sound. It is perfectly possible that someone has nothing to hide in a good way, whereas someone without anything to say for himself cannot be easily imagined as a good faith social individual. So in a way this is comparing apples to bad apples and claiming they are perfectly equal.
I feel "people should not have have consequences for what they say", and "people should be able to avoid consequences for what they have done", are separate concepts. One does not require believing in the other. For example I believe the former, but for the latter I believe everyone should be punished when they break the law.
People should have consequences for what they say, but not from the government. You should never be prosecuted for what you say, no matter how vile. But other people are free to exercise their rights in response, including freedom of association.
So if public figures with a sizeable following start calling for you and your family to be chased down and gutted like animals, should they legally be allowed to do that? Do you actually believe that?
I feel "people should not have have consequences for what they say", and "people should be able to avoid consequences for what they have done", are separate concepts.
'Saying' is an example of 'doing', and the moderation to speech happens after the fact, including (yes) in USA. Consider the case of a person yelling fire or 'he's got a gun!' when there is none, or a death threat.
Generally speaking, I think the point of statements like this is to shoot down the trite and thought-free cliche "if you have nothing to hide". And the point is rarely to convince the person you're speaking to, it's usually to get people who might otherwise be swayed by hearing the trite and thought-free cliche to think for a moment.
If you're talking directly to one person and trying to convince them, without an audience, there are likely different tactics that might work, but even then, some of the same approach might help, just couched more politely. "You don't actually mean that; do you want a camera in your bedroom with a direct feed to the police? What do you actually mean, here? What are you trying to solve?"
Option A: "Yes!", which tells you you're probably talking to someone who cares more about not admitting they're wrong than thinking about what they're saying.
Option B: "Well, no, but...", and now you're having a discussion.
Generally speaking, people who say things like "if you have nothing to hide" either (charitably) haven't thought about it very much and are vaguely wanting to be "strict on crime" without thought for the consequences because they can't imagine it affecting them, or (uncharitably) have attitudes about what they consider "shameful" and they really mean "you shouldn't do things that I think you should feel shame about".
Quite. I think a lot of Americans are acculturated (partly via movies and TV) to constant one-upmanship and trying to end disagreements with zingers. Look how many political videos on YouTube are titled 'Pundit you like DESTROYS person you disapprove of!' You see the same patterns in Presidential 'debates' and Congressional hearings. It's all very dramatic but lacking in real substance.
I think the "nothing to hide" argument is made for a different reason.
People are unafraid of the government knowing certain things because they believe it will not have any real repercussions for them. The NSA knowing your search history is no big deal (as long as you're not looking for anything illegal), but your church knowing your search history would absolutely be a big deal.
People are unafraid of the government knowing certain things because they believe it will not have any real repercussions for them.
A very famous quote: "Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect."
Many people - particularly white people, but let's not ignore that a bunch of Black and Latino folks are/have been Trump supporters - believe that they are part of the in-group. And inevitably, they find out that the government doesn't care, as evidenced by ICE and their infamous quota of 3000 arrests a day... which has hit a ton of these people, memefied as "leopards ate my face".
The NSA knowing your search history is no big deal (as long as you're not looking for anything illegal)
Until someone at or above the TSA decides they don't like you. And then they use your search history to blackmail you. Because lots of people search for things that wouldn't be comfortable being public. Or search for things that could easily be taken out of context. Especially when that out of context makes it seem like they might be planning something illegal
Heck, there's lots of times where people mention a term / name for something on the internet; and, even though that thing is benign, the _name/term_ for it is not. It's common for people to note that they're not going to search for that term to learn more about it, because it will look bad or the results will include things they don't want to see.
Law enforcement are civilians like you or me. It was a big mistake to grant them special rights. If they can arrest people then it should be legal for you and me to arrest a LEO. Why should any person have special rights in a Democracy?
Which are quippy and dismissed because they fundamentally misunderstand privacy. There is such a concept as "privacy in a crowd" - you expect, and experience it, every day. You generally expect to be able to have a conversation in say, a coffee-shop, and not have it intruded upon and commented upon by other people in the shop. Snippets of it may be overheard, but they will be largely ignored even if we're all completely aware of snippets of other conversations we have heard, and bits and pieces have probably been recorded on peoples phones or vlogs or whatever.
That's privacy in a crowd and even if they couldn't describe it, people do recognize it.
What you are proposing in every single one of these, is violating that in an overt and disruptive way - i.e.
"Let's send your mom all your text messages."
Do I have anything in particular to hide in my text messages, of truly disastrous proportions? No. But would it feel intrusive for a known person who I have to interact with to get to scrutinize and comment on all those interactions? Yes. In much the same way that if someone on the table over starts commenting on my conversation in a coffee-shop, I'd suddenly not much want to have one there.
Which is very, very different from any notion of some amorphous entity somewhere having my data, or even it being looked at by a specific person I don't know, won't interact with, and will never be aware personally exists. Far less so if the only viewers are algorithms aggregating statistics.
I'm pro-privacy and I still think these retorts just make it sound like you've put zero effort into understanding what the "nothing to hide" people are trying to articulate.
E.g. "Can we put a camera in your bathroom?"
Very few people are arguing that nudity or bathroom use shouldn't be private, and they are not going to understand what this has to do with their argument that the NSA should be allowed to see Google searches to fight terrorism or whatever.
Privacy arguments are about who should have access to what information. For example, I'm fine with Google seeing my Google searches, but not the government monitoring them.
"I've got nothing to hide." is a rather extreme statement. The people who say it don't mean it literally. But saying something they don't mean aren't really helping their points across. I think OP’s retorts are simply to show how absurd the “I’ve got nothing to hide” claim is, regardless of how effective the retorts are.
I'm not out to defend "I've got nothing to hide", but those who say it are usually saying it about a specific policy (e.g. the NSA monitoring searches). It's usually clear what the context is and that's what you have to argue against to actually engage and convince someone. They probably do mean quite literally that they have nothing to hide from the government. It's not an extreme statement in context.
But on the internet we often do this thing where we take the weakest version or a distorted version of an opposing side's argument and ridicule that. It's not quite strawmanning because we never specified who we're arguing against, and surely we can imagine someone, somewhere on the internet has the ridiculous viewpoint. But it's not a common viewpoint (that, for example, we shouldn't have privacy in the bathroom). Doing this only gets us pats on the back from those who already agree with us and deludes us about our opponent's position.
Are you saying that, because there is one way in which people are vulnerable, that it doesn't matter if we add more ways they are vulnerable? Because that makes no sense whatsoever.
The classic example here is what happens when someone is being stalked by an abusive ex-partner who works in law enforcement and has access to those databases.
Which has literally happened already for anyone who thinks “there’s controls in place for that sort of thing”. That’s with (generally) good faith actors in power. What do you think can and will happen when people who think democracy and the constitution are unnecessary end up in control…
I don’t agree. I’m fine ICE can see my data, as long as there are process enforced to track those usage and I have a right to fight back for their misuse.
Problem today is ICE has no accountability of misuse data/violence, not they have means to data/violence.
I’m fine ICE can see my data, as long as there are process enforced to track those usage and I have a right to fight back for their misuse
I agree with this in theory, but its a fantasy to think they have this restriction at this point. ICE seems to be taking all comers, the lowest of the low, the vilest of the vile, giving them "47 days of training," and sending them off armed into the populace. I have seen no evidence they believe they have any restriction on anything. It's basically DOGE but with guns instead of keyboards.
I'd rather ICE (or whatever government agency) not see my data... because, even if there are processes that are enforced, there might not be tomorrow. If that data isn't collected in the first place, that threat vector disappears.
It reminds me of when Eric Schmidt, then CEO of google, tried that argument about people's worry of google collecting so much personal data. Some media outlet then published a bunch of personal information about Schmidt they had gathered using only google searches, including where he lives, his salary, his political donations, and where his kids went to school. Schmidt was not amused.
Back in the day, Google eng had pretty unguarded access to people's gmails, calendars, etc. Then there was a news story involving a Google SRE grooming children and stalking them through their google accounts...
That questionable-sounding stunt by the media outlet wasn't comparable: Google/Alphabet knows much more about individuals than addresses, salary, and political donations.
Google/Alphabet knows quite a lot about your sentiments, what information you've seen, your relationships, who can get to you, who you can get to, your hopes and fears, your economic situation, your health conditions, assorted kompromat, your movements, etc.
Schmidt is actually from OG Internet circles where many people were aware of privacy issues, and who were vigilant against incursions.
But perhaps he had a different philosophical position. Or perhaps it was his job to downplay the risks. Or perhaps he was going to have enough money and power that he wasn't personally threatened by private info that would threaten the less-wealthy.
We might learn this year, how well Google/Alphabet protects this treasure trove of surveillance state data, when that matters most.
Schmidt is actually from OG Internet circles where many people were aware of privacy issues, and who were vigilant against incursions.
But perhaps he had a different philosophical position. Or perhaps it was his job to downplay the risks
I feel that as the consumer surveillance industry took off, everyone from those OG Internet circles was presented with a choice - stick with the individualist hacker spirit, or turncoat and build systems of corporate control. The people who chose power ended up incredibly rich, while the people who chose freedom got to watch the world burn while saying I told you so.
(There were also a lot of fence sitters in the middle who chose power but assuaged their own egos with slogans like "Don't be evil" and whatnot)
Yes, I remember that period of conscious choice, and the fence-sitting or rationalizing.
The thing about "Don't Be Evil" at the time, is that (my impression was) everyone thought they knew what that meant, because it was a popular sentiment.
The OG Internet people I'm talking about aren't only the Levy-style hackers, with strong individualist bents, but there was also a lot of collectivism.
And the individualists and collectivists mostly cooperated, or at least coexisted.
And all were pretty universally united in their skepticism of MBAs (halfwits who only care about near-term money and personal incentives), Wall Street bros (evil, coming off of '80s greed-is-good pillaging), and politicians (in the old "their lips are moving" way, not like the modern threats).
Of course it wasn't just the OG people choosing. That period of choice coincided with an influx of people who previously would've gone to Wall Street, as well as a ton of non-ruthless people who would just adapt to what culture they were shown. The money then determined the culture.
Sorry, I didn't mean to write out the hacker collectivists. I said "individualist" because to me hacking is a pretty individualist activity, even if one's ultimate goal is to contribute to some kind of collective. Or maybe I just don't truly understand collectives, I don't know.
But yes, individualists and collectivists mostly cooperated and coexisted. I'd say this is because they were merely different takes on the same liberating ground truths. Or at least liberating-seeming perceptions of ground truths...
There's a popular video on YouTube of him eating skin peeled from his foot during a lecture at a college. Not AI, very old, repellant to normal people.
Yeah, being unaffected by social pressure when philosophizing about what is moral and liberating is strongly related to being unaffected by social pressure regarding personal hygiene and social norms, unfortunately. Still I'd rather have the weirdos, especially this one particular weirdo, than not! Stallman has blazed the trail for us slightly-more-socially-aware types to follow, while we look/act just a little more reasonable.
Having met him one time he seemed like just a really intense dude who embodied the chestnut “the CEO is the guy who walks in and says ‘I’m CEO’.” I dunno if there’s more to it than that.
It was probably a decade ago and I recall using something within Google that would tell you about who they thought you were. It profiled me as a middle eastern middle aged man or something like that which was… way off.
If I were extremely cynical, I would suspect they might have intentionally falsified that response to make it seem like they were more naive than they actually were.
I suspect the more likely scenario is they don't actually care how accurate these nominal categorizations are. The information they're ultimately trying to extract is, given your history, how likely you are to click through a particular ad and engage in the way the advertiser wants (typically buying a product), and I would be surprised if the way they calculate that was human interpretable. In the Facebook incident where they were called out for intentionally targeting ads at young girls who were emotionally vulnerable, Facebook clarified that they were merely pointing out to customers that this data was available to Facebook, and that advertisers couldn't intentionally use it.[0] Of course, the result is the same, the culpability is just laundered through software, and nobody can prove it's happening. The winks and nudges from Facebook to its clients are all just marketing copy, they don't know whether these features are invisibly determined any more than we do. Similarly, your Google labels may be, to our eyes, entirely inaccurate, but the underlying data that populates them is going to be effective all the same.
I think its their currently targeted ad demographic or whatever. Its probably a "meaningless" label to humans, but to the computer it makes more sense, he probably watches the same content / googles the same things as some random person who got that label originally, and then anyone else who matched it.
male, lives in this region, has an income between X to X+40000, and has used the following terms in chat or email, regardless of context, in the last 6 months: touchdown, home run, punt, etc. etc.
the ad game is not about profiling you specifically, it's about how many people in a group are likely to click and convert to a sale; they're targeting 6 million people, not you specifically, and that's balanced by how much the people who want the ads are willing to pay.
palantir or chinese social credit, etc., is targeting you specifically, and they don't care about costs if it means they can control the system, forever.
The idea that Google’s lack of knowledge of you a decade ago is somehow related to what they know today is naive. Dangerously naive, I would say. Ad targeting technology (= knowledge about you) is shocking good now.
Color me unconvinced. Google can't even figure what language I speak even though I voluntarily provide them the information in several different ways. I can't understand half the ads they serve me.
Google doesn't choose what ad to show you. Google serves up a platter of details and auctions the ad placement off to the highest bidder.
That platter of details is not shown to you, the consumer.
What you are experiencing is that your ad profile isn't valuable to most bidders, ie you don't buy stuff as much as other people do, or your ad profile is somehow super attractive to stupid companies that suck at running ads who are overpaying for bad matches.
It is not evidence that google knows nothing about you.
Google is pleased that you think they don't know you. It helps keep the pressure down when people mistake this system for "Perfectly target ads". The system is designed to make google money regardless of how good or bad their profile of you is.
It's not just the ads though. Am I to think that Youtube helpfully replacing a video title (whose original text I understand) by a half-assed translation into a language that I don't speak is actually Alphabet playing 5D chess ? If so, hats off to you, Google. I totally fell for it.
It wasn’t a stunt and there was nothing questionable about it. I’m amazed by how easily people shit all over journalists - it really has to end because it is precisely how truth dies.
Here’s a question - since you have such strong feelings did you write the editor of the piece for their explanation?
If it was his job to downplay the risk's then he absolutely deserved at least this.
Google or any other US company will not be defending your's or anyone's else's data. It's not only that they doesn't want to(which they dont) but they simply can't.
You must comply with the law and you do not want to currently piss off anyone's at the top.
Eric had also once said in a CNBC interview "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place."
Thiel lost his shit because Gawker mentioned he was gay in an article on their site. Something _everybody_ in Silicon Valley already knew. Then he goes and forms what essentially amounts to a private CIA.
How about Musk? He felt he had a right to hoover up data about people from every government agency, but throws a massive temper-tantrum when people publish where his private jet is flying using publicly available data.
How about Mark Zuckerberg? So private he buys up all the properties around him and has his private goon squad stopping people on public property who live in the neighborhood, haranguing them just for walking past or near the property.
These people are all supremely hypocritical when it comes to privacy.
i hate defending thiel since hes literally destroying society, but he didn't get mad at gawker just for outing him
he got mad at gawker for deliberately outing him right as he went to meet the saudis for negotiations. a country that literally executes gay people. at best it strained the negotiations and made things awkward, and at worst could have put him in peril.
you dont just out people without their consent, and that goes for rich or poor.
So he was willing to make a business deal with the country that executes gay people, as long as HE wasn't in danger? Legitimizing their regime is perfectly OK if it doesn't affect him? The fact that he was negotiating with them makes that incident look even worse for him, not Gawker
Maybe his social media profiles at the time (public, because I'm not "friends" with him) shouldn't have included photos and posts about gay cruise ship vacations.
Or perhaps don't do business with people who would happily execute you? All that says to me is Thiel values money over anything else.
The insinuation that Gawker in any way shape or form "outed" him is just laughable.
Gawker is absolutely trash media, to be quite clear.
and that goes for rich or poor
I do agree about this, for certain things - but in others, no - and indeed, courts have ruled that billionaires are inherently "public figures"... "due to their outsized influence on public affairs and opinion".
I also have significant issues with his bankrolling of Hogan's lawsuit against Gawker as an abomination of the legal system, including the right to face one's "accuser":
- Hogan had already agreed in principle to a part ownership stake and profits of Gawker.
- Lawyers paid for by Thiel pushed for him to drop that and push instead for bankrupting Gawker through damages (which were laughable, see below). (Hypothetical question, if you're an attorney, ostensibly representing Hogan, but you know the person paying your bills, Thiel, wants a different outcome for the case, when push comes to shove, whose interests are you going to represent? See the following point too).
- When the case and awarded damages -did- actually threaten to bankrupt Gawker, Thiel/Hogan's lawyers did the most illogical thing possible, if they were looking to recoup any money for their ostensible client... they dropped the one claim against Gawker that would have allowed their liability insurance to at least partially pay out.
(Re damages: The amount that Hogan had originally asked for seemed reasonable. Then after Thiel's lawyers got involved, the amount asked for was multiplied five thousand times.
This included economic damages of fifty million dollars. For a man who had made something in the order of $10-15M his entire career? Who had a net worth at its peak of $30M, and at the time of the lawsuit of $8M? I highly doubt that TV stations pulling reruns of old WWF events, lost hair commercial and other endorsements was worth that. (They separately asked for emotional damages, too, to be clear. But there was near zero justification for this economic damages claim.)
I wonder how much Thiel paid Hogan under the table for this proxy lawsuit?
And this is what every hacker on the planet should be doing: exposing all of the secrets of the rich parasites. Leave them no quarter, no place too hide.
Even if you trust the intentions of whoever you're giving your data to, you may not trust their ability to keep it safe from data breaches. Those happen all the time.
The business is equally blamed. But ever aince Uber showed up and violated laws in all jurisdictions, we always focus on the cops and not the criminals.
The "they look like us" fallacy is so deep in this.
ICE and DHS already were bloated and somehow grew from not existing 25 years ago to a $100 billion budget. Then the big Trump spending bill added another $200 billion to their budget. And there’s no accountability for who gets that money - it’s all friends and donors and members of the Trump family.
They have money for this grift of epic scale but complain about some tiny alleged Somalian fraud to distract the gullible MAGA base. And of course there is somehow not enough money for things people actually need like healthcare.
This ICE stuff is that scaled up to a multi-billion dollar federal agency with, apparently, no accountability for following the law at all.
Apparently any time they do anything horrifying, they will just declare that victim as a "terrorist" or something, and their sycophantic supporters will happily agree.
What I find amusing is that when the Snowden leaks happened and I would discuss it, when I said something like "let's pretend for a moment that we can't trust every single person in the government" I would usually get an agreeable laugh.
But using these same arguments with ICE + Palantir, these same people will say something like "ICE IS ONLY DEPORTING THE CRIMINALS YOU JUST WANT OPEN BORDERS!!!". People's hypocrisy knows no bounds.
Well, they might as well be if you can't reason with them. There are some prime examples right here on HN who defy the imagination in terms of how far they will go to defend the indefensible, to come out swinging to make sure you realize that they will go to any length to stand for their 'principles'. And they probably believe the reverse is true as well, they see the rest of us as the ones that are terribly wrong, misguided and the subject of propaganda.
I find it odd that Americans aren't angrier about Russia running disinfo bot networks for over a decade now, building up to almost everything in the current cultural moment.
Also odd that the tech behind this isn't more talked about. I lost the source but there was something about bot networks that could argue both sides of a topic to feign the illusion of a real debate - and this predated ChatGPT by many years.
Big platforms like Google or X have only mildly experimented with heavenbanning and discourse manipulation at scale. These Russian networks have had at least a decades' worth of experience with it.
Somehow, in reducing all political opponents to bots, the discourse does seem to forget that there's often someone behind the bots, a tangible nation-state of a target.
I think in part this is because it would require them to admit that they've been had, which is even worse than to have to admit you're a terrible person. Being terrible is one thing, most people can handle that. Being so utterly dumb that you've been carrying water against your own country and effectively are in every sense of the word a useful idiot is a thing most people would shy away from.
Psychology is weird. As soon as something becomes a part of your identity you start living as though it is really you that is attacked, rather than the thing you stand for, no matter what it is, no matter whether it is positive or negative. The response is invariable to dig in.
Religion, atheism, vegetarianism, fascism, libertarian, democrat or republican, fan of Arsenal or rather the opposite and so on. They all tap into some kind of deep tribal sense of belonging and people will go to extreme lengths to defend their tribe at the expense of themselves. There probably is a direct evolutionary link here as well.
In some sense, it is a part of one's identity, for one can't easily separate the worldview from the person. But we enter a strange era when your identity is challenged and remoulded by a non-human entity.
People have always derived a tribal sense of belonging from a set of worldviews, but these views are now perpetuated by robots. These anti-immigration or anti-brown or post-renaissance worldviews are lived by very few people of flesh and blood - it's a set of interlinked concepts and ideals in an imaginary post-truth world.
But it lives more in silicon than in some Aryan ideal. And if you had to draw a line from this silicon to reality, you'd still end up in Crimea or in Pokrovsk, watching a 21st-century battle with echoes of WWI. It is about land and power and politics, like it always has been. But the person fighting "woke" in a comment section over a made-up story about a made-up Disney film doesn't know it.
I'm in India, so the second-order effects of all this are even more surreal here. You get Christians cheering the rise of a Hindutva nationalist government because it's "anti-woke" (only to get heckled and beaten up during Christmas) and Trump supporters doing religious ceremonies for the man for the same reason (only to get the nation's entire suite of exports tariffed), and you see cabs with giant Russia Today ads on their sides in the streets (but the discounted oil we buy from Russia has not dropped prices at the pump by even a rupee). Our lived reality has very little in common with these digital culture wars.
I find it odd that Americans aren't angrier about Russia running disinfo bot networks for over a decade now
Half the country has been convinced that stories about Russia running disinformation campaigns are a hoaxes.
I lost the source but there was something about bot networks that could argue both sides of a topic to feign the illusion of a real debate
I read a similar argument years ago about how disinformation gets into the networks. It starts with bots sharing and discussing with each other until it reaches the level to hit a few real people (useful idiots) who then share it out giving it more credence. Musk comes to mind as a key target for these types of posts now.
i have been screaming that this is possibly the #1 information systems problem/failure that has led us to where we are and i have seen no thought leaders or solutions emerge. it's imo the top impact vector and the most critical thing that must be addressed to take the foot off the gas. it's the other side of the double edged blade of open and free internet and we are so far beyond trusting that open and free on its own is going to naturally sort itself out. nothing is being done to combat this, everyone that has the wits and intelligence to problem solve in this arena is head down reading about the next claude code update.
i'm terrified/hopeless tbh, this fucking sucks. i've always seen this as the number one thing that is destabilizing countries around the world. this shit is not contained to the US and other countries will follow our course in the coming years without efforts to solve for russia/iran/china and their damn ass bots. these things are way more sophisticated than people think and most people cannot discern the difference. they can and do simulate arguments in comment sections to play up a winning side in a believable way.
already happening mate. credible reporting says 20-40% of social media ain't people.
you think a news site about tech startups run by their incubator -- who has serious interest in seeing these companies make money -- wouldn't run shillbots 24/7?
I mean, tens of millions of people voted for this. So even if social media sentiment is mostly bot-driven, it's provably backed up or supported by what real people deeply believe and want and will continue to vote for in mid-terms.
Yes, exactly. But, I’ll admit it took me until the republican primary before the 2016 election for this to register in my mind. I was born in the US in the 80s & fell into the “what you see is all there is” bias (and hadn’t read enough history before then either).
Another opinion that I’m sure will get me downvoted is that this is the primary reason I support gun ownership by private citizens. I think having a chance at stopping mass government slaughter like in Iran and Syria is overall better than the downside.
Bottom line is that human nature has not changed. Some of us westerners take comfortable lives for granted because we’ve been lucky.
I think having a chance at stopping mass government slaughter
This would be questionable 100 years ago, let alone today's technology. Civils just can't organize efficiently, and "heads" (like someone locally coordinating civils) can be cut off easily by a central force (like it's just a drone strike away). The only real power is that a sane military will not turn against their own people. You don't need weapons for that.
You don't need gun freedom to avoid mass government slaughter like in Iran. I live in France and I feel safe even though I can't defend my home with a gun. The door is pretty strong and if I go outside I know that the worst thing that can be against me is a knife or a dog, something I never saw used against someone with my own eyes, only in the newspapers.
What is required is a constant fight against obscurantism. It's a cultural battle.
You can buy black powder guns over the counter in france and easily make or import the black powder from elsewhere in the EU. A black powder revolver is damn good for self defense, just needs maintained more frequently so the powder doesn't go bad.
Also note of sale (underground, also trivially made on one's own) in france is also FGC-9 pistols (modern gun + ammo easily made in short time in france, all with unregulated components), and attackers in france have also used re-activated decommissioned rifles.
Your country is awash in guns for anyone who wants it.
Another opinion that I’m sure will get me downvoted is that this is the primary reason I support gun ownership by private citizens. I think having a chance at stopping mass government slaughter like in Iran and Syria is overall better than the downside.
it's starting right now, brother. time to put your money where your mouth is.
we'll see how many of these 2nd amendment uber alles types are actually chickenhawks real soon...
The thing also is, it doesn't matter what the truth is. If the computer says you did a thing, the thugs (ICE) will do what they want.
Here is someone out for a walk, ICE demanding ID, that she answer questions. She says she's a US citizen ... they keep asking her questions and one of the ICE people seem to be using a phone to scan her face:
What she says, the truth, none of it would matter if his phone said to bring her in. And after the fact? The folks supporting ICE have made it clear they've no problem with lying in the face of the obvious.
It's not even that big of a leap. We've seen a off-duty ICE agent drunk driving his child, getting stopped by the cops, implied threats to one of the officers for being black with payback, spent the whole time saying "come on man" using his position as a federal officer as a way to get out of trouble, and ends to the point that I wanted to make, complained about his and I quote "bitch ex-wife" for divorcing him.
What is stopping this lowlife from going after his ex-wife, or one of those cops by using databases that they have access to? We know from journalists going through the process that there's no curation or training involved to join ICE specifically.
But this goes beyond them. We know that cops can be corrupt to, we know politicians can be corrupt to, what is stopping any of these people from using private data to not only go after their spouses, but also business rivals, and people who slight them?
Depends where, I think. Where your neighbors are mostly honorable, it mostly works. There are plenty of nice neighborhoods, and no shortage of bad ones either, sadly.
That assumes that the people who enforce the law want good people to be police officers, and that has never been the case. It is certainly not the case with our current ICE officers.
It doesn't assume anything. It's literally what's happening right now. All of your neighbors don't want to steal all of your stuff. Think about the fact that this is only true in certain places, regardless of what laws exist. Laws have very little effect on criminal behavior. Your peers being cool people are all that really protects your safety and your property.
Sounds like the solution to crime is therefore to mitigate the factors that precipitate it. If people steal in order to meet their basic needs, then providing basic housing and medical care to all should see a reduction in crime.
One interesting point about the volume of data that might be available about any individual is that law enforcement will only look for data points that suit their agenda.
They won't be searching for counter evidence. It won't even cross their minds to do so.
You're on record saying one thing one time that was vanilla at the time but is now ultra spicy (possibly even because the definition of words can change and context is likely lost) then you'll be a result in their search and you'll go on their list.
(This is based on my anecdotal experience of having my house raided and the police didn't even know to expect there to be children in the house; children who were both over ten years old and going to school and therefore easily searchable in their systems; we hadn't moved house since 15 years prior, so there was no question of mixing up an identity. The police requested a warrant, and a fucking judge even signed it, based on a single data point: an IP address given to them by a third party internet monitoring company.)
Keep your shit locked down, law enforcement are just as bad at their jobs as any other Joe Clockwatcher. In fact they're often worse because their incentive structure leans heavily towards successful prosecution.
The nazi's were easily able to find jews in the Netherlands because of thorough census data. Collection of that data was considered harmless when they did it. But look at what kind of damage that kind of information can do.
The classic example here is what happens when someone is being stalked by an abusive ex-partner who works in law enforcement and has access to those databases.
Or if you're currently married to an abusive partner and want to leave: how can you make a clean break with all the tracking nowadays? (And given how 'uncivilized' these guys act in public (masked, semi-anonymous), I'd had to see what they do behind closed doors.)
This ICE stuff is that scaled up to a multi-billion dollar federal agency with, apparently, no accountability for following the law at all.
It should be mentioned that "illegal" is a definitive word. There are definitely people not willing to follow the law, including political entities which are dependent on it. The moniker of privacy in this respect is a shield for illegality, because there is no reason that Medicaid data regarding SSNs should be shielded from the federal government.
To take this to its logical conclusion, Americans must concede that EU/UK systems of identity and social services are inherently immoral.
I have a hard time parsing your first paragraph, but there is no reason at all for any part of the US government that isn't CMMS to have any access to Medicaid data, writ large, at all. And even CMMS should only see de-identified data. It's absolutely absurd to think that law enforcement has any reason to see anything in any MC database.
The source of the problem is the respect of the rule of law and due process
Data collection is not the source of the problem because people give their data willingly
Do you think data collection is a problem in China, or do you think the government and rule of law is the problem?
Companies collecting data is not the true problem. Even when data collection is illegal, a corrupt government that doesn't respect the rule of law doesn't need data collection.
yeah, this is exactly it. all the arguments kind of boil down to
"well how about if the government does illegal or evil stuff?"
its very similar to arguments about the second ammendment. But laws and rules shouldnt be structured around expecting a future moment where the government isnt serving the people. At that moment the rules already dont matter
The Rights are not intended as preemptive. You don't have a right to free speech b/c otherwise maybe the government regulation of speech will get out of hand. You have it because it's espoused as a fundamental right. Same with separation of church and state. It's like "Well maybe a future evil government will regulate the church poorly, so lets ban it completely". It's just seen as an area the government shouldn't delve in entirely.
Collecting information about people doesn't really fit the same mold. It's not sensible to remove that function entirely. It's not a right. And it's not sensible to structure things with the expectation the future government will be evil
Are we supposed to structure out society so we're safer in the case that the Chinese invade and use all our institutions against us? There is a risk-benefit tradeoff to make. Crippling society and institutions in preparation for an a worst-case scenario future hypothetical is not sensible. To get things done you operate from the standpoint that the democratic government is responsive to the desires of the people. The adversarial perspective is self sabotaging
The rights weren’t invented out if thin air but to address real issues that happened earlier. Yes, every government has been evil. Power corrupts. That’s why constitutions exist, to address that problem.
Undocumented immigrants often have legally-resident and/or citizen family members who are eligible for Medicaid.
But yes, it's disgusting that ICE has access to that data via Palantir, or that this data is being used for anything other than administering Medicaid.
This is the same thing I thought when liberal-minded folk talked about giving the Federal government more power over States in order to enact some good work, or to achieve some policy win. Yes, for now, I thought, but you can't assume a good natured centralized power will persist, and when it doesn't, what is your alternative? I have watched as liberal minded folks rediscover the value of State Sovereignty and power in the face of an autocratic Federal executive, bearing arms when the an autocrat sends masked agents to terrorize your city. Lean into it, I say. Winner take all Federal system means no alternative but to win at all costs, rather than live and let live. We need more, smaller, States. We need more Representatives than 1 per 700,000 citizens...by 10x
The classic example here is what happens when someone is being stalked by an abusive ex-partner who works in law enforcement and has access to those databases.
I'd say the classic example is when a small german man with a mustache starts looking in religious registries to find the address of certain types of people
It’s usually not a great example because it’s basically the one thing that is “never going to happen here”. Normally the one about abusive law enforcement offices stalking ex-partners (or helping their buddies stalk their ex-partners) is better because it happens fairly regularly.
We really are in unprecedented times when it’s looking like the big one could happen in the United States though…
I never really understood that angle - do you think the Germans would have thrown their hands up and not killed anyone because they lacked accurate data on who was Jewish?
And (with a heavy dose of purposeful suspension of disbelief), if ICE does deport those people they've determined are "illegal", does anyone believe that the agency will scale down and stop? There will be new "enemies of the state"
They won't run out of people to deport, because all those jobs (and occasionally, benefits) the illegals profit from will still exist. If you remove the people but not the incentive you just get new and different people.
This is by design to make sure ICE and CBP jobs program for psychopaths always exists. Did you think they were actually going to put themselves out of the job by going for the roots?
I do not think this is really about privacy as much as it is about our broken immigration system. Let’s look at a simple case where both Democrats and Republicans largely agree.
On January 6, 2026, all South Sudanese nationals lost their TPS status and ordered to leave the US. At this point, they are all effectively declared illegal. I have not seen a single Democrat seriously argue that something should be done about this.
So what do we think people from South Sudan will actually do? Pack their bags and return to South Sudan?
My point is that a system where someone is admitted to the US completely legally, lives here for years, and is then suddenly reclassified as “illegal” is fundamentally broken.
"Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say"
~ Edward Snowden
It’s not gonna happen. The people who work at Palantir, if they’re not just there for the money, think they’re doing the right thing, they see themselves as keeping the country safe and improving government efficiency (and who could be against that?)
Especially Peter Thiel. Now we are not saying he doesn't internally agree with many things that are happening (I don't mean this specific topic but rather overall direction of US society), we know he does.
That’s just not true. There are plenty of people in defense tech that clearly believe they are doing the right thing. Same with those in the military. Their version of “right” is just different than yours. To them, ensuring American hegemony is more right than whatever your definition is.
50% of the US think it's the right thing. Now sure, among educated urban people it was lower, but that's still a large number of people who think it's the right thing, and that executing american citizens for using their constitutional rights is at most "an unfortunate inevitability"
These tools are there to make sure no such leader ever gets to power, and to ensure the death of the free state. Luckily there's a constitutional amendment (and therefore a constitutional duty upon true Patriots) that has a patch for such regressions.
The “opposition” has never not funded ICE. Throwing out national level republicans is not enough, almost all national level democrats have to be thrown out too.
The current administration’s ICE chaos theater is clearly something very different than the past few administrations. Let’s not try to pretend this is normal, because it’s not. They’re doing a shock and awe campaign and maximum fear and news coverage are part of the new agenda.
Reality is that once the next group is in power they keep all the same infra in place so they themselves can use it oft expanding it further. Then when they are kicked out, the next one comes in and does the same.
I dont like any of it but patriot act, covid vaccine tracking, flock, etc are all arms of the same hydra. This is just one more expanding arm of power and control in a long history of gov attempts to control populations.
Why would Medicaid have the data of anyone who is at risk of immigration enforcement? The reported connection seems tenuous:
The tool – dubbed Enhanced Leads Identification & Targeting for Enforcement (ELITE) – receives peoples’ addresses from the Department of Health and Human Services (which includes Medicaid) and other sources, 404 Media reports based on court testimony in Oregon by law enforcement agents, among other sources.
So, they have a tool that sucks up data from a bunch of different sources, including Medicaid. But there's no actual nexus between Medicaid and illegal immigrants in this reporting.
Medicaid-receiving immigrants could have their immigration status change, legal violations, emergency medicaid use, sometimes there's state funded coverage that immigrants are offered, etc. There's lots of reasons where Medicaid will have information on immigrants.
That doesnt mean they are illegal right off the bat - there is no reasonable way to filter out the "illegal" members of the roles and essentially making it so the DOJ has a list of people who they can cross reference with expiring status and the moment the clock strikes midnight and their status changes they can get picked up. They should not have all those records for fishing expedititions.
ICE has been harassing and following legal observers to their houses. They've shot and executed at least two people who were exercising their legal right to record their activity.
The FBI has been showing up at the door of some people who dare to organize protests against ICE.
Stingrays have been deployed to protests, ICE is collecting photos of protestors for their database, and has been querying YCombinator funded Flock to pull automated license plate camera data from around the country. Trump, Vance, Noem and Miller are calling anyone who protests them domestic terrorists.
It's pretty clear this isn't just about immigration, that this is about pooling data for a surveillance state that can quash the constitutional rights of anyone who dares to oppose the current regime. We've seen this story before.
When your whole system works by giving absolutely ridiculous amount of power to a single individual who has nobody above or at least on the side capable of interfering and changing things, this is what you eventually get. Crossing fingers and praying given person isn't a complete psycho or worse is not going to cut it forever, is it. Especially when >50% of population welcomes such person with open arms, knowing well who is coming.
Given what kind of garbage from human gene pool gets and thrives in high politics its more surprising the show lasted as long as it did.
Now the question shouldn't be 'how much outraged we should be' since we get this situation for a year at this point, but rather what to do next, how we can shape future to avoid this. If there will be the time for such correction, which is a huge IF.
I don't disagree with where you're coming from. But to be fair, our system did have separation of powers and rough legal accountability for most of the time it was accruing so much power. The fascists just managed to get enough of the Supreme Council on board to sweep these away under the guises of unitary executive theory and blanket immunity for their new president-king.
So from this perspective it's a matter of a corrupted interpreter, meaning merely adding more legal restrictions won't work. Rather final ultimate authority needs to be distributed amongst the states. The unrest in Minnesota would be solved in a week if the governor could simply use the National Guard to restore law and order without worrying that the out of control federal executive would just take control of them and then have even more foot soldiers to escalate the situation with.
Rather final ultimate authority needs to be distributed amongst the states. The unrest in Minnesota would be solved in a week if the governor could simply use the National Guard to restore law and order without worrying that the out of control federal executive would just take control of them
We tried that with the Articles of Confederation. Then half the country tried it again 70 years later. It didn’t work out either time.
Trump’s not even close to the worse President we’ve had. He’s just the craziest since television became widespread. FDR who is widely considered one of our best Presidents put nearly 100k US citizens of Japanese descent in interment camps.
One failing of framing it as "just ... since television became widespread" is that it ignores the actual power "television" (really, mass media, and now individually-tailored mass media) has to exert effective population control. The worrying thing here isn't so much the specific draconian actions themselves, but how much of the population is actively and gleefully cheering for them. And as it's obvious that none of these policies are going to make our country materially better (eg economically or social cohesion), this performative vice signalling stands to get worse and worse as this goes on.
I'm certainly not a slavery apologist, but the Civil War was a terrible precedent that we are now paying the price for. Like always, power always gets agglomerated because the hero (Lincoln) desires to to good. But once it's been agglomerated, it tends to attract evil.
One of the clear underlying pillars of support for Trumpism is China/Russia trying to break up the United States so that it is less able to project power over the world. In this sense, supporting the paradigm of a weakened federal government is helping fulfill that goal. But it would be one way to stop the hemorrhaging and at least get us some breathing room in the short term. The current opposition party has trouble even mustering the will to avoid voting to fund the out of control executive, so whatever reforms we push for have to be simple and leverage existing centers of power. We can't let the national Democrats simply do another stint of business-as-usual phoning it in as the less-bad option, or we'll be right back here just like we are now from last time.
Convincing the Federal government to voluntarily relinquish power, or forcing them to do so is probably the hardest and least likely possible change we could make to our system of government. Positing that as some kind of easier more realistic stopgap vs essentially any other reform is bordering on madness.
Probably easier than convincing individual senators/reps and the part(ies) as a whole to give up their own personal power with things like Ranked Pairs voting, no?
And probably easier to have Congress pass such legislation to draw a new line in the sand, even if it could be undone later, than doing things that would inescapably require a Constitutional amendment.
The problem with the other reforms I have thought of is that we're so far gone it will take more than one reform. Like campaign finance reform would have been great a decade ago. But now that kind of relies on getting back a non-pwnt and even trustworthy law enforcement apparatus, too. Same with a US GDPR / tech antitrust enforcement - would have been great a decade or two ago, but it won't particularly change much now that half the pop culture is already enamored with fascism.
But I agree that we need to be brainstorming and discussing many approaches to reform. So what specifically are you thinking of as the reforms we need?
Trump’s not even close to the worse President we’ve had. He’s just the craziest since television became widespread. FDR who is widely considered one of our best Presidents put nearly 100k US citizens of Japanese descent in interment camps.
They are putting people in interment camps right now, people are dying in them. You can find stories on a daily basis about discovered deaths in camps in texas being determined to be homicides, and those are just the ones we know about.
Andrew Jackson committed literal genocide.
Give Trump time. Also the deaths as a result of just the destruction of USAID, millions of children will and are dying; it's comparable and beyond to the worst things any president has done in the history of the country
Andrew Jackson did it 1 year into has fist term. Trump is already in his 2nd.
it's comparable and beyond to the worst things any president has done in the history of the country
It’s horrible to be clear. But ending assistance to other countries is in no way morally worse than genocide, slavery, and war.
detention camps
The last year of the Biden administration, there were about 40k people in ICE detention facilities. The number has gone up under Trump, but it has less than doubled.
Any preventable deaths of people in ICE custody are unacceptable, but the number of deaths are a little higher proportionally than under Biden.
This is all horrible and condemnable. But detaining undocumented immigrants temporarily is something every administration does (even if this administration is ramping it up) and is in no way comparable to rounding up 100k innocent US citizens for a 4 year term.
Trump is an awful, greedy, morally corrupt human being, and a terrible President. But we’ve seen and survived much worse.
Its every branch of the government. The federal government, largely through congressional legislation, has been amassing more and more power for longer than anyone has been alive, while willingly ceding large chunks of that power to the executive branch, while the executive was grooming and shaping the justice department.
Just the abuses of the commerce clause alone should show our government is full of corrupt power mongers.
And it goes down the list too. States taking power from counties, counties taking power from cities, judges, cops, and prosecutors claiming authority over more and more issues despite a lack of sound legal precedence or public approval.
Sure. I agree, but I don't really get what larger point you're making. A "unitary executive-king" is still a drastic departure from the bureaucratic structures that had been accreting power. How I categorize the old system is bureaucratic authoritarianism - there was (/is) still arbitrary authoritarian (anti- Individual Liberty) power over our lives, but its exercise is bound up in bureaucracy that at least claims to be impartial and nominally answers to the courts. Whereas now we're dealing with autocratic authoritarianism - that same power is arbitrarily and capriciously wielded by the whims of a single demented career criminal.
When was the ideal time for RBG to retire? Was it when Mitch McConnell was refusing to even hold hearings for any Obama nominee in the last years of his presidency? There is no indication that RBG retiring would have resulting in a confirmed Obama selected justice, it could have just resulted in Trump getting his picks earlier.
I would point out that even had RBG retired early enough for Obama to appoint a replacement, the court would still have Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh in the majority.
Sure, there may be a case here or there that would go the other way, but the vast majority of cases before this hypothetical court would be decided the same way as they have been, merely with a thinner majority.
Yes, RBG retiring would not have switched the court.
But 6-3 is meaningfully different than 5-4. 6-3 means you can lose one from your coalition, enabling more extreme majority opinions. You can see this even in the very highest profile cases like Dobbs and Trump v US, where one of the conservatives didn't join the entire majority.
It also makes flipping the court enormously more difficult. 5-4 means that one conservative dying and an inopportune time and you flip it. 6-3 makes this statistically unlikely.
I very strongly suspect that we will see Alito and Thomas retire this year. Everybody knows how this goes now.
People do realize that Republicans have agency right? It’s more fun to blame democrats but it’s fairly striking to blame them while hand waving away that the right wing fascist project has been ongoing since at least 2010. They could have also stopped the fascist corruption.
RBG had cancer twice, and she refused to step down and let Obama replace her. More should have been done to convince her. McConnell blocking Obama from filling Scalia's vacancy probably didn't have to happen the way it did, if Democrats stood up and forced it - the Republican reasoning was absolutely stupid and not based on any lawful reason.
Yes, the Democrats fumbled this and it led to the problems we have now. I'm still a lifelong Democrat voter and always will be, but goddamnit did we shoot ourselves in the foot.
Trump had no problem convincing Kennedy to step down and be replaced. Republicans know the game, the Democrats we elect don't seem to know how to play it.
I mean, sure. The problem is that ignoring Republican agency is seemingly incubated by both parties' philosophies (such as they are). It's a common "conservative" vice to blame problems on those you identify less with (right now, Democrats). It's a common "liberal" vice to put the onus to fix a problem on those you identify more with (also Democrats). Therefore, most people's solution to any given problem involves putting pressure on Democrats. Putting pressure on Republicans "doesn't help", either because they have nothing to do with the problem or because they obviously will never fix it.
Part of me thinks this is fundamental to the human condition, but most of me thinks it isn't. This doesn't seem to have happened in the FDR era, or the Nixon era, for example. I think it's just fallout from the post-Reagan coalitions in the US political system.
They hold both that people whose citizenship depends on birthright citizenship are not in fact citizens and that naturalized citizens can be denaturalized either for disloyalty or based on some sham pretext. They also see people getting benefits as leaches worthy of targeting.
Also naturalized and birthright citizens are far more likely than others to associate or live with others of less legal status.
Naturalized and birthright citizens quality for benefits and they and their families are at risk.
If they are allowed to detain and deport without any due process as they have asserted anyone not white is at risk.
The DHS official social media presence shared a picture of an island paradise with the caption America after 100 million deportations.
This is the number of non-whites not the number of immigrants in even the most ridiculous estimates.
Pam Bondi is now demanding voter rolls. It's clearly about suppressing liberal voters in liberal areas through a show of force. They're using this data to optimize who to harass.
If citizenship is required to vote then how would accessing voter rolls suppress liberal voters? Honest question; I'm not concern trolling. I had to Google who's allowed to vote.
I found this article[1] by the Brennan Center. It alleges this is an attempted federal takeover of elections but it doesn't suggest or allude to voter suppression. I'm not convinced by the article that having access to voter rolls can be considered a federal takeover of election administration (but I'm not in the know and would need things explained more verbosely).
If you have more information about the attempted centralization of election administration and its impacts on voter suppression I would be interested to know more.
There are not non-citizens on voter rolls. They want the rolls to get data on voters.
When you ask yourself why the ultra-politicized DOJ (which isn't even the DHS...) from an administration that has explicitly called liberals the enemy is asking for voter rolls, it becomes pretty understandable why people might come to the conclusion that it is to suppress the people that have already explicitly been identified as targets.
Honestly my real fear is ICE agents at polling places on Election Day harassing would-be voters with citizenship checks and aggressive behavior, slowing things down and maybe causing some people to leave.
Regarding voter data though, if it becomes known that registering to vote as a minority will get you extra scrutiny from ICE, and perhaps a visit to your home, that would probably cause some citizens avoid voting altogether, especially if they are associated with people who are not her legally.
Either way, the federal government really has no right to that data or legitimate use for it, so hopefully they don't manage to get their hands on it.
Are you a citizen, can you prove it at the polling station? I am doubtful you are, and your documents if you have them don't seem legit enough, so I think we'll set your vote aside, or possibly prevent it from being cast; we can't be too sure!
It doesn't matter whether you can prove it. ICE's current position [0] is that their face scanning app supercedes documents like birth certificates to determine status.
Are you a citizen, can you prove it at the polling station?
Yes, I have multiple documents proving my citizenship. Never been asked though, ID always sufficed.
so I think we'll set your vote aside, or possibly prevent it from being cast; we can't be too sure!
I have voted in more than one state (legally, I moved) never seen any voting place asking for any documents except for state ID and voter roll check. I don't think there is any voting place where local state ID is not "legit enough".
What's not hypothetical? Sure, there once existed racist laws in the US. How does it relate to establishing citizenship or presumedly some documents proving citizenship being considered "not legit enough"?
Isn’t the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility act going to stop married women who have changes their last name from what was on their birth certificate from voting?
Voter registration gets names cross referenced to facebook gets you face recognition (Palantir can do this). Ice claims that facial recognition on their app is probable cause (Ice already claim this).
Ice goes down the lines at voting stations to "protect from undocumented aliens voting illegally". The government endorsed news stories will be about how many illegals were trying to vote. Meanwhile a bunch of US citizens were taken for processing due to false positives and unfortunately with such large numbers to process they aren't all released until polling stations are closed. (If only someone hadn't botched the facial recognition database update and contaminated it with a bunch of Dem voters).
If rioting against these actions occurs at a station, it's closed for safety and people in area are detained while it's sorted (the stations targeted had a tendency to vote D anyway as per voter roles).
Strange how that 'harassment' did stop US citizens from voting.
Results come in while the case for voter suppression goes to the Supreme court. Supreme court rules that while voter suppression did occur there is no legal option of redress within its permit and the peaceful transfer of power is more important than any one election A la Bush V Gore.
There has been many ways to stop you from voting, contesting your vote, calling your registration into account, imitating tests that are impossible to validate if you are intelligent enough to vote, etc
Spend some time educating yourself on how voting suppression has worked historically and you wont sound so ignorant.
If you think making sure only citizens can vote equals "suppressing liberal voters", that sound like a big self report. The voter lists don't tell you how people voted, it only tells you who did.
My wife works in autism services in a predominantly Latino city. Those kids all have Medicaid, which includes info about their parents. It would be pretty trivial to cross reference with other data points to identify kids with undocumented parents and then you have their home address. Many of these kids go to a clinic everyday, so now you know when someone (likely a parent) is dropping them off too. She’s had patients with parents who have been picked up by ICE. I wouldn’t be surprised if that data came from Medicaid. It’s basically the same as the IRS data they’ve been using.
And it is next to impossible for average people to get adequate care for their kids with autism without Medicaid and early intervention can make the difference between someone who can live relatively independently with supports and someone who will spend their adult life chemically restrained in an institution. So they are in between a rock and a hard place.
What ICE is doing is naked incompetent fascism and the entity needs to be disbanded with hostility.
With that said, no, it's not evil to deport people who entered a country illegally. If I sneak into China, and China finds out, they are morally and legally clear to send me back, whether or not I've had children in China.
It likely wouldn't poll well for elections, but today's ICE does need to be disbanded. Its tasks can be given to other agencies until a replacement can be created and staffed. The recent recruitment drive makes it nearly impossible to reform the agency. There's just too many agents introduced in the poisonous culture and goals.
An easy win that should get widespread approval is bolstering the immigration court system. I have dark worries, but I'm still not entirely sure why this administration is whittling away at immigration courts. You'd think they'd want to process asylum applications faster, so invalid claimants could be deported sooner.
An easy win that should get widespread approval is bolstering the immigration court system. I have dark worries, but I'm still not entirely sure why this administration is whittling away at immigration courts. You'd think they'd want to process asylum applications faster, so invalid claimants could be deported sooner.
Absolutely. Especially since upwards of 80% of asylum claims are denied[0] when they actually get adjudicated. Which usually takes years to happen because there aren't enough immigration "courts."
Provide enough immigration "judges" and "courts" and we could clear up the backlog within a couple years. I'd also point out that while asylum seekers aren't (yet) legal immigrants, they are (based on Federal law[1]) legally in the United States until their case has been adjudicated -- once again arguing for increasing the number of immigration "courts" and "judges." It certainly doesn't argue for hundreds of billions of dollars for a bunch of jackbooted thugs to terrorize citizens and immigrants alike, all to deport fewer people than other administrations who didn't need to shoot citizens to do so. Funny that.
OG classical fascism was pretty incompetent and bumbling at times too.
eventually they got their shit together.
China is a demographic disaster in slow motion and should be keeping anyone they can get who wants to say. The US and EU have avoided much stagnation by importing more bodies, and there is no ethnic component to USA-ian identity compared to being Han and being forced to speak Mandarin.
EFF claims that some states enroll illegal immigrants in Medicaid
Actually they don't. They say "Some states, using their own funds, allow enrollment by non-citizens" - but they never say if it's legal residents or illegal immigrants. I am not sure whether it's part of the ongoing attempt to blur the line between legal and illegal immigrants, or all the states that allow that genuinely do not distinguish between legal residents and illegal immigrants, but we can not assume it by default.
But I am not sure if the states use their own money for this - why would they send this information to HHS?
Actually they don't. They say "Some states, using their own funds, allow enrollment by non-citizens" - but they never say if it's legal residents or illegal immigrants. I am not sure whether it's part of the ongoing attempt to blur the line between legal and illegal immigrants, or all the states that allow that genuinely do not distinguish between legal residents and illegal immigrants, but we can not assume it by default.
If a state bureaucracy doesn't explicitly check for legal immigration status then yes the policymakers in that state are trying to blur the line between legal and illegal immigration.
If a state bureaucracy doesn't explicitly check for legal immigration status then yes the policymakers in that state are trying to blur the line between legal and illegal immigration.
When it comes to healthcare, many states don't care if you're a tourist or a resident or a one-eyed, one-eared, horned purple-people eater. They (because their constituents -- you know, the folks who pay for this -- believe people shouldn't be dying in the streets because they can't afford basic care, regardless of who they are/where they came from) provide healthcare to anyone who needs it because it's the compassionate, humane thing to do.
That some states do not do so says a lot about the folks who run and live in those states -- partly that they have little empathy for their fellow human beings. Which seems weird, given that many of those states have "leaders" and vocal residents who claim to be Christian, yet they are unwilling to engage in the very things that Jesus Christ prescribes[0][1][2] that they do.
I'm glad I'm not a Christian. If I were, I don't think I could abide such evil, selfishness and hypocrisy.
I've seen a lot of people living in the streets when I lived in California. From my (then) house I could walk at least to a half-dozen places where substantial amount people lived right in the streets. I've never seen people dying in the streets in any state though. Given that only 7 states (and DC) allow Medicaid for illegal immigrants, this must be happening an awful lot. Strangely, I never heard about such cases, let alone a massive number of them. But you evidently did.
I would like to ask you instead of the Word of Jesus - which is surely fascinating, but bears little relevance for the topic at hand - provide some authoritative data as to how many people actually died in the street in those 43 terrible states, for lack of Medicaid coverage, say in the last 5 years? Was it millions? Thousands? Hundreds? How does it compare with the record of California and those living-on-the-street people I am seeing there every time I visit? I think discussing actual data would be better than discussing Jesus.
It likely will. There’s major impact on literally everyone in tech, there’s huge data privacy concerns, and it has less coverage or discussion than a new version of jQuery. The US gov could fall but that would count as politics here so clearly irrelevant.
The "hide" link is right next to the "flag" link. Using flag instead of hide puts more strain on the mods, and is not the right thing to do for "this topic doesn't apply to my interests."
But it is the right thing to do for "this topic violates HN guidelines both in letter and in spirit, as well as predictably causing low-quality discussion threads".
FWIW I agree with you and recognize that to be one of the reasons it frequently isn’t allowed.
I also think there’s very few places with the power to meaningfully dialog with and among people who build stuff in Silicon Valley. I have dozens of friends, coworkers, etc who are in FAANG or the newer big tech companies, and all of them are extremely well paid, and most will insist they work for positive reasons. I believe in that most of them believe in other people, and don’t want to build a surveillance society or one that concentrates all wealth and power in a few.
For this reason, I think that some conversations on here are important to have - the impact technology is having on people who are outside the tech sphere, the effect of leaders of our companies on the economy, geopolitics, and power generally. Mark Facebook is a powerful player on the world stage. So is Paul Graham, and Sundar Pichai. Davos just took place - leaders from major economies are seeking guidance from these people who many people here work for. Let nobody say they aren’t participating in politics. Where you work matters, what you build matters. It’s not tinkering around in people’s garages anymore - they’re building the infinity gauntlet and someone is gathering all the gems. The Death Star plans are on AWS.
To pretend otherwise is to deny one’s responsibility - in the short term frequently profitable. In the long term, the pendulum tends to swing back..
If your problem is that you have no means to control what other people find important enough to talk about on a public forum, in their spare time, or that the means at your disposal to do so are insufficient to make other people saying things that make you uncomfortable go away... That isn't a problem that can or should should be fixed. Hell, the desire you've expressed could be uncharitably interpreted being contributory to part of the problem that has people around you discussing politics in the first place.
It gets down to the definition of political which is basically anything that might have a human cost, including to the people here. I have many coworkers having to upend their lives, some can’t currently leave the country. This is not worthy of discussion, but an esoteric library update is. Paul Graham posts are not political topics for some reason, but H1B people is.
Technology, technology leaders, and technology companies are literally driving politics, buying elections, driving the whole US economy.
Saying what “political” topics are IS political - and it’s decidedly a right wing position. Only those with the powers protecting them get to avoid politics.
Well said. Even people with a lot in common can and should disagree often. In non-authoritarian systems, politics is supposed to be about managing this disagreement in civil ways. Politics seems unsavory to some, often because they find a lot of political manifestations to be vile or insipid. [1] I get that, but in a way this revulsion is backwards. The alternatives to the sausage-making of politics is usually worse: pretending there is no disagreement, coercion, violence, gaslighting. So when someone says "I don't like politics" I like to say "disagreement is to be expected".
There is always going to be an intersection between tech and politics. This convo is no different than talking about Section 230, H1B visas or using vision models to sexualize people or distort the truth.
In a corrupt and authoritarian country, it is common to have officials busted on "corruption" or "embezzlement" charges. And yet most people know they are actually not jailed for the crimes they got charged for, because there are more than enough people to fill all the prisons for breaking the exact same laws they are accused of breaking. They knew the only reason these people got jailed is because they lost some kind of power struggle within the administration, and corruption is just a convenient lie those who prevailed tell you to keep you comfortable.
You never see the "no politics please thk u" crowd when it is about protests in Iran, Chinese oppression in Hong Kong, Russian aggression on Europe or hell, when people were literally running a political campaign the EU to stop killing games. You only see people flagging political submissions when it is a particular kind of politics - just like you only see corrupt officials jailed when they are a certain kind of officials.
When the computer code many of us are working on is directly shaping that politics I think that we should talk about it and stop hiding behind the bush.
Yeah so find a forum that’s for discussing that and discuss it there. Don’t try and force people who are discussing something else to talk about politics with you. Do you also randomly go onto GitHub issues and start talking politics because the people who are talking about repo bugs are “hiding behind a bush” and should talk about the political things you think are important instead?
I think that forums like this one should discuss politics as affected by computer code seeing as HN is one of the main (for lack of a better word) computer programmers' forums based/located in/with a focus on SV, it's not some random computer forum which specializes in some random computer programming issue.
Hacker News is not lambda-the-ultimate.org, seeing them as similar is part of that hiding behind the bush, people commenting on here actually work at companies like Palantir, Alphabet, Meta and the like, companies whose recent involvement in politics affects us all, at a worldwide level. Also see this recent FT article [1] in connection with how the leaders of those companies have gotten a lot reacher since Trump ascended to power for a second time.
Tech titans lined up for Trump’s second inauguration. Now they’re even richer
Silicon Valley bosses who lined up behind the US president for his inauguration have fared well under his administration
Absolutely and it's unfortunate that all essential topics that need discussion, which is the only thing that works to understand and find solutions for problems, is being flagged off the front page. Some of the flagging seems political as well, why isn't that recognized as a problem as well?
There are no interesting apolitical topics. Food tastes good sometimes, weather is doing weather stuff, yawn. I feel like we sometimes try to seek conflict out of boredom
Or rather, most people aren’t here to have their preconceived notions challenged by reality.
Politics is a nebulous term for topics that affect a large number of the population. Tech intersects with politics all the time and deserves good faith discussion.
You're past the time of saying that and not being seen as an enabler my friend. This isn't normal politics anymore. They are killing people in the streets. If you don't think that your tech toys have a lot to do with that, then you should grow up. This pathetic point does not apply anymore.
There was a time when SV and technology eschewed politics, but that time is long gone. You only have to look at how often all the big tech CEO's end up at random Whitehouse events to see how they are intimately intertwined now.
There has always been politics in SV, this is a weird rewriting of history.
Presumably there’s so much pushback now because people are quite uncomfortable having to confront the fact that they may be the bad guys (even though they were probably the bad guys years ago as well).
There has always been politics in SV, this is a weird rewriting of history.
Not rewriting at all.
Nien-hê Hsieh, a professor of business ethics at Harvard University says that in the 1990s, “there was a real reluctance or reticence to engage in Washington” from the leading tech companies of the day.
...
The early 2010s saw huge growth in lobbying spending by tech companies. A plateau in the late Obama years was followed by another steep increase once Trump took office. But in recent years some major players have slowed or even decreased their spending, suggesting that major corporations are becoming more sophisticated in their approach to wielding power on Capitol Hill.
Yes. I think the problem is people that drive into police officers, abandon their children or bring a gun to a law enforcement event then resist arrest. HN is full of activism these days and I’m tired of the support for vigilantism.
No the problem is bootlickers with less self-preservation skills than animals who bend over backwards to reject actual reality because they think they're in the billionaire pedophilic ruling class in-group when they're not.
Tons of political posts are on the front page of Hacker News all the time. The ones I actually see get flagged are generally bad articles. Sure, there's real stuff that gets flagged down too, but Hacker News is far from a place where politics is always flagged.
Damn near everything on HN gets flagged eventually. Either get everyone to drop their biases as Silicon Valley tech VCs or make it so that flags can ONLY be used to remove clear abuse. Sick of it
There’s probably a lot of people that have say mainstream left (eg Obama and Sanders statements around 2010), centrist and conservative views on illegal immigration and support enforcing the law. What you see as something bad happening is something very normal made more difficult by unhelpful state governments and vigilante groups.
Anyone who believes ICE is legitimately trying to rectify illegal immigration is either too stupid to function or a liar.
Because I give the benefit of the doubt, I will assume most people are not that stupid. So, the only option left is they don't actually believe it, and it's just virtue signalling to their fascist overloads. Personally, I think that's a bit pathetic, not to mention naive. Nobody has any reason to think they will be spared, citizen or not.
What I see today on HN mirrors the processes I've witnessed in Russian speaking parts of the net during the 2010s. Despite the escalation of totalitarianism in Russia, the growing internet censorship and military operations in nearby countries, which left the posters on the same websites on the different sides of military conflicts, some sites have stuck to their "no politics" rule. Both to avoid upsetting people in power and out of their owners' naïve beliefs.
Reading them was like living in an alternate reality where nothing more notable happens than a release of new version X of a framework Y. Large portions of the tech community had exactly the same attitude that could be seen here and now - refusal to consider the societal implications of their daily work, adherence to technical solutions over the real world ones ("I'll just work remotely and use a VPN, who cares") and just simple willful ignorance.
It was around that time that I started to frequent English speaking discussions, which were much more vibrant and open. It saddens me to see the same kind of process repeat itself here.
If it was only that... What I really take issue with are all the mentally ill trolls jumping in to defend ICE, lying through their teeth about the content of videos we all saw. But actually supporting murder isn't enough to get you banned in here.
Exactly. I'm watching this from the Netherlands. Until last year I always ignored political posts here but now it's become an existential necessity to be involved.
I actually think it’s best that HN flags and removes them because we are quickly entering a stage in this country where you will be flagged by the government monitoring the internet. I would caution people to start using VPN and continuously flush your IPs. I would even go as far as to recommend removing face ID from your devices which basically offers zero protection once you’re detained (or have a quick way to disable it).
I hope that we can agree that blowing off the 10A and allowing all of this federal bloat has not been a swift call.
Social services left at the State level would be subject to a smaller pool of votes for approval and are more likely to be funded by actual tax revenue instead of debt.
That is: sustainably.
Furthermore, the lack of One True Database is a safety feature in the face of the inevitable bad actors.
In naval architecture, this is called compartmentalization.
There are good arguments against this, sure, but the current disaster before you would seem a refutation.
Some states are too poor to effectively fund and maintain their own safety nets. It's common for folks laid off in these states to get a dubious mental health diagnosis to justify SSDI, because doctors know they have no prospects and could well become homeless without it.
These states may be fundamentally too resource poor to effectively maintain their populations. So collectively we agreed that richer states should subsidize them, because no one wants to see their neighbors suffer unnecessarily. And in the hope that newer generations may invent or unlock other resources to break the cycles of poverty.
My fear is that many of these states are locked in a bubble of lies, a culture that longs for an imaginary and idealized past that never existed. That they'll continue raising generations of people who think they need to be an independent, 'rudged' individualist when that's never been possible anywhere. And once they fail they'll settle for punching down on people different than them.
I've lived in northern and southern states for years. Was raised (very) evangelical Christian and left that behind, yet still have family deep inside. My bubble has been thoroughly popped. Still I have to witness the descent of friends and family members into fantasy as they age and become more isolated by circumstance and their media choices. College educated people who now tell me the Earth is probably flat, 9/11 was probably an inside job, J6 was just some over eager tourists.
Undocumented immigrants/illegal immigrants are not generally eligible for federally funded Medicaid coverage in the United States, as federal law restricts such benefits to U.S. citizens and certain qualified immigrants with lawful status.
They are eligible for Emergency Medicaid, which covers emergency medical needs like labor and delivery or life-threatening conditions; hospitals that accept federal dollars for medicare/medicaid are required under federal law (EMTALA) to provide stabilizing emergency care regardless of immigration status or ability to pay.
Palantir is interesting. Founded by a closeted German, run by an Israeli operative, and a 3rd arm of the federal gov. I wish we could prosecute it in my lifetime for the numerous violations of privacy it undertakes, but the world does not work that way. The rich enjoy private jets subsidized by our hard-earned taxes, while violating ideals held by our Founding fathers (for what would Thiel or the current CEO know about our morals, when they have none and are American by name only.. their loyalties lie elsewhere)
At least the billionaires also act indignant when you suggest that they weren't singularly responsible for literally every good thing that has ever happened.
Palantir will never be prosecuted because they don't actually engage in any violations of privacy themselves or take possession of any data. They just sell software that enables it. And their main customer is the people who do the prosecuting. For the government prosecuting Palantir would be an admission of guilt, so it will never happen.
They most likely do engage. And they are not going to be prosecuted just because they are useful for government - and until this status quo persists, palantir can do whatever they like.
For the same reasons banks rarely get any sensible fines/lawsuits.
This just doesn't make sense when the government is the customer. If you have a problem with what Palantir does, then your real problem is with the government because that's who is actually putting the tool to use. Why would you go after the vendor instead of the government who will just keep doing the same thing if you go after Palantir?
There are a whole raft of "ideals" the Founding fathers held that we've obviated, beginning with who got the franchise. I can confidently say that government being the payor for ~50% of all healthcare, and operating the databases necessary to monitor all the money and behavior, was certainly not among their "ideals" either.
This was predicted by many, long ago. The predictions were ignored because they were inconvenient to desires and ambitions. Yet here we are. One wonders if it were known at the time, before we constructed these schemes, that one day there would be fabulous machines that would wade through all the (predicted) streams of data, hunting people, if perhaps those predictions might have been heard.
The cynic in me says "no." At some point, as the streams of politics oscillate, they occasionally converge very strongly, and all doubts are overcome, and the ratchet makes another click.
But it's not all bad news. In the natural course of events there is a high probability that one day, you'll have such folk as you prefer back at the helm, and they'll have these tools at the ready. If you make the most of it, you'll never have to suffer the current crowd ever again!
The argument is that people who are born outside and come in, but instead of embracing our ideals, seek to do America harm, import bad ideals (like misinformation in the case of Murdoch, hunting innocents in the case of Karp, and racism in the case of Musk), should be called out and shamed. Fox News and ICE have done great damage largely enabled by the infra these immigrants set up. They also seem to promote hate against other immigrants (Chinese, muslims, etc). I think we often do not call out Musk and Murdoch for the damage they did. And given they are not American by birth, I do question their loyalties because their actions reflect a willingness to siphon money out of America and do us harm.
tbh it's hard not to dunk on a gay christian fundamentalist and a coked up israeli boot licker POC teaming up together to deport people, so many layers of meta and jokes to be made
Most of the founding fathers were slavers that wanted to keep their slaves while hating the vast majority of people. When they wrote the constitution they were only thinking of rich white landowners, 80% of the people posting in this thread would not have suffrage and couldn't legally participate in the government. Remember this next time you read words about the "rights of man" because it's not me or you.
The founding fathers would absolutely love the idea of Palantir and if you don't think so go look at who wrote the Fugitive Slave Act, who agreed with it, and who enforced it.
I mean the "tyranny of the majority?" What a crock of shit, they were the tyranny that enforced slavery for 80 years.
George Washington would have absolutely used this tech to try to steal back his "property" from free states (something he tried to do but regularly failed or didn't want to argue in the courts):
There's no reason to believe that ICE, DHS or any other agencies will use this data carefully, judiciously or in good faith. Instead, it's quite clear at this point that all they will do is abuse the power they do have, execute and antagonize anyone they disagree with and then lie despite ample evidence to the contrary.
I'd say Palantir should be ashamed for facilitating this, but their entire business model is built around helping the government build an ever more invasive police state.
They're not just going after the so-called "illegal aliens", something made clear after the numerous extrajudicial killings by ICE officers recently, such as the one that occured yesterday.
Someone bought a Sig Sauer gun that’s known to go off when moved suddenly (you can find as many videos as you want on the issue) - grabbed an agent and resisted arrest. The gun went off during the arrest, officers thought the man was firing at them.
It’s tragic - the way to prevent this is to increase calm, give the federal officers some support, stop conspiracy theories (eg like the boy that abandoned by his father that people say was ‘arrested’ or your comment pretending it was a murder) and stop vigilante groups from causing chaos.
Lol no, guns don't just magically go off when in a holster. Yes mechanical failures do happen, but it requires very specific types of impact in very specific ways that cannot happen when in a holster and are so rare as to happen on decade timescales with tens of thousands of the gun. Also I saw zero evidence of that guys gun going off in the video, the first shot heard is the shot coming out of the ICE goon's gun that he is pointing at that guy, who then also mag dumps him while he is on the ground.
The Sig Sauer P320, which is what Alex Pretti had, is notorious for unintentionally discharging. Various law enforcement agencies and militaries have stopped using it for that reason.
"the firearm may discharge when it is dropped and the back of the slide hits the ground at a 33-degree angle"
That is pretty hard to accomplish while its in a holster unless the guy was suplexed and his entire spine turned to jello giving the gun a multi-foot uncushioned drop.
"misfire was due to "a partial depression of the trigger by a foreign object combined with simultaneous movement of the slide"
Which is irrelevant when in a shielded holster like this guy has.
On top of all this, even had the gun went off, which I have found zero evidence to support, how would that guy know who's gun went off to start with? Guns don't light up with a bunch of LEDs to show you it has been fired. If you aren't staring directly at the gun, which isn't really possible in the scenario that played out, you wouldn't know whos gun went off. And even if someone was staring at the gun and saw it go off, how does a holstered gun that nobody is holding represent any sort of threat? You think the guy is controlling his gun with his mind powers?
I don't even know why im bother argueing with you because this entire thing is ludicrous. I find it hard to believe you have watched any of the video of the incident at all and came to this conclusion.
If it misfired it likely misfired as it was being taken, not while in his holster.
If you’re detaining someone who has a gun and a gun goes off it’s incompetent, maybe negligent, but not murder to react by shooting the guy who had the gun.
I don’t think anyone can draw definitive conclusions from the videos.
The person who starts shooting him has full visibility of the gun the entire time.
Even if he doesn't realize it is a misfire, why would he believe that it was Pretti who shot? How can you reasonably believe a dude that is dogpiled with a gun not in his control is the shooter?
How is that not murder? In your scenario the guy is still innocent and he was shot to death because of ICE being scared by their own incompetence. If someone claps their hands and I reflexively mag dump you on the street, am I not guilty of murder?
Well, that's an interesting take. Even if a holstered weapon did discharge (no idea how likely this is for the specific weapon in question), why would someone suspect they are being fired at by a person with a holstered weapon? Poor/no training is the most charitable explanation.
The only person suggesting the gun went off while holstered was the sibling comment by ‘AngryData’. After ICE discoverers the gun and yells “gun! Gun!” the Sig discharges into the ground (visible in some of the videos) before he is shot 3 times.
You saw the videos, the guy only had a phone in hand, he got tear gased, pinned to the ground, and then they unloaded their guns on him. Stop lying about what you saw, or we'll start to believe you're actually pro-murder.
Phone was in his right hand (our left) and gun was holstered near his other hand. The gun went off into the ground as P320s are known to do when they removed it from him and officers reacted.
It's fascinating how Trump voters are able to reshape their reality to fit the Party's official line. All these years I thought Orwell was exaggerating...
People keep forgetting that it's possible to legally migrate, work for awhile, and so on, and then "become illegal" due to deadlines or administration issues.
An example every tech worker should understand is H1-B, where as an added bonus your employer can make you illegal.
the migration was legal. you're not an "illegal" when you drive with an expired license are you? so quotes is appropriate when using the term as a title instead of a verb.
you're not an "illegal" when you drive with an expired license are you?
You are. Why do you think licenses have expiration dates? It legally authorises you to perform specific activity within specific timeframe. Any activity without license is illegal.
By same logic you can't stay in the house you legally rented previously.
No, you're being intentionally oblivious to justify something negative. You have done something illegal, that is not in contest. But people are not labeled "illegal" when their license expires. They're called out based on the specific thing they did. You can say "this person migrated illegally", that's different than saying "this person is an illegal", as if their very existence and presence is illegal, that's the insinuation and you're intentionally avoiding that. The fact that migrating illegally is is indeed illegal, and that illegal migrants, or those who stay here illegally must be removed has not been contested by anyone serious. You're advocating a stance that goes further than that and dehumanizes these people. You should lookup the videos of wailing children in detection camps with no heating in winter, migrants being strangled to death and beating in black sites, even US citizens being abducted and removed from the country - that's the propaganda you're supporting by claiming the people themselves are illegal as opposed to they committed something illegal and need to face lawful consequences. You don't need to be cruel and inhumane to enforce the law (in fact this is specifically prohibited by the constitution). There are people that enjoy and revel in the inhumanity and cruelty, I hope you're not on that side of things. It might cost a lot, but it is reasonably possible to locate, lawfully process (courts/lawyers) and remove every person that is not present in the US lawfully.
By same logic you can't stay in the house you legally rented previously.
If you did, you'd be called a squatter, not "an illegal". Even squatters who take over someone's home have rights. Everyone gets due process. You foolishness is that you think because they're migrants, however they're treated won't affect you. I don't care what demographic group you're in, you'll be called an illegal soon enough. Words matter, the whole law is just a bunch of words.
Normally I wouldn't dignify the emotional word salad with a response, but it is important to state few things.
You conceal substance beneath a pile of semantic shenanigans. If someone stays in the country illegally, their presence in the county is illegal and law enforcement on that matter is warranted. You can call them saints if you like, it still doesn't make their presence legal. No matter if they entered the country legally and overstayed their visas, or plainly entered the country illegally. No matter how much leftist media make emotional appeals and frame it as "child dying" or any other sorts of manipulations you are trying to parrot as well - it remains illegal.
There are NO US citizens detained or "abducted" by ICE, provided they comply with due procedure for establishing their legal status. You are lying. There are possibly cases where ICE had to do checks on people who decline to confirm their status, which warrants further investigation.
I appreciate your concern regarding myself being called illegal, but let me assure you I am totally fine and will be totally fine, even being not a US citizen.
FWIW, people here illegally are already not eligible for Medicaid, [0] so it's hard to see why ICE having access to a roster of Medicaid enrollees would help them with their stated mission of enforcing removal orders.
Then again, we have ICE shooting American citizens in the streets, so I guess the law is whatever they decide it is, not least because our legislative branch is uninterested in laws.
FWIW, people here illegally are already not eligible for Medicaid, [0] so it's hard to see why ICE having access to a roster of Medicaid enrollees would help them with their stated mission of enforcing removal orders.
Presumably, it's because a lot of them are getting Medicaid despite not being eligible to. Isn't the point of every audit, investigation, etc. to find things that aren't being done correctly?
Presumably, it's because a lot of them are getting Medicaid despite not being eligible to
Why are you presuming this? There is no evidence this is happening in any widespread fashion.
Isn't the point of every audit, investigation, etc. to find things that aren't being done correctly?
If it is being honest about it's intention, yes. I think we have seen an absolute mountain of evidence that this administration does "audits" as massive data collection waves to suit any and every purpose they want, though.
If this was about fixing things being done incorrectly, DHHS should be doing the audit, not DHS. Perhaps the latter doesn't understand the difference between the two, though, not noticing they're missing an H in their abbreviation.
There is no evidence this is happening in any widespread fashion.
Isn't the point of this data so that they can uncover exactly that? It'd be silly to say you're not allowed to look for evidence of anything unless you already have evidence of it. Also, the qualifier "in any widespread fashion" is weasel words. It makes me think you already know it is happening, and the only remaining question is to what scale.
How exactly would non-citizens, who do not have social security numbers or other valid identifying documents, receive medicaid? It's difficult enough for qualified people to get it. It would seem fairly difficult to pass the registration process without having a valid SSN. Furthermore, if someone was able to fraudulently sign up - say by using a stolen identity, then wouldn't the data in the system look valid and therefore not really show up on an audit?
And as the GP pointed out, it makes no sense to put the president's paramilitary agency¹ in charge of such an audit, rather than qualified auditors, perhaps from the HHS² OIG³.
Presumably, it's because a lot of them are getting Medicaid despite not being eligible to
How would this even work? You can’t just start billing things to Medicaid if you’re ineligible for it. That would be like you deciding to bill United Healthcare for something despite not being a customer. How is this hypothetical fraud supposed to work? What am I missing?
Isn't the point of every audit, investigation, etc. to find things that aren't being done correctly?
ICE isn’t auditing Medicaid. They’re trying to use records to find people to detain and deport which is an orthogonal dataset.
The only plausible explanation is that they’re using medical records as an additional source of data on people who live in houses that they’re raiding or looking at.
Which is insane. Imagine police rolling up to your front door on suspicion of something and loading up a system which has your medical records.
And yet we do nothing to punish the actual criminals, the employees who knowingly higher then abuse them. Why don't we deport Trump, Trump tower wouldn't even be around without polish workers who were here illegally
bear in mind that ICE are forcibly deporting people in the process of applying for green cards whose lawyers have assured them that a lapsed VISA isn't an issue (it never used to be) as they have married an American citizen and maybe even have children with them.
A robotics engineer from Germany was forcibly deported a few months back because ICE were waiting for him at the immigration office when he went to visit to further the application.
How would they target people using voter rolls? Is the concern that it includes party affiliation? Couldn't they just provide the rolls without party affiliation?
Honestly it seems crazy even state governments know party affiliation. I know it's so they know who can vote in primaries etc, but it seems like you should just be able to register to vote with your party directly.
I'm afraid of the day strongmen come into power in my country and start targeting people on their social media history. I'm sure to end on _some sort_ of naughty list. You kind of get how people become depoliticized and apathetic when resistance has no apparent effect and speaking up only gets you in trouble. That's how civic societies atrophy and die.
Medicaide data is pretty much covered by HIPPA. So Evil. Also it seems like it is too late, even if a court says do not do it, they will anyway and get away with it since the supreme court rules the president is allowed to break the law.
HELP I AM SOOOO F**NG ANGRY. Sorry I just don't have anywhere to safely put this rage.
Yes, with humanity and with respect for due process. And laws should not be applied selectively against people you don't like while turning a blind eye to violations by people on 'your side'.
Have you actually read immigration laws? They are not as Manichean or prescriptive as many commenters make them out to be. Enforcement-first proponents often seem unaware of or indifferent to the difference between civil and riminal violations and the lack of mandatory remedies. I've also noticed a distinct tendency to hyperbolize and outsize lie about past policy choices in order to justify their position.
A lot of people who support the current US government do not want the laws to be enforced, they just want to see people who look brown or foreigners to be deported, regardless of if they are in the US legally or illegally.
The immigration laws are saying that we should stop illegal immigration, but respect the legal immigration. And because of that, it means that each case should be carefully treated to discover if the person is illegal or not.
But a majority of people supporting the crack-down on immigration are more than happy to see 10 innocents being deported if it means 1 illegal being deported, and they will wave around the illegal being deported to explain that before the crack-down, the law was not respected, forgetting that the current situation is breaking the law way more than the previous one (before: 1 illegal not deported, 1 error. after: 10 innocents being deported, 10 errors).
In other words: if you care about the law, you cannot "pick and choose" and say "the laws are not respected because 1 illegal is not deported" but also "10 innocents are being deported, this breaks the law, but this does not count".
Where are you getting the idea that 10 innocents are being deported for every 1 illegal? Or that the "majority" of people supporting the crackdown would support that?
The information I can find suggests only a handful of cases, maybe a dozen, out of 600,000 or so.
I'm saying that the majority of the people supporting the crackdown don't care about the fact that the crackdown may break the law. Which is demonstrated by the fact that these people totally don't care of what is the number of innocents deported. You can see these people saying "we should deport the illegals", but how often you can see them saying "but I also want to know the number of innocent deported, and if this number is too high, we should stop the deportation"?
I'm not saying what is happening right now is 10 vs 1, and I did not in my comment. These numbers were illustrative, to explain that if you want to "apply the law", you should care about how many illegals are not deported AND how many innocents are deported.
This is the demonstration that people supporting the crackdown don't do it because they want to see the laws being applied, they just want "the laws that benefit them" to be applied. So we should stop pretending these people are acting because of their love for justice or for the laws.
edit: another way of explaining what I want to say: if you care about "applying the law", then you know that the correct measure will be a balance between the false positive and false negative. The large majority of the discourse of people supporting the crackdown is denying that. They are saying that "every single illegal must be deported". This discourse is explicitly saying that not deporting 1 single illegal is still not fine, and does not mention anywhere the balance with false positive. It shows that they don't care about "applying the law".
(And about "an handful of cases", that would be extremely unrealistic. Maybe you are talking about the number of cases that are surfaced, which is only a small proportion of the real numbers of case, as it is for all false positive)
If there were any evidence of widespread deportations of people who shouldn't be then I think you'd see more people speaking up, but there's not. People don't have to caveat their support of every policy with hypotheticals.
I also don't think most people want illegal aliens to be deported for "justice". They (rightfully or wrongly) think they're taking their jobs, contributing to crime, facilitating drug trade, costing taxpayers money, etc.
I am
also dealing with a number of emergencies, including a lockdown at the Minneapolis
courthouse because of protest activity, the defiance of several court orders by ICE, and
the illegal detention of many detainees by ICE (including, yesterday, a two-year
old).[1]
Federal district judges in mpls are releasing dozens of illegally detained individuals per day. You may not be hearing about it, but it is absolutely happening. Your not hearing about is part of the problem.
I also don't think most people want illegal aliens to be deported for "justice". They (rightfully or wrongly) think they're taking their jobs, contributing to crime, facilitating drug trade, costing taxpayers money, etc.
That's my point and the reason of my first comment, which answered to a comment saying
Immigration laws, like any other laws, need to be enforced, right?
I was reacting to that by saying that we should not pretend that the motivation here is "applying the law". It is not the case and it never was. (and also that "applying the law" does imply a balance between false positive and false negative, but that suddenly, trying to avoid the false negative is strangely not applying the law)
If there were any evidence of widespread deportations of people who shouldn't be ...
Somehow, I doubt it. You are yourself saying "they think (rightfully or wrongly)". They are not interested in evidence, they don't really care to check if what they think has any evidence supporting it, it is just convenient for them.
If there are evidence of widespread false positive, they will just hold tight to the idea that "they were traitors anyway". It is more convenient for them. (and in fact, there currently is a lot of evidence of a high number of false positive, but they deny it exactly like that)
The proof of that is that there are already plenty of red flags everywhere showing that officials are incompetent. The officials say that there are plenty of bad illegal dangerous persons, and yet, the only people they manage to shoot just appear to be non-illegal with no history of extremism. Then, when it happens, they starts fabricating excuses that turn out are total lies. And then ... it happens again. Even if you buy into the idea that there are indeed plenty of bad illegal dangerous persons, you have to admit that they are awful at fixing it.
It is not technically a "widespread false positive", but it is already something that a neutral reasonable person will be incapable to deny that there is a problem. And yet, right now, these people who, according to you will totally "start to speak up", don't hesitate to bury their head in the sand and insist that it is all normal.
It is totally unrealistic to pretend that suddenly, when there is widespread evidence of false positive, they will not continue to find excuse and pretend that these evidences are fake news and lies propagated by traitors.
I was reacting to that by saying that we should not pretend that the motivation here is "applying the law". It is not the case and it never was. (and also that "applying the law" does imply a balance between false positive and false negative, but that suddenly, trying to avoid the false negative is strangely not applying the law)
What is the motivation here then? In your opinion?
And speaking of false positives, could you explain what you mean by that?
I'm saying that the majority of the people supporting the crackdown don't care about the fact that the crackdown may break the law. Which is demonstrated by the fact that these people totally don't care of what is the number of innocents deported. You can see these people saying "we should deport the illegals", but how often you can see them saying "but I also want to know the number of innocent deported, and if this number is too high, we should stop the deportation"?
The people who oppose don't care about the fact that illegal immigrants are continually breaking US law by continuing to be in the US, and often explicitly argue that laws restricting immigration into the US are immoral. There's no reason grounded in an ethic of general respect for the law why formal law-violation associated with the crackdown is more important than formal law-violation associated with the illegal immigration.
Ok. First, the people who oppose don't justify everything with "apply the law". They in large majority are consistent and honest and explain that cracking down without respecting basic right is disproportionate and that you need to have a good balance. The large majority agree with the existence of law and agree that just ignoring illegals does not make any sense (they may propose better process to avoid that they end up being illegal in the first place, but also better process to treat illegals, in which case, they are literally proposing solution in which breaking the law is punished, just not by using violence and recklessness).
But again, this is a false dichotomy. You are pretending that the only way to stop breaking the law is by accepting an incompetent organisation (ICE) to act as bullies without having to answer for their actions (while I'm not sure if the people involved in the recent killing will be punished or not, plenty of unjustified violence happened without any consequences for the perpetrators). They are incompetent: they keep making stupid mistake, saying things that appear to be obviously wrong as soon as we see the footage, ...
If you really want "applying the law", why are you not contesting ICE for not being able to arrest illegals while not breaking the law themselves in situation where breaking the law is totally useless (and don't tell me it is not useless: cops and local authorities managed to do the same without creating the mess that ICE has created).
@cauch: let me ask you this: how do you weed out the illegals besides asking for proof or citizenship or proof of a passport visa that you are in the US legally?
Really, you're going to go with "papers, please" ?
ICE is on record of requesting ID from _children_. I don't know if you're a parent, but my kids didn't carry ID until they were nearly adults. That's okay, though, because they're white. I don't like bringing race into this, but we're not seeing ICE ask white people for their passports.
I don't have a problem weeding out dangerous criminals, but flagging someone who had a parking ticket a decade ago is wrong. Additionally, removing TPS from groups and then subsequently deporting them up is wrong. Arresting individuals and deporting them when they are going through the proper legal avenues to become citizens is wrong.
How soon until other "undesirables" are targeted?
Did you carry proof of citizenship as a child? Do you carry it today? I don't, as my license is not a "real id" yet. They could scoop me up as I walk into Home Depot and send me off to god knows where tomorrow.
Did you carry proof of citizenship as a child? Do you carry it today? I don't, as my license is not a "real id" yet.
Where I'm from, I am legally required to have proof of ID with me all the time. So basically used to never leaving home without it.
No, going back to what you're saying: why is it wrong to deport somebody that came to the US illegally? Just because they were good citizens is it OK to be forgiven for crossing the border illegally? How does that make any sense?
And speaking about TPS, you know what the T stands for, right?
Where I'm from, I am legally required to have proof of ID with me all the time. So basically used to never leaving home without it.
Yes, I too have proof of ID. It does not prove that I am a citizen. I can also tell you that children in the USA do not carry ID.
No, going back to what you're saying: why is it wrong to deport somebody that came to the US illegally?
If they were brought here as young children, yes, it's wrong -- they're being punished for the actions of their parents.
And speaking about TPS, you know what the T stands for, right?
Of course. Let's look at Somalia, who recently had their temporary protected status designation revoked. Their home country is currently involved in a civil war, and the US government simultaneously lists Somalia as "Level 4: Do Not Travel". There's a good chance that we're sending these people to their deaths. You are okay with this?
What I don't understand is that ICE are clearly incompetent: they shoot the wrong guys, they keep claiming they arrested bad guys and it turns out they totally misunderstood and the persons in question are not who they thought they were. Even with Pretti, ICE declared they were there to arrest a known illegal with a "significant criminal history", but turns out the Minnesota officials have said it was not the case.
This is an usual strange situation: some people want to see "less illegal immigrants", and yet, they are ok with paying big money to pay incompetent people do an half-assed job.
Other civilized countries routinely ask for proof of citizenship or legal residency when people interact with their bureaucracies and deport people who are discovered by law enforcement to not be legally resident. This happens all the time in every civilized country and in many countries we don't consider civilized.
I've lived in several civilized in Europe, and they don't do raid like it is happening in Minnesota.
What is happening in Minnesota makes the front pages in Europe, and a lot of people are saying that according to them, it will never be possible here (I'm not sure I agree with them, but it shows that the idea that the ICE methods are "the usual way to deal efficiently with immigration" is totally crazy).
I guarantee you, in Europe, illegals are arrested and deported regularly, and yet, the large majority of people don't even notice. There is no masked troops doing raids. And some people push for more care in managing illegal migrants expulsion, they do demonstration, they organise events and sometimes even are present and makes small obstruction during interventions. Yet none of them are being killed.
There is a huge disconnect with reality in US right now, with a part of the population so uneducated with the "usual" migration regulation and so fed with fear that they are painting the situation as if having unhinged ICE acting outside of due process is the only alternative to "open border and lawlessness". What a joke.
They are not. They want illegal migrants to be processed and deported if they are illegal. What they are complaining about is the fact that current, people are "marked" as illegal (or fail to be regularised) for arbitrary reasons and the process is not fair. Imagine if you were doing everything correctly as much as you can and still being treated as a thief? It does not give you a fair chance. You can be marked as illegal just because of quotas or because you had bad luck and the officials did not read your file, or because you did not do something that no one told you you should do despite the fact that you ask, or because you followed the proper process and ask what you should do and the person you asked decided to arrested you, ...
All of this happens in western countries (maybe not all in US). Immigration processes are just really badly designed. Look it up, it is crazy: from some countries, the only way to be considered as "legal" require you to be "illegal" during to the time of the admin process. Even if you pretend that it just means they are just not accepted, it does not make any sense: in this case, why the process does not say "no, sorry, from this country, no one can be legal". But the process is "you want to be legal, good, come to my country and walk this way. Oh, by the way, now that you are here, you are technically illegal, let me arrest you".
The reason is that the victim of the bad design cannot complain because people say "they are illegal anyway, so their voice does not count". For this reason, some citizen noticed that the system is just stupid, and just ask that for each illegal person, we give them a chance to demonstrate if they are really not fit to be regularized. But right now, the whole system is just a waste of money, and some idiots are trying to defend it just because they are too lazy to consider fairness and justice.
edit: if you want more concrete information on why the immigration system is unfair, badly design and waste your money, you can watch John Oliver on youtube about "legal immigration"
People cannot live without money. A huge swath of illegal immigrants work for money. Wouldn't it make sense to target the individuals who are _hiring_ them rather than the actual laborers themselves? This logic seems to work perfectly fine when cracking down on drug use, but seems completely ignored when it comes to immigration. (Yes, I'm aware ICE cracks down on some employers, but it's obvious this isn't their primary strategy.)
Seriously, think about it. If _you_ were tasked with cracking down on the immigration situation, what would you do in good faith? Send masked goons to check every single individual's papers and rough up people who can't show them? Or just send men in suits to every labor operation and ask for their I-9s, at 100x less cost? It's absolutely mind-boggling to me that people even assume a shred of good faith from the current administration here. This is terrorism, not law enforcement.
No, just because something is illegal doesn't mean it should be ruthlessly enforced with dangerous and deadly action or even enforced at all when the majority of the public doesn't support them. Do you believe the feds should go into marijuana legal states and start arresting everybody for breaking the law? Marijuana is illegal after all.
This has nothing to do with immigration law. If it did, there would be no offer on the table to withdraw the ICE troops in exchange for the MN voter database.
That has an easy and uncomfortable answer: to check that all registered voters are actually citizens. And this is why Democrat run states refuse to share that database, because it might show they have non-citizens voting. I guess the same could be said about Republican run states, but those seem like they have a lower rate of illegal immigrants.
Requiring voters have identification is very controversial in the US. The Democratic party generally opposes it. Even in states requiring ID, there are almost always options to bypass it (by signing an affadavit, for example), and in almost no case does an ID prove citizenship - the US doesn't actually have a "US citizen database" anywhere, and people can be legal citizens with a right to vote with no ID.
Like that law that says it's illegal to HIRE workers that cannot show work authorization? IIRC that carries pretty steep penalties. And if enforced, will have a huge chilling effect on the whole illegal immigration thing. But, as sibling commenters have pointed out, it's not about enforcing laws but punishing outgroups. This is only not obvious to the willfully ignorant.
There’s a lot more nuance than might be obvious at first thought. For example, many of the people being violently deported now came here legally, followed the rules, and are now being targeted because their protected status or asylum cases were cancelled under highly suspicious circumstances, with a lot of the rush being to get them out of the country before the shady revocations are reviewed.
We also have a lot of inconsistent enforcement because some employers love having workers who can be mistreated under the threat of calling ICE. If we really wanted to lower immigration, we’d require companies to verify status for everyone they hire. You can see how this works in Texas where they’ve had a ton of bills requiring that get killed by Republican leadership on behalf of major donors:
Imagine what they could do with mental health data if they ever decide to start deporting people with mental "problems", just like the Nazis did in their time. The same goes for people with physical disabilities.
They cannot receive from federally funded Medicaid but some states have programs or state-funded Medicaid programs that allow non-citizens to benefit. CA and NY do for some categories. See this example for WI: https://www.dhs.wisconsin.gov/medicaid/noncitizens.htm
The states that run these programs have political leadership that doesn't want to make a distinction between legal and illegal immigrants, and wants to give state -funded benefits to illegal immigrants, and so deliberately doesn't check citizenship or legal residency status when you apply for benefits.
The fourth amendment is basically gone at this point. Private companies can harvest location data from phones or facial recognition cameras/license plate readers in public spaces and sell that to entities like Palantir that aggregate it for government use (or for other commercial use). No warrants required, very little oversight (especially in this admin).
The problem seems to be that half of America voted for this, twice, and will continue cheering this kind of outcome on, despite any amount of evidence it is harmful.
I’m also confused. I think the Medicaid data might just be one additional source they’ve added to a data lake style system, which they pull from for some reporting based on address?
So if ICE puts your address into their computer, they get to see something about the people inside. How much do they see? Do they get to see your medical conditions too? Could a creatively inclined person get an LLM to read medical data out of it? Who knows, there’s no transparency for this sharing.
Something seems to have gone wrong with the timestamps on comments on this thread. At present nearly all comments have been posted < 4 min ago. I know I'm slowing down as I get older, but I don't think the internet is jabbering that fast, is it?
Yes, sorry, that was a keyboard error on my part as I'm working very late at night to deal with a follow-up/duplicate thread about this topic that hit the front page. We'll restore all the correct timestamps in due course. I'm manually doing the top level ones now.
And still there are people here using Twittler for communication. Who drive Swasticars. Who applaud AntichrisThiel. RapisTrump from the parts of Germany known to grow Potatoes in the soil and in the minds.
It's a pity our American friends haven't noticed that while yes, indeed, the worst of the worst scum got sent to the US. It is just that you had set your brain UI theme to dark mode, and did not notice that the threat isn't that kid with brown skin getting sent to concentration camp by your Gestapo, but those "we want immigrants that look like they are from Norway" folks. 1)
In the distant past, you US Americans still had libraries. You could have used them to find out what there is a reason we over here in Europe and Africa did not want the Trunps and Thiels and Musks and Karps. 2)
For those who are reading this from inside the US: At what point if EVER are you going to get out of your chair, use your second amendment rights, and get rid of your crazy fascist brainworm Nazi scum that you had been praying to?
I know. It is too much to ask for. OK OK. Outside of your comfort zone to fight back. Then go watch MELANIA, a documentation on how about rape and abuse and illegal immigration is totally fine as long as your skin has the right color and the boob job was done well.
1) I myself am German, male, straight, blonde hair. I am allowed to say that our type is the cancer of the human race. After all these hundreds of years, you STILL haven't understood you can not trust us?
2) I know Karp is not from Germany. But he wrote his doctoral thesis in Germany, and it can be summarized as "I am a totally crazy asshole and want to cause as much pain and suffering as possible onto humanity, can I please do that kthxbye?"
Any time I see people say "I don't see why I should care about my privacy, I've got nothing to hide" I think about how badly things can go if the wrong people end up in positions of power.
The classic example here is what happens when someone is being stalked by an abusive ex-partner who works in law enforcement and has access to those databases.
This ICE stuff is that scaled up to a multi-billion dollar federal agency with, apparently, no accountability for following the law at all.
It doesn't even need malicious intent. If nobody rational is monitoring it, all it will take is a bad datapoint or hallucination for your door to get kicked in by mistake.
Plus there is inherent biases in datasets. Folks who have interactions with Medicaid will be more vulnerable by definition.
To quote the standard observability conference line "what gets measured gets managed".
The same people saying that will also defend police wearing masks, hiding badges, and shutting off body cameras. They are not participating in discussions with the same values (truth, integrity) that you have. Logic does not work on people who believe Calvinistic predestination is the right model for society.
Wait. Is calvinistic predestination the majority view of republicans? I thought most of them are some form of (tv) evangelism, or secularism
I am not American and genuinely curious on this.
No, none of that is true.
Remember, Republicans represent half the country, not some isolated sect living in small town Appalachia.
27%* https://news.gallup.com/poll/700499/new-high-identify-politi...
Calvinists or Evangelicals?
I don't think that holds water either way.
This statement isn't necessarily wrong because about half of elected government officials are Republican, but I want to point out that less than 60% of eligible Americans voted in 2024, so we're talking about <30% of Americans who vote Republican.
And honestly, with a Congress that allows every state, irrespective of population, two Senators, it is somewhat skewed. I mean San Jose, California is about double the population of the entire state of Wyoming.
i don't know why this is downvoted, it's a legit complaint.
wyoming has ~800k people. ohio has 11 million. the greater NYC area (parts of NJ, CT, etc.) has ~22 million. california has 40 million.
and as a parent poster mentioned, just slightly 1/3 of eligible voters chose trump; if "no candidate" was a choice it may have one most states, beating out kamala and trump.
I didn't downmod, but it's probably because they are represented by population in the House, a coequal chamber which approves the budget (and the Speaker of which is next in line for POTUS after the VP). States have equal representation in Senate so one high-population state can't write laws that only benefit them, or are disadvantageous to smaller states.
I don't believe there is any sort of conservative intellectual movement at this point. The right believes they have captured certain institutions (law enforcement, military), in the same way they believe the left has captured others (education/universities, media), and will use them to wage war against whichever group the big finger pointing men in charge tell them to.
Republicans are overwhelmingly Christian, and even though Calvinism, or its branches, may not be the religion a majority of Republicans “exercise”, predetermination is a convenient explanation of why the world is what it is, and why no action should be taken - so it gets used a lot by right wing media, etc.
A lot of American Christians aren't hyper committed to the specific theology of whichever flavor of Christianity they belong to, and will often sort of mix and match their own personal beliefs with what is orthodoxy.
That said, I'm ex-Catholic, so I don't feel super qualified to make a statement on the specific popularity of predestination among American evangelicals at the moment.
That said, in a less theological and more metaphorical sense, it does seem that many of them do believe in some sort of "good people" and "bad people", where the "bad people" are not particularly redeemable. It feels a little unfalsifiable though.
Some, probably; not all (and certainly not the current president, who in his more senile moments muses about how his works have probably earned him hell [0]).
But the same observation applies to lots of other attitudes, too—like “might makes right” and “nature is red in tooth and claw” or whatever else the dark princelings evince these days. I feel like “logic matters” mainly pertains to a liberal-enlightenment political context that might be in the past now…
Does reality always find a way to assert itself in the face of illogic? Sure! But if Our Side is righteous and infallible, the bad outcomes surely must be the fault of Those Scapegoats’ malfeasance—ipso facto we should punish them harder…
https://time.com/7311354/donald-trump-heaven-hell-afterlife-...
It's something they say in sociology 101 at colleges in the US and some people occasionally believe it.
Calvinistic predestination is a TULIP sense (Total depravity, Unconditional election, Limited atonement, Irresistible grace, and Perseverance of the saints) is an extreme minority position, like 7% to 5% of the American Church (Reformed Camp)
You should lookup 'Supply-side Jesus' to get a better understanding of American Christianity.
Anyone on the right who implicates Pretti for carrying a licensed firearm is a good litmus test for bad faith.
It's amazing how quickly the party of small government, states rights, and the 2nd amendment quickly turned against all their principles. It really shows how many people care more about party than principle.
"Trump’s net approval rating on immigration has declined by about 4 points since the day before Good’s death until today. Meanwhile, his overall approval rating has declined by 2 points and is near its second-term lows" [1].
I'd encourage anyone watching to actually pay attention to "how many people care more about party than principle." I suspect it's fewer than MAGA high command thinks.
[1] https://www.natesilver.net/p/trump-is-losing-normies-on-immi...
Two percent of Americans changing their opinion in the face of state sanctioned murder is not a good number.
The people who still support the orange troll live in an echo chamber where they've been sold the bullshit that quran waiving communist terrorists and the deep state are behind all of this, and it's a con job.
Multiple state sanctioned murder
Not to mention the extrajudicial killings
Not to mention the Epstein reports
I'm really not sure what people actually care about because for some reason they won't actually tell you
Two percent could swing an election. And two percent can convince another two percentage points to get angry. Never dismiss small swings out of hand.
I welcome it, don't get me wrong, and every little bit helps. But the fact that we have so many people like this is still a massive problem.
It's not that amazing. The Republican party has repeatedly demonstrated my entire life that their goal is power and all stated ideals can and will be sacrificed as needed to achieve that goal.
We get things like philandering individuals running on family values platforms, anti-gay individuals being caught performing gay sex acts in restaurant bathrooms, crowing about deficits and the national debt during Democrat administrations while cutting taxes and increasing spending during Republican administrations, blocking Supreme Court nominations because it's "too close to an election" while pushing through another Supreme Court nomination mere weeks before a subsequent election, etc.
The fuel running the Republican political machine is bad faith.
They haven’t turned against their principles. Party is the principle. You’re just confused because you thought their stated principles were real.
I spent too much of the 90s listening to Rush Limbaugh and consuming other conservative media and the exact same contradictions were prominently on display then. They absolutely excoriated law enforcement for things like the Waco siege. The phrase “jack-booted thugs” got used. But when LAPD beat the shit out of Rodney King on video, suddenly police could do no wrong.
It's important to distinguish between their stated principles and their actually held principles. They are quite principled.
Most people understand this. We're just using fewer words because most people understand
I assume the NRA are out in droves at a US citizen being executed for carrying a gun?
I guess this is an example of FAFO? This is what the NRA wanted, now they got to find out how what happens when there are too many guns and too many idiots with guns masquerading as law enforcement. The guy had every right to have a gun, and the masked tyrants had no right to kill him for it.
The NRA is ostensibly pro guns but they are also pro oppression.
they are pro-money and pro-gun-industry.
ain't no left wing causes giving them $$$, just the GOP, gun industry, and occasionally the Russians
They are not where I would hold them to if they were truly a principled organization and not largely a political tool for the far-right on any and every talking point, but we got far more out of them than we usually do.
They publicly called out a Trump appointee for saying you're not allowed to bring a gun to a protest, and have urged that there be an investigation in to what occurred.
They also then blamed it on the MN government, because for some reason CBP (250 miles from a border, and thus 150 miles away from their remit...) pretending to be police officers when they also lack a remit to do that and them then fucking things up and murdering people because of the lack of remit, lack of training, lack of screening on the hiring... is because of Walz and co.
So... better than I expected, but still pretty dogshit.
Police absolutely should have body cameras - quite frequently they’ve proven law enforcement officers handled things correctly where activists have tried to say otherwise.
This is true.
Yet law enforcement officers are some of the most resistant to the idea, and Trump and DHS are extremely resistant to the idea of utilizing them for ICE and CBP, and have even cut funding for it.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-moved-cut-funding-ice...
When we know that the body cams are frequently used in a way that benefits the people wearing them, I find it quite telling when those people are railing against the idea and those in power actively work to block it.
This is the moment for Europe to show that you can do gov and business differently. If they get their s** together and actually present a viable alternative.
How is it not viable now?
They are doing it differently alright.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chat_control
You're saying a proposed bill which hasn't passed is comparative to recent events in the US or am I reading too much between the lines?
You're saying EU is any different to USA?
Palantir clients: Europol, Danish POL-INTEL, NHS UK, UK Ministry of Defence, German Police (states), NATO, Ukraine, ASML, Siemens, Airbus, Credit Suisse, UBS, BP, Merck, ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palantir_Technologies#Customer...
https://www.palantir.com/partners/international/
Nitpicking, many on your list are not part of the EU : NHS UK, UK Ministry of Defence, NATO, Ukraine, UBS, BP.
Plus, the EU is 27 countries, out of which 5 are listed on their wiki page, with various institutions.
"Best I can do is Chat Control 3.0"
Europe can't do business differently. Or at least it doesn't seem to be able to. China can.
Last I checked millions of europeans are living in a functioning civilization. I've lived in Europe. It is ok.
Don't confuse "GDP not as big as ours" with "totally non-functional."
I didn't say it was totally nonfunctional, I said they can't do business differently than they are currently doing.
China can
Yes, things are different in totalitarian states.
"China can, due to mandatory 996 work hours"
What would you like to see changed in the EU?
There’s a world of difference between a government using legally collected data for multiple purposes and an individual abusing their position purely for personal reasons.
The parent's example is of an individual using that "legal" state collected data for nefarious purposes. Once it's collected, anyone who accesses it is a threat vector. Also, governments (including/especially the US) have historically killed, imprisoned and tortured millions and millions of people. There's nothing to be gained by an individual for allowing government access to their data.
That difference is looking very thin right now.
Is this legal though?
& effectively if there is no checks on this is there actually a difference? There only difference is that the threat is to an entire cohort rather than an individual.
At this moment, the primary difference appears to be scale.
When did legality make something right?
The whole social battle is a constant attempt to align our laws and values as a society. It's why we create new laws. It's why we overturn old laws. You can't just abdicate your morals and let the law decide for you. That's not a system of democracy, that's a system of tyranny.
The privacy focused crowd often mentions "turnkey tyranny" as a major motivation. A tyrant who comes to power and changes the laws. A tyrant who comes to power and uses the existing tooling beyond what that tooling was ever intended for.
The law isn't what makes something right or wrong. I can't tell you what is, you'll have to use your brain and heart to figure that one out.
Musk and his flying monkeys came in with hard drives and sucked up all the data from all the agencies they had access to and installed software of some kind, likely containing backdoors. Even though each agency had remit for the data it maintained, they had been intentionally firewalled to prevent exactly what Palantir is doing.
There is also a world of difference between a government using data to carry out its various roles in service of the nation and a government using data to terrorize communities for the sadistic whims of its leadership.
Think I'm being hyperbolic? In Trump's first term fewer than 1M were deported. In Obama's eight years as president, 3.1M people were deported without the "techniques" we are witnessing.
There is 0 difference. None. There's not even a line to cross.
In both cases, the information is legally collected (or at least, that's the only data we're concerned about in this conversation).
- government using
- individual abusing
^ Both of those are someone in the government using the information. In both cases, someone in the government can use the information in a way that causes an individual great harm; and isn't in the "understood" way the information would be used when it was "pitched" to the public. And in both cases, the person doing it will do what they want an almost certainly face no repercussions if what they're doing is morally, or even legally, wrong.
The government is collecting data (or paying someone else to collect that data, so it's not covered by the rules) and can then use it to cause individuals great harm. That's it, the entire description. The fact that _sometimes_ it's one cop using it to stalk someone or not is irrelevant.
Respect, thank you for using your voice.
Also always keep in mind that what is legal today might be illegal tomorrow. This includes things like your ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation and much more.
You don't know today on which side of legality you will be in 10 years, even if your intentions are harmless.
The reaction from the masses: "But that isn't true today, anything could happen in the future, and why should I invest so much work on something that's only a possibility?"
People do not have justifications for most choices. We watch YouTube when we would benefit more from teaching ourselves skills. We eat too much of food we know is junk. We stay up too late and either let others walk over us at work to avoid overt conflict or start fights and make enemies to protect our own emotions. If you want to know why Americans are allowing themselves to be gradually reduced to slavery, do not ask why.
It's disingenuous to say Americans are "allowing" themselves to do anything in the face of countless, relentless, multi-billion corporate campaigns, designed by teams of educated individuals, to make them think and act in specific ways.
This. As much as I would like to say 'individual responsibility' and all that, the sheer amount of information that is designed to make one follow a specific path, react in specific way or offer opinion X is crazy. I am not entirely certain what the solution is, but I am saying this as a person, who likes to think I am somewhat aware of attempts to subvert my judgment and I still catch myself learning ( usually later after the fact ) that I am not as immune as I would like to think.
Who is most responsible for stopping Trump from doing horrible shit? Besides of course, Trump himself. Surely that must be his base, yes? Then followed by Americans at large. It’s surely not, say, Canada’s responsibility, no? There’s a spectrum of responsibility, and you can find out who is at the top of that spectrum of those that think the thing is bad, and hold them at least morally responsible. In this case, yes, that is individuals.
His base are the 0.01%. They could end this tomorrow by phoning their pet senators and having a quiet word.
The people on the front lines - including the ICE thugs - are entirely disposable. They people using them have zero interest in their welfare or how this works out for them in the long term. (Spoilers - not well.)
Of course they don't understand this. But this is absolutely standard for authoritarian fascism - groom and grudge farm the petty criminals and deviants, recruit them as regime enforcers with promises of money and freedom from consequences, set them loose, profit.
The Supreme Court. Then congressional leadership of both parties. After that perhaps we could look to governors of large states like New York or California.
There are, admittedly, layers do this post I don't think I have time to properly analyze, but I will do my best to be brief.
<< Who is most responsible for stopping Trump from doing horrible shit?
First, note that I did not mention anyone specific, but the poster chose to read my words that described a generic state of propaganda wielded by various power centers specifically as related to Trump.
Apart from the obvious that it now forces us to read the remaining posts with that lens, it also suggests that the poster is oblivious to other sources of propaganda.
<< Surely that must be his base, yes?
I am not particularly certain where that incessant need to end each sentence with a question demanding approval/acknowledgement comes from, but I did see it pop up in other languages suggesting it is not exactly an organic growth.
That said, as phrased, if it is his base, then the answer seems to be that his base is ok with it. But, and it is not a small but, base is not an individual and I would like you to carefully consider whether applying the same lens based on political leaning is.. well.. smart. Things tend go awry with group punishments.
<< and hold them at least morally responsible
In your own words, what does that mean.. exactly?
It is not you who plants weeds in the garden but the wind, but the wind won't weed them back out again.
A valid perspective, and I agree that a democracy only works as long as its citizens remain civically engaged. Unfortunately, I think it's too late for the US in its current form, and it might not be long before we see it split up into smaller regions, unless something suddenly kicks Congress into gear and people break ranks to impeach and disparage the Trump administration.
I can’t understand republicans in congress. They’d rather be a powerful dung eater than a respectable ex-congressman. Jan 6th should have been the last straw.
Its never too late, eventually things will turn and when that happens, you will be in either the right position, or the wrong position, depending on your actions.
Don't forget murdering protesters.
with the kind of images that are out in the open for everybody with their own eyes to see, if that does not move you in your heart of hearts, where no government or anyone else can touch you, there is something rotten in that person.
Governments and authority figures can show you a lot of things but the amount of people who not just accept it, but gleefully celebrate the most vulnerable people in society beaten by government thugs, there is no excuse. People can show you false images, false numbers but they can't make you feel proud for the strong abusing the weak. It's particularly appalling if you see the amount of them who call themselves Christians.
The problem is that by the time some people encounter these shocking images and videos of mass human torture, their priors have already been developed to reject their eyes and ears in favor of what the people with whom they've entrusted their safety tell them.
These people think Charlie Kirk was on the frontlines of personal freedom, but look the other way when a man gets tackled and shot in broad daylight for trying to help a woman who's just been maced.
It's horrible, and inexcusable, but still crucial to understand through a framework that accounts for the effects of multi-generational propaganda peddled by the ultra-rich who have been shaping our thoughts and behaviors through advertisement and capital for hundreds of years.
<< shot in broad daylight for trying to help a woman who's just been maced.
Yes.. do I get to get between DEA and their intended target? No? If not, why not. If yes, why yes? The framing is silly.
The death may be tragic and very much avoidable, but it was avoidable on both ends of this interaction. There is no comparison to Kirk here at all. He came to talk to people. Pretti went there as part of a signal group coordinating to obstruct a federal enforcement agency..
Ngl.. how people choose their heroes is beyond me.
Yeah those guys, I think you are talking about Manga, They are not Christians, they are just using that as cover for already poisoned hearts.
I can point to countless times in history where belief in the Christian God was used to murder, subjugate and torture "others". The reality is that, regardless of what nice things Jesus may or may not have said, Christianity as an institution has always been used as a tool for power and coercion. That goes for all Abrahamic religions.
I sometimes imagine that HN was a professional collective. Maybe working with the supply chain of foodstuffs. Carciogenic foodstuff would be legal. Environmental harzards getting into foodstuff would be legal. But there would be a highly ideological subgroup that would advocate for something that would very indirectly handle these problems. And the rest of the professional collective are mixed and divided on whether they are good or what they are actually working towards. A few would have the insight to realize that one of the main people behind the group foresaw these problems that are current right now 30 years ago.
That people ingest environmental hazards and carciogens would be viewed as a failure of da masses to abstractly consider the pitfalls of understanding the problems inherent to the logistics of foodstuffs in the context of big corporations.
The older I get the more disconnected I feel from some of the posters on this site. I can't remember exactly when I joined, 2012ish maybe? But the takes people have seem to be getting wilder and wilder.
Most users here are American, have you seen what is happening in America?
The funny (sad) thing is all the hot takes about the UK or Europe being a "police state" because porn is being blocked for kids, or persistent abuse on social media actually has repercussion (as it does in the real world already).
Meanwhile ICE are murdering US citizens in the streets. Turns out American "free speech" doesn't prevent an authoritarian regime taking hold.
To clarify, i do believe in free speech. But until you are bundled into a black car for holding up poster with a political statement (like in Russia or China), you have free speech. Attempting to stop abuse on social media is not the same. The closest we have to preventing free speech in the UK is the Israel/Gaza "issue".
Many people in the UK were detained or interviewed by police for protesting Israeli actions.
Yup, I called out Israel/Palestine.
Lucy Connolly was imprisoned for about a year in the UK for posting an inflammatory anti-immigration social media post which was deemed illegal under UK law, and is currently being threatened (https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/2157938/lucy-connolly-pris... ) with being returned to jail for posting social media content attacking the current UK government.
This is hardly the only example of the UK, or other Anglophone democracies, criminalizing speech with actual prison time. I'm not happy with UK laws trying to block VPNs under the pretense of blocking porn for minors either.
… did you read your own linked article?
That’s literally calling for violence?
Can’t even incite murder anymore without being put in prison; it’s political correctness gone mad!
There is no country in the world where inciting arson of housing counts as free speech. The UK has actual problems with free speech (particularly the Online Safety Act), but this isn't one of them.
In whatsapp:
Bit more crime, there (she worked in a regulated industry around kids; lying to the regulator isn't allowed).
PLEASE STOP SAYING YOU WILL DO CRIMES.
(I'm always amazed that so many criminals end up having these incriminating conversations on WhatsApp and similar; have they never read the news or watched any crime drama? In a vacuum she'd probably have got off!)
What did the post say?
<insert angry goose meme>
Have a go (in the UK) with a poster reading "I support Palestine Action"
Yup, I called out Israel/Palestine. I don't agree with how speech is suppressed on this issue, it has been that way for a long time though.
Privacy itself can become illegal just as easily as religion, etc. if we follow your argument.
What point do you think you're making?
My interpretation: advocating for privacy without making effort to avoid a large part of the society goes "crazy" will not protect you much on the long term.
I do like "engineering solutions" (ex: not storing too much data), but I start to think it is important to make more effort on more broad social, legal and political aspects.
Absolutely - there are quite a few attempts in this direction.
EU is literally debating about "Chat Control". Its purpose is to scan for child sexual abuse material in internet traffic. But its at the cost of breaking end to end encryption.
That's its ostensible, purported, show purpose.
The real purpose is to break end to end encryption to increase government surveillance and power. "But think of the children" or "be afraid of the terrorists" are just the excuses those in power rotate through to to achieve their true desired ends.
I wouldn't be surprised that Trump goes one step further. He is so unleashed, and irrational. This guy is a liability for humanity
It's a hell of lot harder to enforce...
Harder than ethnicity or sexual orientation or religion?
Without privacy of those things? Yes.
Yes, that is indeed the point.
Don’t forget about social media posts. In the UK, people are being jailed for those today.
Imagine if they used your past post history against you.
In the US if you make a social media post threatening the president you are breaking the law and can be sent to jail just as much as if you said it
Link?
Here are a few.
https://www.congress.gov/119/meeting/house/118565/documents/...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/steveforbes/2025/09/09/people-a...
https://winslowlawyers.com/uk-man-arrested-for-malicious-com...
These are ALL about the UK, including the “congress.gov” link.
My apologies. I thought you were asking on a different branch ( about the USA). The misunderstanding is my fault.
These are both true statements, but there's a huge difference in scale.
The UK arrests 12,000 people per year for social media posts ( https://freedomhouse.org/country/united-kingdom/freedom-net/... ), for a broad range of vague reasons including causing offense. That's far more than much larger totalitarian nations like Russia and China.
The US arrests folks for direct online threats of violence - a much higher bar.
Not anymore. Now in the US you can be arrested if cops think you disrespected a dead guy they liked[1]
[1] https://apnews.com/article/charlie-kirk-meme-tennessee-arres...
Yes, that was egregious and well-publicized. I've seen another case of a small-town sheriff arresting someone for a Facebook post that absolutely was not a threat of violence. Both were released and I believe the latter won a lawsuit for wrongful arrest.
But in general in the US "offending" others is not a legal basis for arrest, as much as some in power would like it to be.
If the sheriff who arrested this person has zero personal consequences that make him change his behavior, then it is de facto legal for them to arrest you for your speech.
They can do what they like, and your compensation if the courts think you were harmed, comes out of your own pocket as a taxpayer.
Show me the incentives and I’ll show you the outcome. The incentive here is that someone the government don’t like got put in a cell for a month and couldn’t speak, and they get no downsides. I wonder what will keep happening more and more.
No they do not. Quote, from your own link:
Emphasis mine. "Including". Not exclusively, not only, including.
Now what does the law being cited actually say[1]?
With additional clarification[2]:
So you're deliberately spreading misinformation here, as was the original article by the Times and as is everyone else who keeps quoting this figure. Because by means of lying by omission they want to imply one very specific thing: "you will be arrested for criticizing the government on social media". But the actual crime statistic is about a much more common, much broader category of crime - namely: harassment. That 12,000 a year figure includes targeted harassment by almost any carriage medium, as well as crimes like "prank" calling emergency services. It means it includes death threats, stalking, domestic abuse and just about every other type of non-physical abuse or intimidation.
Of course you could've also figured out this is bullshit with a very simple litmus test: 12,000 people a year wouldn't be hard to find if the UK was mass-jailing people on public social media. But it's not what's happening.
The text of the law as well, for anyone interested: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/21/section/127
[1] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/wales-englan...
[2] https://archive.md/bdEqK#selection-3009.0-3009.194:~:text=A%....
No they're not. An incredibly small number of people might get arrested if policing cocks up. Nobody is being jailed.
Which posts are people being jailed for?
Data are immortal times of peace are not!
Which is why I generally vote for people who believe in freedom versus an overreaching state.
I need to get this super power.
I am lucky to get to vote for people that don't believe in a religious ethno-state.
I think it must depend on the country, right?
Yeah, or county... but same kind of difference.
Laws can not be applied retroactively.
In this case you will very likely be given an option to leave or change (not possible for ethniticity).
Wanting to be able to break the law in the future is not a just motivation.
I mean, I've read stupid takes on this website but this really takes the cake
despots don't care about the law
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ex_post_facto_law
This is such a low probability scenario that I don't think it's worth the average person to worry about.
how is it a low probability scenario?
it's happened before, in living memory (there are still people alive that survived the holocaust)
and you're seeing the early stages of despotic rule literally today in Minnesota
There weren't ex post facto laws being passed during the holocaust.
This type of thinking is what is leading to the destruction of order there.
the argument isn't that states can't create ex-post facto laws (even though they can, see: any country with parliamentary sovereignty)
it's that what the law says doesn't matter when the executive no is longer bound by the rule of law
see: the United States under the Trump regime
the fact that some previous legislature has passed a law saying that "using the gay/jewish/disabled/... database for bad things is illegal" is of no consequence when the state already has the database and has no interest in upholding the rule of law
Yes, we are seeing a destruction of order in MN. US citizens being terrorized by ICE and CBP agents with 47 days of training, no understanding of the legal limits of their authority, and no consequences when they go beyond those limits.
But that's not being caused by people pushing back against the beginnings of autocracy. That's being caused by the people who want to become autocrats.
A few years ago most people would think violating the Posse Comitatus act would be such a low probability scenario. And yet.
The US is currently descending into fascim. With each passing day, we see more bold and obviously illegal actions that we would not have dreamed up in our wildest nightmares.
Wait, so you think government that will make some "ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation and much more" illegal is probable enough to consider such hypothetical situation, but government that will ignore law is where you draw the line?
I think ex post facto laws being passed is much more rare of a situation.
"Ex-post facto? No, you see, the message was still in the Discord chat history and you did not delete it, despite having years to do so."
Challenge.
Laws cannot an action a crime after it was committed. However,
- Civil rules can and do impact things retroactively
- Laws may not make something illegal retroactively, but the interpretation of a law can suddenly change; which works out the same thing.
- The thing you're doing could suddenly become illegal with on way for you to avoid doing it (such as people being here legally and suddenly the laws for what is legally changes). This isn't retroactive, but it might as well be.
It is _entirely_ possible for someone to act in a way that is acceptable today but is illegal, or incurs huge civil penalties, tomorrow.
I would not be surprised if SCOTUS disagrees at some point.
They want to declare "Antifa" a terrorist organization. So anyone that is against fascism (ANTI-FAscist) will be labeled a terrorist. Let that sink in for a moment.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/09/desi...
Don't forget your comments on HN, which, as we all know, don't go away. I think the chilling-effect is absolutely real now.
"I've got nothing to hide" is another way of saying "I don't have friends that trust me," which is another way of saying" I don't have friends."
This is why there shouldn’t be any organization that has that much power.
Full stop.
What you described is the whole raison dêtre of Anarchism; irrespective of whether you think there’s an alternative or not*
“No gods No Masters” isn’t just a slogan it’s a demand
*my personal view is that there is no possible stable human organization
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchist_symbolism#No_gods,_n...
Have you read Graeber & Wengrow?
Of course. All of Graeber is fantastic and I’m trying to get an audience with Wengrow
Where can I follow this development
See if you can understand my paper:
https://kemendo.com/GTC.pdf
If you can, let me know
The simple response to that line of thinking is: "you don't choose what the government uses against you"
For any piece of data that exists, the government effectively has access to it through court orders or backdoors. Either way, it can and will be used against you.
The true problem is that it happens no matter who is in charge. It's like that old phrase about weapons that are invented are going to be used at some point. The same thing has turned out to be true for intelligence tools. And the worst part is that the tools have become so capable, that malicious intent isn't even required anymore for privacy to be infringed.
From everything we are seeing, the tools are not actually that capable. Their main function is not their stated function of spying/knowing a lot about people. Their main function is to dehumanize people.
When you use a computer to tell you who to target, it makes it easy for your brain to never consider that person as a human being at all. They are a target. An object.
Their stated capabilities are lies, marketing, and a smokescreen for their true purpose.
This is Lavender v2, and I’m sure others could name additional predecessors. Systems rife with errors but the validity isn’t the point; the system is.
For me, the angle is a bit different. I want privacy, but I also sense that the people who are really good at this (like Plantir) have so much proxy information available that individual steps to protect privacy are pretty much worthless.
To me, this is a problem that can only be solved at the government/regulatory level.
In principle, I agree with your point; in practice, I think the claims made my these surveillance/advertising companies are likely as overstated as Musk's last decade of self-driving that still can't take a vehicle all the way across the USA without supervision in response to a phone summons.
The evidence I have that causes me to believe them to be overstated, is how even Facebook has frequently shown me ads that inherently make errors about my gender, nationality, the country I live in, and the languages I speak, and those are things they should've been able to figure out with my name, GeoIP, and the occasional message I write.
They are not overstated, and they are far worse.
It’s funny when Facebook thinks you’re interested in aquariums and shows you aquarium ads when that isn’t your thing at all.
It’ll be a lot less amusing when Palantir thinks you’re interested in bombing government buildings.
Palantir don't sell data though, they just give you a software platform.
They don't sell the data, they sell access to that data
Some retorts for people swayed by that argument:
"Can we put a camera in your bathroom?"
"Let's send your mom all your text messages."
"Ain't nothin' in my pockets, but I'd rather you didn't check."
"Shall we live-stream your next doctor's appointment?"
"May I watch you enter your PIN at the ATM?"
"How about you post your credit card number on reddit?"
"Care to read your high-school diary on open mic night?"
Do any of these actually prompt someone to reconsider their position? They strike me as more of argument through being annoying than a good-faith attempt to connect with the other side.
I usually just quote Snowden instead:
Not as clever as it may sound. It is perfectly possible that someone has nothing to hide in a good way, whereas someone without anything to say for himself cannot be easily imagined as a good faith social individual. So in a way this is comparing apples to bad apples and claiming they are perfectly equal.
Huh? You can’t imagine boring people as a “good faith social individual”?
If you have nothing so say for yourself that is more than beeing boring, it is beeing indifferent which is just one step away from amoral.
Or acutely stressed. Some people clam up as a stress response.
I feel "people should not have have consequences for what they say", and "people should be able to avoid consequences for what they have done", are separate concepts. One does not require believing in the other. For example I believe the former, but for the latter I believe everyone should be punished when they break the law.
People should have consequences for what they say, but not from the government. You should never be prosecuted for what you say, no matter how vile. But other people are free to exercise their rights in response, including freedom of association.
That was a typo in my post. Fixed.
So if public figures with a sizeable following start calling for you and your family to be chased down and gutted like animals, should they legally be allowed to do that? Do you actually believe that?
'Saying' is an example of 'doing', and the moderation to speech happens after the fact, including (yes) in USA. Consider the case of a person yelling fire or 'he's got a gun!' when there is none, or a death threat.
Generally speaking, I think the point of statements like this is to shoot down the trite and thought-free cliche "if you have nothing to hide". And the point is rarely to convince the person you're speaking to, it's usually to get people who might otherwise be swayed by hearing the trite and thought-free cliche to think for a moment.
If you're talking directly to one person and trying to convince them, without an audience, there are likely different tactics that might work, but even then, some of the same approach might help, just couched more politely. "You don't actually mean that; do you want a camera in your bedroom with a direct feed to the police? What do you actually mean, here? What are you trying to solve?"
Option A: "Yes!", which tells you you're probably talking to someone who cares more about not admitting they're wrong than thinking about what they're saying.
Option B: "Well, no, but...", and now you're having a discussion.
Generally speaking, people who say things like "if you have nothing to hide" either (charitably) haven't thought about it very much and are vaguely wanting to be "strict on crime" without thought for the consequences because they can't imagine it affecting them, or (uncharitably) have attitudes about what they consider "shameful" and they really mean "you shouldn't do things that I think you should feel shame about".
Quite. I think a lot of Americans are acculturated (partly via movies and TV) to constant one-upmanship and trying to end disagreements with zingers. Look how many political videos on YouTube are titled 'Pundit you like DESTROYS person you disapprove of!' You see the same patterns in Presidential 'debates' and Congressional hearings. It's all very dramatic but lacking in real substance.
I think the "nothing to hide" argument is made for a different reason.
People are unafraid of the government knowing certain things because they believe it will not have any real repercussions for them. The NSA knowing your search history is no big deal (as long as you're not looking for anything illegal), but your church knowing your search history would absolutely be a big deal.
A very famous quote: "Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect."
Many people - particularly white people, but let's not ignore that a bunch of Black and Latino folks are/have been Trump supporters - believe that they are part of the in-group. And inevitably, they find out that the government doesn't care, as evidenced by ICE and their infamous quota of 3000 arrests a day... which has hit a ton of these people, memefied as "leopards ate my face".
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/29/trump-ice-ar...
Until someone at or above the TSA decides they don't like you. And then they use your search history to blackmail you. Because lots of people search for things that wouldn't be comfortable being public. Or search for things that could easily be taken out of context. Especially when that out of context makes it seem like they might be planning something illegal
Heck, there's lots of times where people mention a term / name for something on the internet; and, even though that thing is benign, the _name/term_ for it is not. It's common for people to note that they're not going to search for that term to learn more about it, because it will look bad or the results will include things they don't want to see.
When someone said "I got nothing to hide" I always took it to mean "I will tell the nazis when they come which house to look in".
It's good to know in advance who they are.
You, someone's friends, and someone's mom are not law enforcement investigating a crime.
There's a big difference between these scenarios.
Law enforcement are civilians like you or me. It was a big mistake to grant them special rights. If they can arrest people then it should be legal for you and me to arrest a LEO. Why should any person have special rights in a Democracy?
Which are quippy and dismissed because they fundamentally misunderstand privacy. There is such a concept as "privacy in a crowd" - you expect, and experience it, every day. You generally expect to be able to have a conversation in say, a coffee-shop, and not have it intruded upon and commented upon by other people in the shop. Snippets of it may be overheard, but they will be largely ignored even if we're all completely aware of snippets of other conversations we have heard, and bits and pieces have probably been recorded on peoples phones or vlogs or whatever.
That's privacy in a crowd and even if they couldn't describe it, people do recognize it.
What you are proposing in every single one of these, is violating that in an overt and disruptive way - i.e.
Do I have anything in particular to hide in my text messages, of truly disastrous proportions? No. But would it feel intrusive for a known person who I have to interact with to get to scrutinize and comment on all those interactions? Yes. In much the same way that if someone on the table over starts commenting on my conversation in a coffee-shop, I'd suddenly not much want to have one there.
Which is very, very different from any notion of some amorphous entity somewhere having my data, or even it being looked at by a specific person I don't know, won't interact with, and will never be aware personally exists. Far less so if the only viewers are algorithms aggregating statistics.
I'm pro-privacy and I still think these retorts just make it sound like you've put zero effort into understanding what the "nothing to hide" people are trying to articulate.
E.g. "Can we put a camera in your bathroom?"
Very few people are arguing that nudity or bathroom use shouldn't be private, and they are not going to understand what this has to do with their argument that the NSA should be allowed to see Google searches to fight terrorism or whatever.
Privacy arguments are about who should have access to what information. For example, I'm fine with Google seeing my Google searches, but not the government monitoring them.
"I've got nothing to hide." is a rather extreme statement. The people who say it don't mean it literally. But saying something they don't mean aren't really helping their points across. I think OP’s retorts are simply to show how absurd the “I’ve got nothing to hide” claim is, regardless of how effective the retorts are.
I'm not out to defend "I've got nothing to hide", but those who say it are usually saying it about a specific policy (e.g. the NSA monitoring searches). It's usually clear what the context is and that's what you have to argue against to actually engage and convince someone. They probably do mean quite literally that they have nothing to hide from the government. It's not an extreme statement in context.
But on the internet we often do this thing where we take the weakest version or a distorted version of an opposing side's argument and ridicule that. It's not quite strawmanning because we never specified who we're arguing against, and surely we can imagine someone, somewhere on the internet has the ridiculous viewpoint. But it's not a common viewpoint (that, for example, we shouldn't have privacy in the bathroom). Doing this only gets us pats on the back from those who already agree with us and deludes us about our opponent's position.
Are you against income tax?
Are you against business registration?
All of these are subject to the similar issues with the stalker ex abusing a position of power?
You seem to be asking a question. The answer is no.
The IRS does not need to know my sexual orientation or circumcision status. Medicaid, on the other hand, may. (Though I'd contest even that.)
Are you saying that, because there is one way in which people are vulnerable, that it doesn't matter if we add more ways they are vulnerable? Because that makes no sense whatsoever.
Which has literally happened already for anyone who thinks “there’s controls in place for that sort of thing”. That’s with (generally) good faith actors in power. What do you think can and will happen when people who think democracy and the constitution are unnecessary end up in control…
https://www.cnn.com/2013/09/27/politics/nsa-snooping/
I don’t agree. I’m fine ICE can see my data, as long as there are process enforced to track those usage and I have a right to fight back for their misuse.
Problem today is ICE has no accountability of misuse data/violence, not they have means to data/violence.
There has been no point post Patriot Act where there has been accountability for data misuse. You need to update your priors.
I agree with this in theory, but its a fantasy to think they have this restriction at this point. ICE seems to be taking all comers, the lowest of the low, the vilest of the vile, giving them "47 days of training," and sending them off armed into the populace. I have seen no evidence they believe they have any restriction on anything. It's basically DOGE but with guns instead of keyboards.
I was referring to principle, not ICE in its current state.
since you can’t turn ICE around overnight, I don’t think Americans should authorize ICE more data and power NOW.
principle is sometimes indistinguishable from fantasy
I'd rather ICE (or whatever government agency) not see my data... because, even if there are processes that are enforced, there might not be tomorrow. If that data isn't collected in the first place, that threat vector disappears.
It reminds me of when Eric Schmidt, then CEO of google, tried that argument about people's worry of google collecting so much personal data. Some media outlet then published a bunch of personal information about Schmidt they had gathered using only google searches, including where he lives, his salary, his political donations, and where his kids went to school. Schmidt was not amused.
Back in the day, Google eng had pretty unguarded access to people's gmails, calendars, etc. Then there was a news story involving a Google SRE grooming children and stalking them through their google accounts...
That questionable-sounding stunt by the media outlet wasn't comparable: Google/Alphabet knows much more about individuals than addresses, salary, and political donations.
Google/Alphabet knows quite a lot about your sentiments, what information you've seen, your relationships, who can get to you, who you can get to, your hopes and fears, your economic situation, your health conditions, assorted kompromat, your movements, etc.
Schmidt is actually from OG Internet circles where many people were aware of privacy issues, and who were vigilant against incursions.
But perhaps he had a different philosophical position. Or perhaps it was his job to downplay the risks. Or perhaps he was going to have enough money and power that he wasn't personally threatened by private info that would threaten the less-wealthy.
We might learn this year, how well Google/Alphabet protects this treasure trove of surveillance state data, when that matters most.
I feel that as the consumer surveillance industry took off, everyone from those OG Internet circles was presented with a choice - stick with the individualist hacker spirit, or turncoat and build systems of corporate control. The people who chose power ended up incredibly rich, while the people who chose freedom got to watch the world burn while saying I told you so.
(There were also a lot of fence sitters in the middle who chose power but assuaged their own egos with slogans like "Don't be evil" and whatnot)
Yes, I remember that period of conscious choice, and the fence-sitting or rationalizing.
The thing about "Don't Be Evil" at the time, is that (my impression was) everyone thought they knew what that meant, because it was a popular sentiment.
The OG Internet people I'm talking about aren't only the Levy-style hackers, with strong individualist bents, but there was also a lot of collectivism.
And the individualists and collectivists mostly cooperated, or at least coexisted.
And all were pretty universally united in their skepticism of MBAs (halfwits who only care about near-term money and personal incentives), Wall Street bros (evil, coming off of '80s greed-is-good pillaging), and politicians (in the old "their lips are moving" way, not like the modern threats).
Of course it wasn't just the OG people choosing. That period of choice coincided with an influx of people who previously would've gone to Wall Street, as well as a ton of non-ruthless people who would just adapt to what culture they were shown. The money then determined the culture.
Sorry, I didn't mean to write out the hacker collectivists. I said "individualist" because to me hacking is a pretty individualist activity, even if one's ultimate goal is to contribute to some kind of collective. Or maybe I just don't truly understand collectives, I don't know.
But yes, individualists and collectivists mostly cooperated and coexisted. I'd say this is because they were merely different takes on the same liberating ground truths. Or at least liberating-seeming perceptions of ground truths...
100% that is exactly what happened and in public
Just invoking Richard Stallman will prove it because the smear campaign on him was so thorough.
Linus seems to be the only one that made it out.
And barely so.
No doubt
It would be nice if the top people in open source land weren't disheveled and looking like sterotypes. It's pretty easy to paint him as a predator.
How is not just straight up bigotry? You’re unambiguously saying that his appearance is the relevant factor in his ideas
You’re doing literally what I described
There's a popular video on YouTube of him eating skin peeled from his foot during a lecture at a college. Not AI, very old, repellant to normal people.
Yeah, being unaffected by social pressure when philosophizing about what is moral and liberating is strongly related to being unaffected by social pressure regarding personal hygiene and social norms, unfortunately. Still I'd rather have the weirdos, especially this one particular weirdo, than not! Stallman has blazed the trail for us slightly-more-socially-aware types to follow, while we look/act just a little more reasonable.
OG = Original Gangster?
Yes but its a slang term that just means original/old-school now (unless you're an actual criminal maybe).
It's mostly meaning "original". The OG XBox for example.
Yep, the 70s Crips and Ice-T somehow made it into everyday speech.
Having met him one time he seemed like just a really intense dude who embodied the chestnut “the CEO is the guy who walks in and says ‘I’m CEO’.” I dunno if there’s more to it than that.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/37457418/eric-schmidt-mistress...
erm hes a creep, claimed to be rapist... not many redeemable qualities.
It was probably a decade ago and I recall using something within Google that would tell you about who they thought you were. It profiled me as a middle eastern middle aged man or something like that which was… way off.
If I were extremely cynical, I would suspect they might have intentionally falsified that response to make it seem like they were more naive than they actually were.
I suspect the more likely scenario is they don't actually care how accurate these nominal categorizations are. The information they're ultimately trying to extract is, given your history, how likely you are to click through a particular ad and engage in the way the advertiser wants (typically buying a product), and I would be surprised if the way they calculate that was human interpretable. In the Facebook incident where they were called out for intentionally targeting ads at young girls who were emotionally vulnerable, Facebook clarified that they were merely pointing out to customers that this data was available to Facebook, and that advertisers couldn't intentionally use it.[0] Of course, the result is the same, the culpability is just laundered through software, and nobody can prove it's happening. The winks and nudges from Facebook to its clients are all just marketing copy, they don't know whether these features are invisibly determined any more than we do. Similarly, your Google labels may be, to our eyes, entirely inaccurate, but the underlying data that populates them is going to be effective all the same.
[0] https://about.fb.com/news/h/comments-on-research-and-ad-targ...
This. They would have been better off just tagging you with a GUID and it would have been less confusing. "This GUID is your bubble"
I think its their currently targeted ad demographic or whatever. Its probably a "meaningless" label to humans, but to the computer it makes more sense, he probably watches the same content / googles the same things as some random person who got that label originally, and then anyone else who matched it.
Yeah somewhat like "likes football" might just be a proxy for "male".
male, lives in this region, has an income between X to X+40000, and has used the following terms in chat or email, regardless of context, in the last 6 months: touchdown, home run, punt, etc. etc.
the ad game is not about profiling you specifically, it's about how many people in a group are likely to click and convert to a sale; they're targeting 6 million people, not you specifically, and that's balanced by how much the people who want the ads are willing to pay.
palantir or chinese social credit, etc., is targeting you specifically, and they don't care about costs if it means they can control the system, forever.
I think you're on about the ad preferences settings or whatever? I usually wipe those.
Creepy and oppressive, go figure.
The idea that Google’s lack of knowledge of you a decade ago is somehow related to what they know today is naive. Dangerously naive, I would say. Ad targeting technology (= knowledge about you) is shocking good now.
Color me unconvinced. Google can't even figure what language I speak even though I voluntarily provide them the information in several different ways. I can't understand half the ads they serve me.
Google doesn't choose what ad to show you. Google serves up a platter of details and auctions the ad placement off to the highest bidder.
That platter of details is not shown to you, the consumer.
What you are experiencing is that your ad profile isn't valuable to most bidders, ie you don't buy stuff as much as other people do, or your ad profile is somehow super attractive to stupid companies that suck at running ads who are overpaying for bad matches.
It is not evidence that google knows nothing about you.
Google is pleased that you think they don't know you. It helps keep the pressure down when people mistake this system for "Perfectly target ads". The system is designed to make google money regardless of how good or bad their profile of you is.
It's not just the ads though. Am I to think that Youtube helpfully replacing a video title (whose original text I understand) by a half-assed translation into a language that I don't speak is actually Alphabet playing 5D chess ? If so, hats off to you, Google. I totally fell for it.
The research that kicked off Google was funded by US intelligence orgs.
Stop pretending like Schmidt was or is "one of the good guys." They all knew from day one what the score was.
Hes def not a good guy lmao.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/37457418/eric-schmidt-mistress...
It wasn’t a stunt and there was nothing questionable about it. I’m amazed by how easily people shit all over journalists - it really has to end because it is precisely how truth dies.
Here’s a question - since you have such strong feelings did you write the editor of the piece for their explanation?
If it was his job to downplay the risk's then he absolutely deserved at least this.
Google or any other US company will not be defending your's or anyone's else's data. It's not only that they doesn't want to(which they dont) but they simply can't.
You must comply with the law and you do not want to currently piss off anyone's at the top.
Nowadays we got doxing laws in my country, but... the guy behind Palantir (look up where that name stems from, too) is called Peter Thiel.
For some specific quotes, here are some excerpts from In The Plex: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34931437
Eric had also once said in a CNBC interview "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place."
Thiel lost his shit because Gawker mentioned he was gay in an article on their site. Something _everybody_ in Silicon Valley already knew. Then he goes and forms what essentially amounts to a private CIA.
How about Musk? He felt he had a right to hoover up data about people from every government agency, but throws a massive temper-tantrum when people publish where his private jet is flying using publicly available data.
How about Mark Zuckerberg? So private he buys up all the properties around him and has his private goon squad stopping people on public property who live in the neighborhood, haranguing them just for walking past or near the property.
These people are all supremely hypocritical when it comes to privacy.
i hate defending thiel since hes literally destroying society, but he didn't get mad at gawker just for outing him
he got mad at gawker for deliberately outing him right as he went to meet the saudis for negotiations. a country that literally executes gay people. at best it strained the negotiations and made things awkward, and at worst could have put him in peril.
you dont just out people without their consent, and that goes for rich or poor.
So he was willing to make a business deal with the country that executes gay people, as long as HE wasn't in danger? Legitimizing their regime is perfectly OK if it doesn't affect him? The fact that he was negotiating with them makes that incident look even worse for him, not Gawker
"you dont just out people without their consent, and that goes for rich or poor."
Nah fuck him. If you're closeted and funding anti-queer causes and politicians you deserve to be outed.
He wasn't even closeted - there were pictures all over his public social media of him shirtless on gay cruise ships. Hardly on the DL.
Maybe his social media profiles at the time (public, because I'm not "friends" with him) shouldn't have included photos and posts about gay cruise ship vacations.
Or perhaps don't do business with people who would happily execute you? All that says to me is Thiel values money over anything else.
The insinuation that Gawker in any way shape or form "outed" him is just laughable.
Gawker is absolutely trash media, to be quite clear.
I do agree about this, for certain things - but in others, no - and indeed, courts have ruled that billionaires are inherently "public figures"... "due to their outsized influence on public affairs and opinion".
I also have significant issues with his bankrolling of Hogan's lawsuit against Gawker as an abomination of the legal system, including the right to face one's "accuser":
- Hogan had already agreed in principle to a part ownership stake and profits of Gawker.
- Lawyers paid for by Thiel pushed for him to drop that and push instead for bankrupting Gawker through damages (which were laughable, see below). (Hypothetical question, if you're an attorney, ostensibly representing Hogan, but you know the person paying your bills, Thiel, wants a different outcome for the case, when push comes to shove, whose interests are you going to represent? See the following point too).
- When the case and awarded damages -did- actually threaten to bankrupt Gawker, Thiel/Hogan's lawyers did the most illogical thing possible, if they were looking to recoup any money for their ostensible client... they dropped the one claim against Gawker that would have allowed their liability insurance to at least partially pay out.
(Re damages: The amount that Hogan had originally asked for seemed reasonable. Then after Thiel's lawyers got involved, the amount asked for was multiplied five thousand times.
This included economic damages of fifty million dollars. For a man who had made something in the order of $10-15M his entire career? Who had a net worth at its peak of $30M, and at the time of the lawsuit of $8M? I highly doubt that TV stations pulling reruns of old WWF events, lost hair commercial and other endorsements was worth that. (They separately asked for emotional damages, too, to be clear. But there was near zero justification for this economic damages claim.)
I wonder how much Thiel paid Hogan under the table for this proxy lawsuit?
Eric Schmidt the rapist?
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/37457418/eric-schmidt-mistress...
He's got a whole lotta people doing over-time trying to bury this.
"If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place."
- Eric Schmidt
Remember this when considering seeking medical help for an embarrassing symptom.
I wasn't sharing that because I think he's right. I was sharing it to show what kind of person we are talking about...
And this is what every hacker on the planet should be doing: exposing all of the secrets of the rich parasites. Leave them no quarter, no place too hide.
Even if you trust the intentions of whoever you're giving your data to, you may not trust their ability to keep it safe from data breaches. Those happen all the time.
Or the person that takes over after them
Unfortunately, this also means that everyone is taking a risk when they participate in the US census.
https://exhibits.lib.berkeley.edu/spotlight/census/feature/j...
https://www.npr.org/2018/12/26/636107892/some-japanese-ameri...
The business is equally blamed. But ever aince Uber showed up and violated laws in all jurisdictions, we always focus on the cops and not the criminals.
The "they look like us" fallacy is so deep in this.
ICE and DHS already were bloated and somehow grew from not existing 25 years ago to a $100 billion budget. Then the big Trump spending bill added another $200 billion to their budget. And there’s no accountability for who gets that money - it’s all friends and donors and members of the Trump family.
They have money for this grift of epic scale but complain about some tiny alleged Somalian fraud to distract the gullible MAGA base. And of course there is somehow not enough money for things people actually need like healthcare.
That's in their playbook to cherry pick the most extreme cases and pretend it's the majority of cases.
Apparently any time they do anything horrifying, they will just declare that victim as a "terrorist" or something, and their sycophantic supporters will happily agree.
What I find amusing is that when the Snowden leaks happened and I would discuss it, when I said something like "let's pretend for a moment that we can't trust every single person in the government" I would usually get an agreeable laugh.
But using these same arguments with ICE + Palantir, these same people will say something like "ICE IS ONLY DEPORTING THE CRIMINALS YOU JUST WANT OPEN BORDERS!!!". People's hypocrisy knows no bounds.
How do we know whether they're people or bots?
Well in my case I was referring to actual vocal conversations I've had with humans, either in person or on MS Teams.
I suppose that there could be an extremely elaborate LLM to control humanoid robots to try and fool me, but I do not believe that's the case.
Yet. But another year or two of progress on AI deepfakes and you will be talking to a bot and be none the wiser.
Sure, but until then I'm reasonably certain that the people I have discussed this with were not bots.
Well, they might as well be if you can't reason with them. There are some prime examples right here on HN who defy the imagination in terms of how far they will go to defend the indefensible, to come out swinging to make sure you realize that they will go to any length to stand for their 'principles'. And they probably believe the reverse is true as well, they see the rest of us as the ones that are terribly wrong, misguided and the subject of propaganda.
I find it odd that Americans aren't angrier about Russia running disinfo bot networks for over a decade now, building up to almost everything in the current cultural moment.
Also odd that the tech behind this isn't more talked about. I lost the source but there was something about bot networks that could argue both sides of a topic to feign the illusion of a real debate - and this predated ChatGPT by many years.
Big platforms like Google or X have only mildly experimented with heavenbanning and discourse manipulation at scale. These Russian networks have had at least a decades' worth of experience with it.
Somehow, in reducing all political opponents to bots, the discourse does seem to forget that there's often someone behind the bots, a tangible nation-state of a target.
I think in part this is because it would require them to admit that they've been had, which is even worse than to have to admit you're a terrible person. Being terrible is one thing, most people can handle that. Being so utterly dumb that you've been carrying water against your own country and effectively are in every sense of the word a useful idiot is a thing most people would shy away from.
Psychology is weird. As soon as something becomes a part of your identity you start living as though it is really you that is attacked, rather than the thing you stand for, no matter what it is, no matter whether it is positive or negative. The response is invariable to dig in.
Religion, atheism, vegetarianism, fascism, libertarian, democrat or republican, fan of Arsenal or rather the opposite and so on. They all tap into some kind of deep tribal sense of belonging and people will go to extreme lengths to defend their tribe at the expense of themselves. There probably is a direct evolutionary link here as well.
In some sense, it is a part of one's identity, for one can't easily separate the worldview from the person. But we enter a strange era when your identity is challenged and remoulded by a non-human entity.
People have always derived a tribal sense of belonging from a set of worldviews, but these views are now perpetuated by robots. These anti-immigration or anti-brown or post-renaissance worldviews are lived by very few people of flesh and blood - it's a set of interlinked concepts and ideals in an imaginary post-truth world.
But it lives more in silicon than in some Aryan ideal. And if you had to draw a line from this silicon to reality, you'd still end up in Crimea or in Pokrovsk, watching a 21st-century battle with echoes of WWI. It is about land and power and politics, like it always has been. But the person fighting "woke" in a comment section over a made-up story about a made-up Disney film doesn't know it.
I'm in India, so the second-order effects of all this are even more surreal here. You get Christians cheering the rise of a Hindutva nationalist government because it's "anti-woke" (only to get heckled and beaten up during Christmas) and Trump supporters doing religious ceremonies for the man for the same reason (only to get the nation's entire suite of exports tariffed), and you see cabs with giant Russia Today ads on their sides in the streets (but the discounted oil we buy from Russia has not dropped prices at the pump by even a rupee). Our lived reality has very little in common with these digital culture wars.
Sorry for the tangent.
Half the country has been convinced that stories about Russia running disinformation campaigns are a hoaxes.
I read a similar argument years ago about how disinformation gets into the networks. It starts with bots sharing and discussing with each other until it reaches the level to hit a few real people (useful idiots) who then share it out giving it more credence. Musk comes to mind as a key target for these types of posts now.
i have been screaming that this is possibly the #1 information systems problem/failure that has led us to where we are and i have seen no thought leaders or solutions emerge. it's imo the top impact vector and the most critical thing that must be addressed to take the foot off the gas. it's the other side of the double edged blade of open and free internet and we are so far beyond trusting that open and free on its own is going to naturally sort itself out. nothing is being done to combat this, everyone that has the wits and intelligence to problem solve in this arena is head down reading about the next claude code update. i'm terrified/hopeless tbh, this fucking sucks. i've always seen this as the number one thing that is destabilizing countries around the world. this shit is not contained to the US and other countries will follow our course in the coming years without efforts to solve for russia/iran/china and their damn ass bots. these things are way more sophisticated than people think and most people cannot discern the difference. they can and do simulate arguments in comment sections to play up a winning side in a believable way.
already happening mate. credible reporting says 20-40% of social media ain't people.
you think a news site about tech startups run by their incubator -- who has serious interest in seeing these companies make money -- wouldn't run shillbots 24/7?
I mean, tens of millions of people voted for this. So even if social media sentiment is mostly bot-driven, it's provably backed up or supported by what real people deeply believe and want and will continue to vote for in mid-terms.
I think one of the issues is that bots can flood the zone faster than reasonable/rational humans can counter them.
Bots are not necessary for indoctrination, Fox does that already. But bots help creating dissent and make people busy defending against all the crap.
Yes, exactly. But, I’ll admit it took me until the republican primary before the 2016 election for this to register in my mind. I was born in the US in the 80s & fell into the “what you see is all there is” bias (and hadn’t read enough history before then either).
Another opinion that I’m sure will get me downvoted is that this is the primary reason I support gun ownership by private citizens. I think having a chance at stopping mass government slaughter like in Iran and Syria is overall better than the downside.
Bottom line is that human nature has not changed. Some of us westerners take comfortable lives for granted because we’ve been lucky.
That won't stop the mass government slaughter, if anything it will accelerate it.
Which I bet our luck has run out. This year and the next 5 or 10 years from now, its going to be really bad.
I don't even trust local state governments at this point.. It all seems like a big ploy on the people to keep the grift going.
Apparently even if you legally own a gun they'll shoot you just for owning it anyway, so I'm not sure that will help.
This would be questionable 100 years ago, let alone today's technology. Civils just can't organize efficiently, and "heads" (like someone locally coordinating civils) can be cut off easily by a central force (like it's just a drone strike away). The only real power is that a sane military will not turn against their own people. You don't need weapons for that.
You don't need gun freedom to avoid mass government slaughter like in Iran. I live in France and I feel safe even though I can't defend my home with a gun. The door is pretty strong and if I go outside I know that the worst thing that can be against me is a knife or a dog, something I never saw used against someone with my own eyes, only in the newspapers.
What is required is a constant fight against obscurantism. It's a cultural battle.
You can buy black powder guns over the counter in france and easily make or import the black powder from elsewhere in the EU. A black powder revolver is damn good for self defense, just needs maintained more frequently so the powder doesn't go bad.
Also note of sale (underground, also trivially made on one's own) in france is also FGC-9 pistols (modern gun + ammo easily made in short time in france, all with unregulated components), and attackers in france have also used re-activated decommissioned rifles.
Your country is awash in guns for anyone who wants it.
it's starting right now, brother. time to put your money where your mouth is.
we'll see how many of these 2nd amendment uber alles types are actually chickenhawks real soon...
The thing also is, it doesn't matter what the truth is. If the computer says you did a thing, the thugs (ICE) will do what they want.
Here is someone out for a walk, ICE demanding ID, that she answer questions. She says she's a US citizen ... they keep asking her questions and one of the ICE people seem to be using a phone to scan her face:
https://np.reddit.com/r/Minneapolis/comments/1qbawlr/minneap...
What she says, the truth, none of it would matter if his phone said to bring her in. And after the fact? The folks supporting ICE have made it clear they've no problem with lying in the face of the obvious.
People have a real hard time understanding that they are only as free as the most oppressed citizen in their country/state/city.
It's not even that big of a leap. We've seen a off-duty ICE agent drunk driving his child, getting stopped by the cops, implied threats to one of the officers for being black with payback, spent the whole time saying "come on man" using his position as a federal officer as a way to get out of trouble, and ends to the point that I wanted to make, complained about his and I quote "bitch ex-wife" for divorcing him.
What is stopping this lowlife from going after his ex-wife, or one of those cops by using databases that they have access to? We know from journalists going through the process that there's no curation or training involved to join ICE specifically.
But this goes beyond them. We know that cops can be corrupt to, we know politicians can be corrupt to, what is stopping any of these people from using private data to not only go after their spouses, but also business rivals, and people who slight them?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_1X7MVrnPY
Same as with all other crime, we hope it's the law that stops him. We hope that more policemen want to be good men than bad.
The illusion of safety is based on the honor system. Society doesn't work without that.
Does it actually work like we hope it does?
No and it never has
It only works for people the state expects significant amounts of money from (taxes don’t count)
Don’t expect a government to help you unless you’re one of its larger donors
Depends where, I think. Where your neighbors are mostly honorable, it mostly works. There are plenty of nice neighborhoods, and no shortage of bad ones either, sadly.
It has worked great in Sweden until a decade or so ago! Depends on the population and general sense of community.
it does, yeah. people love to examine exceptions and determine that the system they appeared within should be dismantled, it's all over the place.
Arguably, there are countries where it's pretty damn effective.
That assumes that the people who enforce the law want good people to be police officers, and that has never been the case. It is certainly not the case with our current ICE officers.
It doesn't assume anything. It's literally what's happening right now. All of your neighbors don't want to steal all of your stuff. Think about the fact that this is only true in certain places, regardless of what laws exist. Laws have very little effect on criminal behavior. Your peers being cool people are all that really protects your safety and your property.
Sounds like the solution to crime is therefore to mitigate the factors that precipitate it. If people steal in order to meet their basic needs, then providing basic housing and medical care to all should see a reduction in crime.
I can agree. Now who will do the building and who will pay them to do it?
The only thing that changes behavior is consequences.
One interesting point about the volume of data that might be available about any individual is that law enforcement will only look for data points that suit their agenda.
They won't be searching for counter evidence. It won't even cross their minds to do so.
You're on record saying one thing one time that was vanilla at the time but is now ultra spicy (possibly even because the definition of words can change and context is likely lost) then you'll be a result in their search and you'll go on their list.
(This is based on my anecdotal experience of having my house raided and the police didn't even know to expect there to be children in the house; children who were both over ten years old and going to school and therefore easily searchable in their systems; we hadn't moved house since 15 years prior, so there was no question of mixing up an identity. The police requested a warrant, and a fucking judge even signed it, based on a single data point: an IP address given to them by a third party internet monitoring company.)
Keep your shit locked down, law enforcement are just as bad at their jobs as any other Joe Clockwatcher. In fact they're often worse because their incentive structure leans heavily towards successful prosecution.
Sorry for the rant.
The nazi's were easily able to find jews in the Netherlands because of thorough census data. Collection of that data was considered harmless when they did it. But look at what kind of damage that kind of information can do.
Or if you're currently married to an abusive partner and want to leave: how can you make a clean break with all the tracking nowadays? (And given how 'uncivilized' these guys act in public (masked, semi-anonymous), I'd had to see what they do behind closed doors.)
When talking about government services, how do you have privacy? Does one not need to perform audits, etc?
This is why I personally prefer more devolved spending – at the federal level it is far too much centralized power.
It should be mentioned that "illegal" is a definitive word. There are definitely people not willing to follow the law, including political entities which are dependent on it. The moniker of privacy in this respect is a shield for illegality, because there is no reason that Medicaid data regarding SSNs should be shielded from the federal government.
To take this to its logical conclusion, Americans must concede that EU/UK systems of identity and social services are inherently immoral.
I have a hard time parsing your first paragraph, but there is no reason at all for any part of the US government that isn't CMMS to have any access to Medicaid data, writ large, at all. And even CMMS should only see de-identified data. It's absolutely absurd to think that law enforcement has any reason to see anything in any MC database.
The source of the problem is the respect of the rule of law and due process
Data collection is not the source of the problem because people give their data willingly
Do you think data collection is a problem in China, or do you think the government and rule of law is the problem?
Companies collecting data is not the true problem. Even when data collection is illegal, a corrupt government that doesn't respect the rule of law doesn't need data collection.
yeah, this is exactly it. all the arguments kind of boil down to
"well how about if the government does illegal or evil stuff?"
its very similar to arguments about the second ammendment. But laws and rules shouldnt be structured around expecting a future moment where the government isnt serving the people. At that moment the rules already dont matter
You just described the Bill of Rights. Constitutions should be structured around that.
The Rights are not intended as preemptive. You don't have a right to free speech b/c otherwise maybe the government regulation of speech will get out of hand. You have it because it's espoused as a fundamental right. Same with separation of church and state. It's like "Well maybe a future evil government will regulate the church poorly, so lets ban it completely". It's just seen as an area the government shouldn't delve in entirely.
Collecting information about people doesn't really fit the same mold. It's not sensible to remove that function entirely. It's not a right. And it's not sensible to structure things with the expectation the future government will be evil
Jewish Danes would like to have a word with you about that
Are we supposed to structure out society so we're safer in the case that the Chinese invade and use all our institutions against us? There is a risk-benefit tradeoff to make. Crippling society and institutions in preparation for an a worst-case scenario future hypothetical is not sensible. To get things done you operate from the standpoint that the democratic government is responsive to the desires of the people. The adversarial perspective is self sabotaging
I would have liked for there have to have been more limits before DOGE got their hands on the voting rolls.
No. Let me introduce you to the fourth amendment.
The rights weren’t invented out if thin air but to address real issues that happened earlier. Yes, every government has been evil. Power corrupts. That’s why constitutions exist, to address that problem.
The data isn't the problem, the jack-booted thugs kicking in doors is.
Which is now literally happening and people are still acting like their privacy is going to somehow prevent it.
That is not a good argument for privacy. I don't see how more privacy would have prevented any evil that has been doing.
If ice only goes after undocumented or expelled immigrants, why are they in the medicade system?
Undocumented immigrants often have legally-resident and/or citizen family members who are eligible for Medicaid.
But yes, it's disgusting that ICE has access to that data via Palantir, or that this data is being used for anything other than administering Medicaid.
Post on http://icemap.app anonymously
This is the same thing I thought when liberal-minded folk talked about giving the Federal government more power over States in order to enact some good work, or to achieve some policy win. Yes, for now, I thought, but you can't assume a good natured centralized power will persist, and when it doesn't, what is your alternative? I have watched as liberal minded folks rediscover the value of State Sovereignty and power in the face of an autocratic Federal executive, bearing arms when the an autocrat sends masked agents to terrorize your city. Lean into it, I say. Winner take all Federal system means no alternative but to win at all costs, rather than live and let live. We need more, smaller, States. We need more Representatives than 1 per 700,000 citizens...by 10x
I'd say the classic example is when a small german man with a mustache starts looking in religious registries to find the address of certain types of people
It’s usually not a great example because it’s basically the one thing that is “never going to happen here”. Normally the one about abusive law enforcement offices stalking ex-partners (or helping their buddies stalk their ex-partners) is better because it happens fairly regularly.
We really are in unprecedented times when it’s looking like the big one could happen in the United States though…
I never really understood that angle - do you think the Germans would have thrown their hands up and not killed anyone because they lacked accurate data on who was Jewish?
And (with a heavy dose of purposeful suspension of disbelief), if ICE does deport those people they've determined are "illegal", does anyone believe that the agency will scale down and stop? There will be new "enemies of the state"
They won't run out of people to deport, because all those jobs (and occasionally, benefits) the illegals profit from will still exist. If you remove the people but not the incentive you just get new and different people.
This is by design to make sure ICE and CBP jobs program for psychopaths always exists. Did you think they were actually going to put themselves out of the job by going for the roots?
I do not think this is really about privacy as much as it is about our broken immigration system. Let’s look at a simple case where both Democrats and Republicans largely agree.
On January 6, 2026, all South Sudanese nationals lost their TPS status and ordered to leave the US. At this point, they are all effectively declared illegal. I have not seen a single Democrat seriously argue that something should be done about this.
So what do we think people from South Sudan will actually do? Pack their bags and return to South Sudan?
My point is that a system where someone is admitted to the US completely legally, lives here for years, and is then suddenly reclassified as “illegal” is fundamentally broken.
It reminds me of the Sokovia Accords Debate[0]
[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmjRhmk800U
"Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say" ~ Edward Snowden
Privacy is one of the first defenses against tyranny.
You can be a target of pressure through no fault of your own. For example, if you were to witness a government official commit a crime.
Wishful thinking but it would be real great if a future leader destroyed this infrastructure.
I'm sure they'll run on not using it but when systems like this exist they tend to find applications
Wishful thinking but it would be real great if an engineer poisoned these datasets with bait entries
It’s not gonna happen. The people who work at Palantir, if they’re not just there for the money, think they’re doing the right thing, they see themselves as keeping the country safe and improving government efficiency (and who could be against that?)
Nobody thinks that. They are there for money.
Even Peter Thiel?
Especially Peter Thiel. Now we are not saying he doesn't internally agree with many things that are happening (I don't mean this specific topic but rather overall direction of US society), we know he does.
That’s just not true. There are plenty of people in defense tech that clearly believe they are doing the right thing. Same with those in the military. Their version of “right” is just different than yours. To them, ensuring American hegemony is more right than whatever your definition is.
This is exactly right and why it is so dangerous. The bad guys dont think they are bad. The opposite is true.
There is the expression the road to hell is led on good intentions line with the heads of bishops.
Those material interests are very persuasive though. Without them, who knows what they might believe.
You would be surprised how pilled some people are. It’s unfortunate.
Money, or these IT folks derive pride from the technical challenge of building the tool, whatever its purpose. Or both.
50% of the US think it's the right thing. Now sure, among educated urban people it was lower, but that's still a large number of people who think it's the right thing, and that executing american citizens for using their constitutional rights is at most "an unfortunate inevitability"
Yes. These are the same people that will cry about chat control while pushing heinous privacy violations for their right wing overlords.
Many "libertarians" seem to be far more concerned about the age of consent than the size of the military or police force for some reason.
We need more René Carmilles and less of the typical HN techbro that champions the technology, and charitably, doesn't care what its used for.
These tools are there to make sure no such leader ever gets to power, and to ensure the death of the free state. Luckily there's a constitutional amendment (and therefore a constitutional duty upon true Patriots) that has a patch for such regressions.
Destroying Medicaid would in fact solve the problem, that's true.
The “opposition” has never not funded ICE. Throwing out national level republicans is not enough, almost all national level democrats have to be thrown out too.
The current administration’s ICE chaos theater is clearly something very different than the past few administrations. Let’s not try to pretend this is normal, because it’s not. They’re doing a shock and awe campaign and maximum fear and news coverage are part of the new agenda.
Reality is that once the next group is in power they keep all the same infra in place so they themselves can use it oft expanding it further. Then when they are kicked out, the next one comes in and does the same.
I dont like any of it but patriot act, covid vaccine tracking, flock, etc are all arms of the same hydra. This is just one more expanding arm of power and control in a long history of gov attempts to control populations.
Why would Medicaid have the data of anyone who is at risk of immigration enforcement? The reported connection seems tenuous:
So, they have a tool that sucks up data from a bunch of different sources, including Medicaid. But there's no actual nexus between Medicaid and illegal immigrants in this reporting.
Edit: In the link to their earlier filings, EFF claims that some states enroll illegal immigrants in Medicaid: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/07/eff-court-protect-our-...
Medicaid-receiving immigrants could have their immigration status change, legal violations, emergency medicaid use, sometimes there's state funded coverage that immigrants are offered, etc. There's lots of reasons where Medicaid will have information on immigrants.
That doesnt mean they are illegal right off the bat - there is no reasonable way to filter out the "illegal" members of the roles and essentially making it so the DOJ has a list of people who they can cross reference with expiring status and the moment the clock strikes midnight and their status changes they can get picked up. They should not have all those records for fishing expedititions.
Do you actually think ICE cares about your legal citizenship status?
Yes. That's very relevant to their aims.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46758042
That will change. Soon.
Oh okay!
ICE has been harassing and following legal observers to their houses. They've shot and executed at least two people who were exercising their legal right to record their activity.
The FBI has been showing up at the door of some people who dare to organize protests against ICE.
Stingrays have been deployed to protests, ICE is collecting photos of protestors for their database, and has been querying YCombinator funded Flock to pull automated license plate camera data from around the country. Trump, Vance, Noem and Miller are calling anyone who protests them domestic terrorists.
It's pretty clear this isn't just about immigration, that this is about pooling data for a surveillance state that can quash the constitutional rights of anyone who dares to oppose the current regime. We've seen this story before.
When your whole system works by giving absolutely ridiculous amount of power to a single individual who has nobody above or at least on the side capable of interfering and changing things, this is what you eventually get. Crossing fingers and praying given person isn't a complete psycho or worse is not going to cut it forever, is it. Especially when >50% of population welcomes such person with open arms, knowing well who is coming.
Given what kind of garbage from human gene pool gets and thrives in high politics its more surprising the show lasted as long as it did.
Now the question shouldn't be 'how much outraged we should be' since we get this situation for a year at this point, but rather what to do next, how we can shape future to avoid this. If there will be the time for such correction, which is a huge IF.
I don't disagree with where you're coming from. But to be fair, our system did have separation of powers and rough legal accountability for most of the time it was accruing so much power. The fascists just managed to get enough of the Supreme Council on board to sweep these away under the guises of unitary executive theory and blanket immunity for their new president-king.
So from this perspective it's a matter of a corrupted interpreter, meaning merely adding more legal restrictions won't work. Rather final ultimate authority needs to be distributed amongst the states. The unrest in Minnesota would be solved in a week if the governor could simply use the National Guard to restore law and order without worrying that the out of control federal executive would just take control of them and then have even more foot soldiers to escalate the situation with.
We tried that with the Articles of Confederation. Then half the country tried it again 70 years later. It didn’t work out either time.
Trump’s not even close to the worse President we’ve had. He’s just the craziest since television became widespread. FDR who is widely considered one of our best Presidents put nearly 100k US citizens of Japanese descent in interment camps.
Andrew Jackson committed literal genocide.
One failing of framing it as "just ... since television became widespread" is that it ignores the actual power "television" (really, mass media, and now individually-tailored mass media) has to exert effective population control. The worrying thing here isn't so much the specific draconian actions themselves, but how much of the population is actively and gleefully cheering for them. And as it's obvious that none of these policies are going to make our country materially better (eg economically or social cohesion), this performative vice signalling stands to get worse and worse as this goes on.
I'm certainly not a slavery apologist, but the Civil War was a terrible precedent that we are now paying the price for. Like always, power always gets agglomerated because the hero (Lincoln) desires to to good. But once it's been agglomerated, it tends to attract evil.
One of the clear underlying pillars of support for Trumpism is China/Russia trying to break up the United States so that it is less able to project power over the world. In this sense, supporting the paradigm of a weakened federal government is helping fulfill that goal. But it would be one way to stop the hemorrhaging and at least get us some breathing room in the short term. The current opposition party has trouble even mustering the will to avoid voting to fund the out of control executive, so whatever reforms we push for have to be simple and leverage existing centers of power. We can't let the national Democrats simply do another stint of business-as-usual phoning it in as the less-bad option, or we'll be right back here just like we are now from last time.
Convincing the Federal government to voluntarily relinquish power, or forcing them to do so is probably the hardest and least likely possible change we could make to our system of government. Positing that as some kind of easier more realistic stopgap vs essentially any other reform is bordering on madness.
Even though Ron Paul gets reelected, we do not know how he’d rule as a leader
Probably easier than convincing individual senators/reps and the part(ies) as a whole to give up their own personal power with things like Ranked Pairs voting, no?
And probably easier to have Congress pass such legislation to draw a new line in the sand, even if it could be undone later, than doing things that would inescapably require a Constitutional amendment.
The problem with the other reforms I have thought of is that we're so far gone it will take more than one reform. Like campaign finance reform would have been great a decade ago. But now that kind of relies on getting back a non-pwnt and even trustworthy law enforcement apparatus, too. Same with a US GDPR / tech antitrust enforcement - would have been great a decade or two ago, but it won't particularly change much now that half the pop culture is already enamored with fascism.
But I agree that we need to be brainstorming and discussing many approaches to reform. So what specifically are you thinking of as the reforms we need?
They are putting people in interment camps right now, people are dying in them. You can find stories on a daily basis about discovered deaths in camps in texas being determined to be homicides, and those are just the ones we know about.
Give Trump time. Also the deaths as a result of just the destruction of USAID, millions of children will and are dying; it's comparable and beyond to the worst things any president has done in the history of the country
Andrew Jackson did it 1 year into has fist term. Trump is already in his 2nd.
It’s horrible to be clear. But ending assistance to other countries is in no way morally worse than genocide, slavery, and war.
The last year of the Biden administration, there were about 40k people in ICE detention facilities. The number has gone up under Trump, but it has less than doubled.
Any preventable deaths of people in ICE custody are unacceptable, but the number of deaths are a little higher proportionally than under Biden.
This is all horrible and condemnable. But detaining undocumented immigrants temporarily is something every administration does (even if this administration is ramping it up) and is in no way comparable to rounding up 100k innocent US citizens for a 4 year term.
Trump is an awful, greedy, morally corrupt human being, and a terrible President. But we’ve seen and survived much worse.
Its every branch of the government. The federal government, largely through congressional legislation, has been amassing more and more power for longer than anyone has been alive, while willingly ceding large chunks of that power to the executive branch, while the executive was grooming and shaping the justice department.
Just the abuses of the commerce clause alone should show our government is full of corrupt power mongers.
And it goes down the list too. States taking power from counties, counties taking power from cities, judges, cops, and prosecutors claiming authority over more and more issues despite a lack of sound legal precedence or public approval.
Sure. I agree, but I don't really get what larger point you're making. A "unitary executive-king" is still a drastic departure from the bureaucratic structures that had been accreting power. How I categorize the old system is bureaucratic authoritarianism - there was (/is) still arbitrary authoritarian (anti- Individual Liberty) power over our lives, but its exercise is bound up in bureaucracy that at least claims to be impartial and nominally answers to the courts. Whereas now we're dealing with autocratic authoritarianism - that same power is arbitrarily and capriciously wielded by the whims of a single demented career criminal.
If the Democrats didn't allow SCOTUS to become corrupted by the fascist right-wing, we wouldn't be in this situation.
RBG refused to retire and died while Trump was president. That gave them one seat. Obama could have
McConnel refused to let Obama replace Scalia after he died. I'm not sure that had to happen the way it went down.
When was the ideal time for RBG to retire? Was it when Mitch McConnell was refusing to even hold hearings for any Obama nominee in the last years of his presidency? There is no indication that RBG retiring would have resulting in a confirmed Obama selected justice, it could have just resulted in Trump getting his picks earlier.
No. It was before that. She should have retired in 2009 or 2010 when Obama was in the white house and democrats controlled the senate.
I would point out that even had RBG retired early enough for Obama to appoint a replacement, the court would still have Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh in the majority.
Sure, there may be a case here or there that would go the other way, but the vast majority of cases before this hypothetical court would be decided the same way as they have been, merely with a thinner majority.
Yes, RBG retiring would not have switched the court.
But 6-3 is meaningfully different than 5-4. 6-3 means you can lose one from your coalition, enabling more extreme majority opinions. You can see this even in the very highest profile cases like Dobbs and Trump v US, where one of the conservatives didn't join the entire majority.
It also makes flipping the court enormously more difficult. 5-4 means that one conservative dying and an inopportune time and you flip it. 6-3 makes this statistically unlikely.
I very strongly suspect that we will see Alito and Thomas retire this year. Everybody knows how this goes now.
People do realize that Republicans have agency right? It’s more fun to blame democrats but it’s fairly striking to blame them while hand waving away that the right wing fascist project has been ongoing since at least 2010. They could have also stopped the fascist corruption.
RBG had cancer twice, and she refused to step down and let Obama replace her. More should have been done to convince her. McConnell blocking Obama from filling Scalia's vacancy probably didn't have to happen the way it did, if Democrats stood up and forced it - the Republican reasoning was absolutely stupid and not based on any lawful reason.
Yes, the Democrats fumbled this and it led to the problems we have now. I'm still a lifelong Democrat voter and always will be, but goddamnit did we shoot ourselves in the foot.
Trump had no problem convincing Kennedy to step down and be replaced. Republicans know the game, the Democrats we elect don't seem to know how to play it.
I mean, sure. The problem is that ignoring Republican agency is seemingly incubated by both parties' philosophies (such as they are). It's a common "conservative" vice to blame problems on those you identify less with (right now, Democrats). It's a common "liberal" vice to put the onus to fix a problem on those you identify more with (also Democrats). Therefore, most people's solution to any given problem involves putting pressure on Democrats. Putting pressure on Republicans "doesn't help", either because they have nothing to do with the problem or because they obviously will never fix it.
Part of me thinks this is fundamental to the human condition, but most of me thinks it isn't. This doesn't seem to have happened in the FDR era, or the Nixon era, for example. I think it's just fallout from the post-Reagan coalitions in the US political system.
Excuse me discussing the fact that Jack booted fascist brown shirt thugs murdering people is a political statement and needs to be censored here
They hold both that people whose citizenship depends on birthright citizenship are not in fact citizens and that naturalized citizens can be denaturalized either for disloyalty or based on some sham pretext. They also see people getting benefits as leaches worthy of targeting.
Also naturalized and birthright citizens are far more likely than others to associate or live with others of less legal status.
Naturalized and birthright citizens quality for benefits and they and their families are at risk.
If they are allowed to detain and deport without any due process as they have asserted anyone not white is at risk.
The DHS official social media presence shared a picture of an island paradise with the caption America after 100 million deportations.
This is the number of non-whites not the number of immigrants in even the most ridiculous estimates.
Medicaid holds previous addresses, household details, previous diagnoses, ethnicity, etc.
It is quite trivial to infer if someone is likely to have emigrated to the US due to obvious gaps in records or in their relatives' ones.
This is what Palantir does, essentially. Simple inference and information fusion from different sources.
Pam Bondi is now demanding voter rolls. It's clearly about suppressing liberal voters in liberal areas through a show of force. They're using this data to optimize who to harass.
If citizenship is required to vote then how would accessing voter rolls suppress liberal voters? Honest question; I'm not concern trolling. I had to Google who's allowed to vote.
I found this article[1] by the Brennan Center. It alleges this is an attempted federal takeover of elections but it doesn't suggest or allude to voter suppression. I'm not convinced by the article that having access to voter rolls can be considered a federal takeover of election administration (but I'm not in the know and would need things explained more verbosely).
If you have more information about the attempted centralization of election administration and its impacts on voter suppression I would be interested to know more.
1. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/trum...
I don't understand your question. What does citizenship got to do with this?
I thought GP was arguing they were trying to find non-citizens on the voter rolls to intimidate them (which may be a misreading).
They'll claim they're doing that but intimidate citizens instead.
No.
There are not non-citizens on voter rolls. They want the rolls to get data on voters.
When you ask yourself why the ultra-politicized DOJ (which isn't even the DHS...) from an administration that has explicitly called liberals the enemy is asking for voter rolls, it becomes pretty understandable why people might come to the conclusion that it is to suppress the people that have already explicitly been identified as targets.
That is incorrect, there are actually non-citizens on voter rolls, especially in the states with automatic voter registration. Example: https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/news/releases/scotus-al...
Of course, actually voting would be a crime: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/611 but it doesn't stop everybody: https://www.daytondailynews.com/news/state-more-than-100-non...
Thank you. I stand corrected.
Honestly my real fear is ICE agents at polling places on Election Day harassing would-be voters with citizenship checks and aggressive behavior, slowing things down and maybe causing some people to leave.
Regarding voter data though, if it becomes known that registering to vote as a minority will get you extra scrutiny from ICE, and perhaps a visit to your home, that would probably cause some citizens avoid voting altogether, especially if they are associated with people who are not her legally.
Either way, the federal government really has no right to that data or legitimate use for it, so hopefully they don't manage to get their hands on it.
Thanks. I understand now.
When that happen I will to seriously start considering the US a third world country. A Banana Republic.
I am just an outside onlooker, and things seem pretty bleak.
How does that work? As a US citizen, no amount of "harassment" is going to stop me from voting.
Nonetheless, it was successfully implemented for about 100 years in the US.
Are you a citizen, can you prove it at the polling station? I am doubtful you are, and your documents if you have them don't seem legit enough, so I think we'll set your vote aside, or possibly prevent it from being cast; we can't be too sure!
It doesn't matter whether you can prove it. ICE's current position [0] is that their face scanning app supercedes documents like birth certificates to determine status.
[0] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/10/ices-forced-face...
Well that's insane. I hadn't heard that.
Yes, I have multiple documents proving my citizenship. Never been asked though, ID always sufficed.
I have voted in more than one state (legally, I moved) never seen any voting place asking for any documents except for state ID and voter roll check. I don't think there is any voting place where local state ID is not "legit enough".
Look up Jim Crow. It's not hypothetical.
What's not hypothetical? Sure, there once existed racist laws in the US. How does it relate to establishing citizenship or presumedly some documents proving citizenship being considered "not legit enough"?
Isn’t the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility act going to stop married women who have changes their last name from what was on their birth certificate from voting?
Seeing as the harassment has escalated to murder of citizens, I'm not so sure how you can say that.
Less sensationally, they'll just crank up ID requirements and wait times to suppress your vote.
Wait times happen at a local level, not federally.
I don't know how they could possibly crank up ID requirements that would get in my way: I have a passport and a REAL ID driver's license.
you should read up on efforts to suppress the vote of certain US citizens, especially those who are poor and/or of color
Voter registration gets names cross referenced to facebook gets you face recognition (Palantir can do this). Ice claims that facial recognition on their app is probable cause (Ice already claim this).
Ice goes down the lines at voting stations to "protect from undocumented aliens voting illegally". The government endorsed news stories will be about how many illegals were trying to vote. Meanwhile a bunch of US citizens were taken for processing due to false positives and unfortunately with such large numbers to process they aren't all released until polling stations are closed. (If only someone hadn't botched the facial recognition database update and contaminated it with a bunch of Dem voters).
If rioting against these actions occurs at a station, it's closed for safety and people in area are detained while it's sorted (the stations targeted had a tendency to vote D anyway as per voter roles).
Strange how that 'harassment' did stop US citizens from voting.
Results come in while the case for voter suppression goes to the Supreme court. Supreme court rules that while voter suppression did occur there is no legal option of redress within its permit and the peaceful transfer of power is more important than any one election A la Bush V Gore.
Wrong https://www.americanhistory.si.edu/explore/exhibitions/ameri...
There has been many ways to stop you from voting, contesting your vote, calling your registration into account, imitating tests that are impossible to validate if you are intelligent enough to vote, etc
Spend some time educating yourself on how voting suppression has worked historically and you wont sound so ignorant.
While a required literacy test may be a form of voter suppression, it is not "harassment", which is what we are discussing.
If you think making sure only citizens can vote equals "suppressing liberal voters", that sound like a big self report. The voter lists don't tell you how people voted, it only tells you who did.
My wife works in autism services in a predominantly Latino city. Those kids all have Medicaid, which includes info about their parents. It would be pretty trivial to cross reference with other data points to identify kids with undocumented parents and then you have their home address. Many of these kids go to a clinic everyday, so now you know when someone (likely a parent) is dropping them off too. She’s had patients with parents who have been picked up by ICE. I wouldn’t be surprised if that data came from Medicaid. It’s basically the same as the IRS data they’ve been using.
And it is next to impossible for average people to get adequate care for their kids with autism without Medicaid and early intervention can make the difference between someone who can live relatively independently with supports and someone who will spend their adult life chemically restrained in an institution. So they are in between a rock and a hard place.
Using the medical need of someone's child in order to track them down and deport them, separating them from their family ?
I wish I believed in god, because this shit is beyond evil.
What ICE is doing is naked incompetent fascism and the entity needs to be disbanded with hostility.
With that said, no, it's not evil to deport people who entered a country illegally. If I sneak into China, and China finds out, they are morally and legally clear to send me back, whether or not I've had children in China.
I didn't talk about deportation itself. I talked about using a sick child as a vector to identify who to deport.
I am not for unrestrained immigration either. But I would not look for whose child is sick so I can kick them out and leave the sick child alone.
It likely wouldn't poll well for elections, but today's ICE does need to be disbanded. Its tasks can be given to other agencies until a replacement can be created and staffed. The recent recruitment drive makes it nearly impossible to reform the agency. There's just too many agents introduced in the poisonous culture and goals.
An easy win that should get widespread approval is bolstering the immigration court system. I have dark worries, but I'm still not entirely sure why this administration is whittling away at immigration courts. You'd think they'd want to process asylum applications faster, so invalid claimants could be deported sooner.
Absolutely. Especially since upwards of 80% of asylum claims are denied[0] when they actually get adjudicated. Which usually takes years to happen because there aren't enough immigration "courts."
Provide enough immigration "judges" and "courts" and we could clear up the backlog within a couple years. I'd also point out that while asylum seekers aren't (yet) legal immigrants, they are (based on Federal law[1]) legally in the United States until their case has been adjudicated -- once again arguing for increasing the number of immigration "courts" and "judges." It certainly doesn't argue for hundreds of billions of dollars for a bunch of jackbooted thugs to terrorize citizens and immigrants alike, all to deport fewer people than other administrations who didn't need to shoot citizens to do so. Funny that.
[0] https://www.factcheck.org/2021/04/factchecking-claims-about-...
[1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1158
OG classical fascism was pretty incompetent and bumbling at times too.
eventually they got their shit together.
China is a demographic disaster in slow motion and should be keeping anyone they can get who wants to say. The US and EU have avoided much stagnation by importing more bodies, and there is no ethnic component to USA-ian identity compared to being Han and being forced to speak Mandarin.
Actually they don't. They say "Some states, using their own funds, allow enrollment by non-citizens" - but they never say if it's legal residents or illegal immigrants. I am not sure whether it's part of the ongoing attempt to blur the line between legal and illegal immigrants, or all the states that allow that genuinely do not distinguish between legal residents and illegal immigrants, but we can not assume it by default.
But I am not sure if the states use their own money for this - why would they send this information to HHS?
If a state bureaucracy doesn't explicitly check for legal immigration status then yes the policymakers in that state are trying to blur the line between legal and illegal immigration.
When it comes to healthcare, many states don't care if you're a tourist or a resident or a one-eyed, one-eared, horned purple-people eater. They (because their constituents -- you know, the folks who pay for this -- believe people shouldn't be dying in the streets because they can't afford basic care, regardless of who they are/where they came from) provide healthcare to anyone who needs it because it's the compassionate, humane thing to do.
That some states do not do so says a lot about the folks who run and live in those states -- partly that they have little empathy for their fellow human beings. Which seems weird, given that many of those states have "leaders" and vocal residents who claim to be Christian, yet they are unwilling to engage in the very things that Jesus Christ prescribes[0][1][2] that they do.
I'm glad I'm not a Christian. If I were, I don't think I could abide such evil, selfishness and hypocrisy.
[0] https://www.borgenmagazine.com/9-quotes-from-jesus-on-why-we...
[1] https://jesusleadershiptraining.com/charity-what-did-jesus-s...
[2] https://christ.org/blogs/questions-answers/what-did-jesus-te...
I've seen a lot of people living in the streets when I lived in California. From my (then) house I could walk at least to a half-dozen places where substantial amount people lived right in the streets. I've never seen people dying in the streets in any state though. Given that only 7 states (and DC) allow Medicaid for illegal immigrants, this must be happening an awful lot. Strangely, I never heard about such cases, let alone a massive number of them. But you evidently did.
I would like to ask you instead of the Word of Jesus - which is surely fascinating, but bears little relevance for the topic at hand - provide some authoritative data as to how many people actually died in the street in those 43 terrible states, for lack of Medicaid coverage, say in the last 5 years? Was it millions? Thousands? Hundreds? How does it compare with the record of California and those living-on-the-street people I am seeing there every time I visit? I think discussing actual data would be better than discussing Jesus.
I'm glad you're trying to expand your horizons. Here's a link to get you started:
https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ftsa&q=deaths+and+bankruptcies+fro...
Pretty sure it's because EFF is being a bit vague with the truth and they were using Fed funds for this, at least until quite recently.
https://paragoninstitute.org/medicaid/californias-insurance-...
This current administration and their policies have definitely influenced my opinion on the 2018 debate around citizenship questions on the US census.
(For more context: https://www.tbf.org/blog/2018/march/understanding-the-census...)
Glad to see this post didn't get flagged like the one that was posted yesterday on a similar topic about ICE data mining and user tracking.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46748336
Give it a few minutes
Yes just wait until the topic changes from databases to the political side where the root of the problem lies.
The title is already political. There's no other way to cut it.
Aaaand… it’s gone
It likely will. There’s major impact on literally everyone in tech, there’s huge data privacy concerns, and it has less coverage or discussion than a new version of jQuery. The US gov could fall but that would count as politics here so clearly irrelevant.
Pretty sure this is a feature not a bug. Most people aren’t here for political topics.
Yep. They’re here to bury their head in the sand and keep up to date with the latest tech trends like the good little worker bees they are.
I don't think that's fair. I follow politics closely but prefer HN to stay technical. It shouldn't be offensive.
The "hide" link is right next to the "flag" link. Using flag instead of hide puts more strain on the mods, and is not the right thing to do for "this topic doesn't apply to my interests."
But it is the right thing to do for "this topic violates HN guidelines both in letter and in spirit, as well as predictably causing low-quality discussion threads".
We do not agree that it violates the HN guidelines, either in letter or in spirit.
What if I would prefer that these topics don't show up at all?
What if I'm concerned that leaving such topics up would attract more of the kind of people that prefer discussing these topics over tech topics?
Hiding doesn't fix the problem.
There is no way you just wrote this wtffff
FWIW I agree with you and recognize that to be one of the reasons it frequently isn’t allowed.
I also think there’s very few places with the power to meaningfully dialog with and among people who build stuff in Silicon Valley. I have dozens of friends, coworkers, etc who are in FAANG or the newer big tech companies, and all of them are extremely well paid, and most will insist they work for positive reasons. I believe in that most of them believe in other people, and don’t want to build a surveillance society or one that concentrates all wealth and power in a few.
For this reason, I think that some conversations on here are important to have - the impact technology is having on people who are outside the tech sphere, the effect of leaders of our companies on the economy, geopolitics, and power generally. Mark Facebook is a powerful player on the world stage. So is Paul Graham, and Sundar Pichai. Davos just took place - leaders from major economies are seeking guidance from these people who many people here work for. Let nobody say they aren’t participating in politics. Where you work matters, what you build matters. It’s not tinkering around in people’s garages anymore - they’re building the infinity gauntlet and someone is gathering all the gems. The Death Star plans are on AWS.
To pretend otherwise is to deny one’s responsibility - in the short term frequently profitable. In the long term, the pendulum tends to swing back..
If your problem is that you have no means to control what other people find important enough to talk about on a public forum, in their spare time, or that the means at your disposal to do so are insufficient to make other people saying things that make you uncomfortable go away... That isn't a problem that can or should should be fixed. Hell, the desire you've expressed could be uncharitably interpreted being contributory to part of the problem that has people around you discussing politics in the first place.
They should be aware of how tech is being used in political games though...
This.
The government doing bad things is a political topic.
How the government is using technology to do bad things is both a political and technology topic.
It gets down to the definition of political which is basically anything that might have a human cost, including to the people here. I have many coworkers having to upend their lives, some can’t currently leave the country. This is not worthy of discussion, but an esoteric library update is. Paul Graham posts are not political topics for some reason, but H1B people is.
Technology, technology leaders, and technology companies are literally driving politics, buying elections, driving the whole US economy.
Saying what “political” topics are IS political - and it’s decidedly a right wing position. Only those with the powers protecting them get to avoid politics.
There is a fun German word capturing this: “Deutungshohheit”
Well said. Even people with a lot in common can and should disagree often. In non-authoritarian systems, politics is supposed to be about managing this disagreement in civil ways. Politics seems unsavory to some, often because they find a lot of political manifestations to be vile or insipid. [1] I get that, but in a way this revulsion is backwards. The alternatives to the sausage-making of politics is usually worse: pretending there is no disagreement, coercion, violence, gaslighting. So when someone says "I don't like politics" I like to say "disagreement is to be expected".
[1] When representatives spend something like 4+ hours a day fundraising, people have good reason to say "this is f-ed up." https://gai.georgetown.edu/an-inside-look-at-congressional-f...
There is always going to be an intersection between tech and politics. This convo is no different than talking about Section 230, H1B visas or using vision models to sexualize people or distort the truth.
In a corrupt and authoritarian country, it is common to have officials busted on "corruption" or "embezzlement" charges. And yet most people know they are actually not jailed for the crimes they got charged for, because there are more than enough people to fill all the prisons for breaking the exact same laws they are accused of breaking. They knew the only reason these people got jailed is because they lost some kind of power struggle within the administration, and corruption is just a convenient lie those who prevailed tell you to keep you comfortable.
You never see the "no politics please thk u" crowd when it is about protests in Iran, Chinese oppression in Hong Kong, Russian aggression on Europe or hell, when people were literally running a political campaign the EU to stop killing games. You only see people flagging political submissions when it is a particular kind of politics - just like you only see corrupt officials jailed when they are a certain kind of officials.
Connect the dots, make your own conclusions.
Comments like this remind me of those guys who wouldn't stop working, in the twin towers. Just didn't want to get out of their zone.
When the computer code many of us are working on is directly shaping that politics I think that we should talk about it and stop hiding behind the bush.
Yeah so find a forum that’s for discussing that and discuss it there. Don’t try and force people who are discussing something else to talk about politics with you. Do you also randomly go onto GitHub issues and start talking politics because the people who are talking about repo bugs are “hiding behind a bush” and should talk about the political things you think are important instead?
I don't comment on GitHub issues.
I think that forums like this one should discuss politics as affected by computer code seeing as HN is one of the main (for lack of a better word) computer programmers' forums based/located in/with a focus on SV, it's not some random computer forum which specializes in some random computer programming issue.
Hacker News is not lambda-the-ultimate.org, seeing them as similar is part of that hiding behind the bush, people commenting on here actually work at companies like Palantir, Alphabet, Meta and the like, companies whose recent involvement in politics affects us all, at a worldwide level. Also see this recent FT article [1] in connection with how the leaders of those companies have gotten a lot reacher since Trump ascended to power for a second time.
[1] https://archive.ph/https://www.ft.com/content/674b700e-765d-...
Absolutely and it's unfortunate that all essential topics that need discussion, which is the only thing that works to understand and find solutions for problems, is being flagged off the front page. Some of the flagging seems political as well, why isn't that recognized as a problem as well?
Nobody is forcing you to do anything. You're choosing to comment. You're not being censored nor is your speech compelled.
This forum is for hacker news. Some people believe tech news related to politics qualifies, some don't.
Your perspective is equally arbitrary. You have no reasoning, no justification. So stop pretending you do.
Well, to be fair, their point has being reinforced for years by the general stance of the mods.
There is no apolitical topics. There's just politics you agree with and politics you don't agree with.
There are no interesting apolitical topics. Food tastes good sometimes, weather is doing weather stuff, yawn. I feel like we sometimes try to seek conflict out of boredom
Food is political - Veganism, Carnivore diet, halal, kosher, animal welfare, etc etc.
Weather is political - Climate change, fossil fuel policy etc etc.
I rest my case.
German pastor Martin Niemöller:
"First they came for the Communists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me."
Preserving the status quo is a political position.
being neutral on a moving train, etc.
Or rather, most people aren’t here to have their preconceived notions challenged by reality.
Politics is a nebulous term for topics that affect a large number of the population. Tech intersects with politics all the time and deserves good faith discussion.
“Politics” = things that don’t directly affect the (usually highly privileged) speaker.
Most people aren’t here to be faced with anything that challenges the status quo, you mean. They don’t want to read anything uncomfortable.
You're past the time of saying that and not being seen as an enabler my friend. This isn't normal politics anymore. They are killing people in the streets. If you don't think that your tech toys have a lot to do with that, then you should grow up. This pathetic point does not apply anymore.
Still, I was down voted a lot when I said there's too much politics here.
There was a time when SV and technology eschewed politics, but that time is long gone. You only have to look at how often all the big tech CEO's end up at random Whitehouse events to see how they are intimately intertwined now.
There has always been politics in SV, this is a weird rewriting of history.
Presumably there’s so much pushback now because people are quite uncomfortable having to confront the fact that they may be the bad guys (even though they were probably the bad guys years ago as well).
Not rewriting at all.
Nien-hê Hsieh, a professor of business ethics at Harvard University says that in the 1990s, “there was a real reluctance or reticence to engage in Washington” from the leading tech companies of the day.
...
The early 2010s saw huge growth in lobbying spending by tech companies. A plateau in the late Obama years was followed by another steep increase once Trump took office. But in recent years some major players have slowed or even decreased their spending, suggesting that major corporations are becoming more sophisticated in their approach to wielding power on Capitol Hill.
https://www.newstatesman.com/business/companies/2021/02/reve...
Looking at the vote numbers on these posts before they get flagged would suggest otherwise.
Ok, I'm not "here for political topics" but I'm here to discuss things with my peers in tech. Mostly that's tech news, yes, but not always.
Yes. I think the problem is people that drive into police officers, abandon their children or bring a gun to a law enforcement event then resist arrest. HN is full of activism these days and I’m tired of the support for vigilantism.
No the problem is bootlickers with less self-preservation skills than animals who bend over backwards to reject actual reality because they think they're in the billionaire pedophilic ruling class in-group when they're not.
Tons of political posts are on the front page of Hacker News all the time. The ones I actually see get flagged are generally bad articles. Sure, there's real stuff that gets flagged down too, but Hacker News is far from a place where politics is always flagged.
Damn near everything on HN gets flagged eventually. Either get everyone to drop their biases as Silicon Valley tech VCs or make it so that flags can ONLY be used to remove clear abuse. Sick of it
It is really disheartening and sad to see this community burying its head in the sand and ignoring what’s happening to our country
There’s probably a lot of people that have say mainstream left (eg Obama and Sanders statements around 2010), centrist and conservative views on illegal immigration and support enforcing the law. What you see as something bad happening is something very normal made more difficult by unhelpful state governments and vigilante groups.
Armed goons terrorizing cities, dragging people out to brutalize and murder them is not "something very normal".
It's what the brown shirts did.
Anyone who believes ICE is legitimately trying to rectify illegal immigration is either too stupid to function or a liar.
Because I give the benefit of the doubt, I will assume most people are not that stupid. So, the only option left is they don't actually believe it, and it's just virtue signalling to their fascist overloads. Personally, I think that's a bit pathetic, not to mention naive. Nobody has any reason to think they will be spared, citizen or not.
What I see today on HN mirrors the processes I've witnessed in Russian speaking parts of the net during the 2010s. Despite the escalation of totalitarianism in Russia, the growing internet censorship and military operations in nearby countries, which left the posters on the same websites on the different sides of military conflicts, some sites have stuck to their "no politics" rule. Both to avoid upsetting people in power and out of their owners' naïve beliefs.
Reading them was like living in an alternate reality where nothing more notable happens than a release of new version X of a framework Y. Large portions of the tech community had exactly the same attitude that could be seen here and now - refusal to consider the societal implications of their daily work, adherence to technical solutions over the real world ones ("I'll just work remotely and use a VPN, who cares") and just simple willful ignorance.
It was around that time that I started to frequent English speaking discussions, which were much more vibrant and open. It saddens me to see the same kind of process repeat itself here.
If it was only that... What I really take issue with are all the mentally ill trolls jumping in to defend ICE, lying through their teeth about the content of videos we all saw. But actually supporting murder isn't enough to get you banned in here.
As a non-American, I like the way HN is moderated. This isn’t an American politics and domestic issues forum.
As a fellow non-american who also hates politics (us, home or other), pretending this doesn't affect you or the tech world is hopelessly naive.
I hate seeing these posts on HN. I hate not seeing them / getting flagged more.
Exactly. I'm watching this from the Netherlands. Until last year I always ignored political posts here but now it's become an existential necessity to be involved.
I actually think it’s best that HN flags and removes them because we are quickly entering a stage in this country where you will be flagged by the government monitoring the internet. I would caution people to start using VPN and continuously flush your IPs. I would even go as far as to recommend removing face ID from your devices which basically offers zero protection once you’re detained (or have a quick way to disable it).
You want us to hide in our own country?
Or get in the streets to peacefully protest before you have to.
Way ahead of you
It's becoming worse on a daily basis.
People are starting to get angry and if enough people are angry, this will lead to either government change or repression.
If it's repression, you're not ready for what's coming.
Okay
"ICE Budget Now Bigger Than Most of the World’s Militaries" - https://www.newsweek.com/immigration-ice-bill-trump-2093456
I hope that we can agree that blowing off the 10A and allowing all of this federal bloat has not been a swift call.
Social services left at the State level would be subject to a smaller pool of votes for approval and are more likely to be funded by actual tax revenue instead of debt.
That is: sustainably.
Furthermore, the lack of One True Database is a safety feature in the face of the inevitable bad actors.
In naval architecture, this is called compartmentalization.
There are good arguments against this, sure, but the current disaster before you would seem a refutation.
Some states are too poor to effectively fund and maintain their own safety nets. It's common for folks laid off in these states to get a dubious mental health diagnosis to justify SSDI, because doctors know they have no prospects and could well become homeless without it.
So we mug other States rather than address the problem?
These states may be fundamentally too resource poor to effectively maintain their populations. So collectively we agreed that richer states should subsidize them, because no one wants to see their neighbors suffer unnecessarily. And in the hope that newer generations may invent or unlock other resources to break the cycles of poverty.
My fear is that many of these states are locked in a bubble of lies, a culture that longs for an imaginary and idealized past that never existed. That they'll continue raising generations of people who think they need to be an independent, 'rudged' individualist when that's never been possible anywhere. And once they fail they'll settle for punching down on people different than them.
Speaking of "bubble of lies..."
I've lived in northern and southern states for years. Was raised (very) evangelical Christian and left that behind, yet still have family deep inside. My bubble has been thoroughly popped. Still I have to witness the descent of friends and family members into fantasy as they age and become more isolated by circumstance and their media choices. College educated people who now tell me the Earth is probably flat, 9/11 was probably an inside job, J6 was just some over eager tourists.
Funny how often those are red states...
Well, so: let the red states eat their own rhetoric.
And I used to roll my eyes at the homeless guy who ranted about the mark of the beast
... but I'm sure they'd never target "undesirably unhealthy" citizens with this data to harass.....
If you work on this kind of tech, please, quit your job.
Soft quit so they can continue to bleed money and delay further talent acquisition.
And blow up all backups.
Anyone working at FAA(N)G is complicit at this point.
Undocumented immigrants/illegal immigrants are not generally eligible for federally funded Medicaid coverage in the United States, as federal law restricts such benefits to U.S. citizens and certain qualified immigrants with lawful status.
They are eligible for Emergency Medicaid, which covers emergency medical needs like labor and delivery or life-threatening conditions; hospitals that accept federal dollars for medicare/medicaid are required under federal law (EMTALA) to provide stabilizing emergency care regardless of immigration status or ability to pay.
Federal law also restricts illegal aliens from entering the US without authorization.
Palantir is interesting. Founded by a closeted German, run by an Israeli operative, and a 3rd arm of the federal gov. I wish we could prosecute it in my lifetime for the numerous violations of privacy it undertakes, but the world does not work that way. The rich enjoy private jets subsidized by our hard-earned taxes, while violating ideals held by our Founding fathers (for what would Thiel or the current CEO know about our morals, when they have none and are American by name only.. their loyalties lie elsewhere)
At least the billionaires also act indignant when you suggest that they weren't singularly responsible for literally every good thing that has ever happened.
Palantir will never be prosecuted because they don't actually engage in any violations of privacy themselves or take possession of any data. They just sell software that enables it. And their main customer is the people who do the prosecuting. For the government prosecuting Palantir would be an admission of guilt, so it will never happen.
They most likely do engage. And they are not going to be prosecuted just because they are useful for government - and until this status quo persists, palantir can do whatever they like.
For the same reasons banks rarely get any sensible fines/lawsuits.
maybe this will end up depending on case law determined by pending suits against RealPage for assisting in rental pricing manipulation. [0]
given the current administration, i'm not holding my breath.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RealPage#Lawsuits
This just doesn't make sense when the government is the customer. If you have a problem with what Palantir does, then your real problem is with the government because that's who is actually putting the tool to use. Why would you go after the vendor instead of the government who will just keep doing the same thing if you go after Palantir?
"violating ideals held by our Founding fathers"
There are a whole raft of "ideals" the Founding fathers held that we've obviated, beginning with who got the franchise. I can confidently say that government being the payor for ~50% of all healthcare, and operating the databases necessary to monitor all the money and behavior, was certainly not among their "ideals" either.
This was predicted by many, long ago. The predictions were ignored because they were inconvenient to desires and ambitions. Yet here we are. One wonders if it were known at the time, before we constructed these schemes, that one day there would be fabulous machines that would wade through all the (predicted) streams of data, hunting people, if perhaps those predictions might have been heard.
The cynic in me says "no." At some point, as the streams of politics oscillate, they occasionally converge very strongly, and all doubts are overcome, and the ratchet makes another click.
But it's not all bad news. In the natural course of events there is a high probability that one day, you'll have such folk as you prefer back at the helm, and they'll have these tools at the ready. If you make the most of it, you'll never have to suffer the current crowd ever again!
Where do their loyalties lie? In Germany and Israel?
You think that people who were not born in America cannot be trusted / are not moral?
Just the ones talking about the antichrist and making lists of undesirables.
No, I'm wondering where would their loyalties lie. It doesn't make sense to me that anyone's loyalty would lie in Germany.
Sometimes, when their account is green and they refuse to interact with ordinary topics on-merit.
When that happens, I click the "flag" button on every comment they write and watch them fulminate.
The argument is that people who are born outside and come in, but instead of embracing our ideals, seek to do America harm, import bad ideals (like misinformation in the case of Murdoch, hunting innocents in the case of Karp, and racism in the case of Musk), should be called out and shamed. Fox News and ICE have done great damage largely enabled by the infra these immigrants set up. They also seem to promote hate against other immigrants (Chinese, muslims, etc). I think we often do not call out Musk and Murdoch for the damage they did. And given they are not American by birth, I do question their loyalties because their actions reflect a willingness to siphon money out of America and do us harm.
The irony of a post about Palantir working with ICE devolving into xenophobia about the founders of Palantir.
tbh it's hard not to dunk on a gay christian fundamentalist and a coked up israeli boot licker POC teaming up together to deport people, so many layers of meta and jokes to be made
They will never experience xenophobia in any meaningful way, unlike the millions surveilled by the technology they're developing.
Take note of every 4th amendment violation. Rule of law will return.
Most of the founding fathers were slavers that wanted to keep their slaves while hating the vast majority of people. When they wrote the constitution they were only thinking of rich white landowners, 80% of the people posting in this thread would not have suffrage and couldn't legally participate in the government. Remember this next time you read words about the "rights of man" because it's not me or you.
The founding fathers would absolutely love the idea of Palantir and if you don't think so go look at who wrote the Fugitive Slave Act, who agreed with it, and who enforced it.
I mean the "tyranny of the majority?" What a crock of shit, they were the tyranny that enforced slavery for 80 years.
George Washington would have absolutely used this tech to try to steal back his "property" from free states (something he tried to do but regularly failed or didn't want to argue in the courts):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zhxivf0gmj8
pretty awesome that the new yc website touts gary tan's work at palantir as a positive
"he was an early designer and engineering manager at Palantir (NYSE:PLTR), where he designed the company logo"
We’re talking inside the death star
Bro idk about you I'm on Endor
There's no reason to believe that ICE, DHS or any other agencies will use this data carefully, judiciously or in good faith. Instead, it's quite clear at this point that all they will do is abuse the power they do have, execute and antagonize anyone they disagree with and then lie despite ample evidence to the contrary.
I'd say Palantir should be ashamed for facilitating this, but their entire business model is built around helping the government build an ever more invasive police state.
Don't you at least need to legally migrate to be in medicaid? I thought I had to be a citizen? Are they full in a full on SS mode now?
They're not just going after the so-called "illegal aliens", something made clear after the numerous extrajudicial killings by ICE officers recently, such as the one that occured yesterday.
Someone bought a Sig Sauer gun that’s known to go off when moved suddenly (you can find as many videos as you want on the issue) - grabbed an agent and resisted arrest. The gun went off during the arrest, officers thought the man was firing at them.
It’s tragic - the way to prevent this is to increase calm, give the federal officers some support, stop conspiracy theories (eg like the boy that abandoned by his father that people say was ‘arrested’ or your comment pretending it was a murder) and stop vigilante groups from causing chaos.
Has there been an investigation?
Lol no, guns don't just magically go off when in a holster. Yes mechanical failures do happen, but it requires very specific types of impact in very specific ways that cannot happen when in a holster and are so rare as to happen on decade timescales with tens of thousands of the gun. Also I saw zero evidence of that guys gun going off in the video, the first shot heard is the shot coming out of the ICE goon's gun that he is pointing at that guy, who then also mag dumps him while he is on the ground.
The Sig Sauer P320, which is what Alex Pretti had, is notorious for unintentionally discharging. Various law enforcement agencies and militaries have stopped using it for that reason.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIG_Sauer_P320
"the firearm may discharge when it is dropped and the back of the slide hits the ground at a 33-degree angle"
That is pretty hard to accomplish while its in a holster unless the guy was suplexed and his entire spine turned to jello giving the gun a multi-foot uncushioned drop.
"misfire was due to "a partial depression of the trigger by a foreign object combined with simultaneous movement of the slide"
Which is irrelevant when in a shielded holster like this guy has.
On top of all this, even had the gun went off, which I have found zero evidence to support, how would that guy know who's gun went off to start with? Guns don't light up with a bunch of LEDs to show you it has been fired. If you aren't staring directly at the gun, which isn't really possible in the scenario that played out, you wouldn't know whos gun went off. And even if someone was staring at the gun and saw it go off, how does a holstered gun that nobody is holding represent any sort of threat? You think the guy is controlling his gun with his mind powers?
I don't even know why im bother argueing with you because this entire thing is ludicrous. I find it hard to believe you have watched any of the video of the incident at all and came to this conclusion.
If it misfired it likely misfired as it was being taken, not while in his holster.
If you’re detaining someone who has a gun and a gun goes off it’s incompetent, maybe negligent, but not murder to react by shooting the guy who had the gun.
I don’t think anyone can draw definitive conclusions from the videos.
That is a conclusion
The person who starts shooting him has full visibility of the gun the entire time.
Even if he doesn't realize it is a misfire, why would he believe that it was Pretti who shot? How can you reasonably believe a dude that is dogpiled with a gun not in his control is the shooter?
How is that not murder? In your scenario the guy is still innocent and he was shot to death because of ICE being scared by their own incompetence. If someone claps their hands and I reflexively mag dump you on the street, am I not guilty of murder?
You can make it fire by grabbing it around the barrel - give me a second I can find a YouTube video if you want.
Here you go: https://youtu.be/jOMQOtOQoPk?si=73omsRIZIKDo3P8u
Well, that's an interesting take. Even if a holstered weapon did discharge (no idea how likely this is for the specific weapon in question), why would someone suspect they are being fired at by a person with a holstered weapon? Poor/no training is the most charitable explanation.
I suppose enough people will grasp at this take.
Poor training seems plausible, if not likely. But then it's not murder / "extrajudicial killing".
Incredulity, like sarcasm, does not convey well in text.
No, really, the Sig Sauer P320 is known for unintentionally discharging: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46759664
The only person suggesting the gun went off while holstered was the sibling comment by ‘AngryData’. After ICE discoverers the gun and yells “gun! Gun!” the Sig discharges into the ground (visible in some of the videos) before he is shot 3 times.
You saw the videos, the guy only had a phone in hand, he got tear gased, pinned to the ground, and then they unloaded their guns on him. Stop lying about what you saw, or we'll start to believe you're actually pro-murder.
Phone was in his right hand (our left) and gun was holstered near his other hand. The gun went off into the ground as P320s are known to do when they removed it from him and officers reacted.
It's fascinating how Trump voters are able to reshape their reality to fit the Party's official line. All these years I thought Orwell was exaggerating...
You should read the HN guidelines
People keep forgetting that it's possible to legally migrate, work for awhile, and so on, and then "become illegal" due to deadlines or administration issues.
An example every tech worker should understand is H1-B, where as an added bonus your employer can make you illegal.
Why did you put a quote around become illegal? It's illegal indeed, not illegal.
You may like immigration laws or not, there is a very clear definition on legal aliens.
the migration was legal. you're not an "illegal" when you drive with an expired license are you? so quotes is appropriate when using the term as a title instead of a verb.
You are. Why do you think licenses have expiration dates? It legally authorises you to perform specific activity within specific timeframe. Any activity without license is illegal.
By same logic you can't stay in the house you legally rented previously.
Surprised those simple concepts need elaboration.
No, you're being intentionally oblivious to justify something negative. You have done something illegal, that is not in contest. But people are not labeled "illegal" when their license expires. They're called out based on the specific thing they did. You can say "this person migrated illegally", that's different than saying "this person is an illegal", as if their very existence and presence is illegal, that's the insinuation and you're intentionally avoiding that. The fact that migrating illegally is is indeed illegal, and that illegal migrants, or those who stay here illegally must be removed has not been contested by anyone serious. You're advocating a stance that goes further than that and dehumanizes these people. You should lookup the videos of wailing children in detection camps with no heating in winter, migrants being strangled to death and beating in black sites, even US citizens being abducted and removed from the country - that's the propaganda you're supporting by claiming the people themselves are illegal as opposed to they committed something illegal and need to face lawful consequences. You don't need to be cruel and inhumane to enforce the law (in fact this is specifically prohibited by the constitution). There are people that enjoy and revel in the inhumanity and cruelty, I hope you're not on that side of things. It might cost a lot, but it is reasonably possible to locate, lawfully process (courts/lawyers) and remove every person that is not present in the US lawfully.
If you did, you'd be called a squatter, not "an illegal". Even squatters who take over someone's home have rights. Everyone gets due process. You foolishness is that you think because they're migrants, however they're treated won't affect you. I don't care what demographic group you're in, you'll be called an illegal soon enough. Words matter, the whole law is just a bunch of words.
Normally I wouldn't dignify the emotional word salad with a response, but it is important to state few things.
You conceal substance beneath a pile of semantic shenanigans. If someone stays in the country illegally, their presence in the county is illegal and law enforcement on that matter is warranted. You can call them saints if you like, it still doesn't make their presence legal. No matter if they entered the country legally and overstayed their visas, or plainly entered the country illegally. No matter how much leftist media make emotional appeals and frame it as "child dying" or any other sorts of manipulations you are trying to parrot as well - it remains illegal.
There are NO US citizens detained or "abducted" by ICE, provided they comply with due procedure for establishing their legal status. You are lying. There are possibly cases where ICE had to do checks on people who decline to confirm their status, which warrants further investigation.
I appreciate your concern regarding myself being called illegal, but let me assure you I am totally fine and will be totally fine, even being not a US citizen.
They are targeting undocumented parents of children who are on medicaid, using the medicaid data to build that list.
No, many states deliberately offer Medicare benefits to non-citizens and deliberately don't check for legal residency in the US.
FWIW, people here illegally are already not eligible for Medicaid, [0] so it's hard to see why ICE having access to a roster of Medicaid enrollees would help them with their stated mission of enforcing removal orders.
Then again, we have ICE shooting American citizens in the streets, so I guess the law is whatever they decide it is, not least because our legislative branch is uninterested in laws.
https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/IF/PDF/IF1191...
What about finding them through the records of their citizen children?
Edit: cael450 has already offered a specific example of this threat vector: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46758387
This is really insane levels of evil.
Presumably, it's because a lot of them are getting Medicaid despite not being eligible to. Isn't the point of every audit, investigation, etc. to find things that aren't being done correctly?
ICE isn’t auditing Medicaid FFS. And no, there’s absolutely no evidence they’re getting access to Medicaid.
They’re single mindedly looking for undocumented immigrants to deport.
Why are you presuming this? There is no evidence this is happening in any widespread fashion.
If it is being honest about it's intention, yes. I think we have seen an absolute mountain of evidence that this administration does "audits" as massive data collection waves to suit any and every purpose they want, though.
If this was about fixing things being done incorrectly, DHHS should be doing the audit, not DHS. Perhaps the latter doesn't understand the difference between the two, though, not noticing they're missing an H in their abbreviation.
Isn't the point of this data so that they can uncover exactly that? It'd be silly to say you're not allowed to look for evidence of anything unless you already have evidence of it. Also, the qualifier "in any widespread fashion" is weasel words. It makes me think you already know it is happening, and the only remaining question is to what scale.
How exactly would non-citizens, who do not have social security numbers or other valid identifying documents, receive medicaid? It's difficult enough for qualified people to get it. It would seem fairly difficult to pass the registration process without having a valid SSN. Furthermore, if someone was able to fraudulently sign up - say by using a stolen identity, then wouldn't the data in the system look valid and therefore not really show up on an audit?
And as the GP pointed out, it makes no sense to put the president's paramilitary agency¹ in charge of such an audit, rather than qualified auditors, perhaps from the HHS² OIG³.
1. https://www.newstatesman.com/world/americas/north-america/us...
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_He...
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Inspector_General_(U...
Isn't identity theft a problem in the US? Especially because something which was not meant to be used as ID is used as one (the SSN)?
There are provisions in federal law which allow non citizens to receive federal Medicaid dollars in some circumstances.
"who do not have social security numbers" how would one prove or disprove this assumption?
Raceumedly
How would this even work? You can’t just start billing things to Medicaid if you’re ineligible for it. That would be like you deciding to bill United Healthcare for something despite not being a customer. How is this hypothetical fraud supposed to work? What am I missing?
ICE isn’t auditing Medicaid. They’re trying to use records to find people to detain and deport which is an orthogonal dataset.
The only plausible explanation is that they’re using medical records as an additional source of data on people who live in houses that they’re raiding or looking at.
Which is insane. Imagine police rolling up to your front door on suspicion of something and loading up a system which has your medical records.
They're also not eligible to be living in the US, yet here we are.
The key issue wilfully ignored by the mob.
And yet we do nothing to punish the actual criminals, the employees who knowingly higher then abuse them. Why don't we deport Trump, Trump tower wouldn't even be around without polish workers who were here illegally
I just want to clarify why this is not so straightforward. It really depends on how the term “illegal alien” is defined.
Before BBB July 4, Medicare covered the following groups:
- Refugees
- Asylum seekers
- Immigration parolees
- TPS holders
- DACA recipients
Under the Trump administration, the following groups are now considered illegal aliens:
- Asylum seekers with pending claims or those whose claims were denied
- Immigration parolees
- Certain categories of TPS holders (for example South Sudanese TPS ended Jan 6 2026 so all people under that protection are ordered to leave)
- Certain categories of DACA recipients
And the above people are probably registered for medicare with full name and address.
OOC do you have any sources for what the current administration considers illegal aliens?
Genuinely curious if they've published this information.
bear in mind that ICE are forcibly deporting people in the process of applying for green cards whose lawyers have assured them that a lapsed VISA isn't an issue (it never used to be) as they have married an American citizen and maybe even have children with them.
A robotics engineer from Germany was forcibly deported a few months back because ICE were waiting for him at the immigration office when he went to visit to further the application.
The people working for Palantir are collaborators.
The US Attorney General also just said they’ll withdraw ICE from Minnesota if they hand over voter registration files.
[1] https://www.newsweek.com/pam-bondi-ice-minnesota-shooting-ti...
They’re not even hiding the fact this has nothing to do with immigration and everything to do with compiling lists of people to target later.
How would they target people using voter rolls? Is the concern that it includes party affiliation? Couldn't they just provide the rolls without party affiliation?
Honestly it seems crazy even state governments know party affiliation. I know it's so they know who can vote in primaries etc, but it seems like you should just be able to register to vote with your party directly.
Yes, they’re going to go after anyone that voted for the other party. Trump already said they would, I guess this is how
Not just Minnesota, they've asked all states for voter registration lists and ballots from previous elections. 11 states have complied so far.
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/trac...
I'm afraid of the day strongmen come into power in my country and start targeting people on their social media history. I'm sure to end on _some sort_ of naughty list. You kind of get how people become depoliticized and apathetic when resistance has no apparent effect and speaking up only gets you in trouble. That's how civic societies atrophy and die.
Yes, all you had to do is find transport companies that dont hand in gas bills in the tax season and they just pop up aus fraudulent.
Right now, in Belarus, amateur radio operators are being considered "enemies of the state".
Naturally they all are registered with the govt, and thus easy to pick up, jail, or murder.
This is the type of danger where last year amateur radio was legal, and now it gets you jailed. Thats the danger of this sort of data.
If you have, you should post articles in English about that. People would be interested.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46703694 (5 days ago, 7 comments) Belarus begins a death penalty purge of radio amateurs
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46708996 (4 days ago, 1 comment) HAM Radio Operators in Belarus Arrested, Face the Death Penalty
Medicaide data is pretty much covered by HIPPA. So Evil. Also it seems like it is too late, even if a court says do not do it, they will anyway and get away with it since the supreme court rules the president is allowed to break the law.
HELP I AM SOOOO F**NG ANGRY. Sorry I just don't have anywhere to safely put this rage.
HIPAA has mechanisms that allow government access (even if it were not Medicaid).
I think you would benefit from someone to talk to about this.
Build yourself and your community up. We're all mad. We all want to see justice. Don't despair.
Immigration laws, like any other laws, need to be enforced, right?
Yes, with humanity and with respect for due process. And laws should not be applied selectively against people you don't like while turning a blind eye to violations by people on 'your side'.
Have you actually read immigration laws? They are not as Manichean or prescriptive as many commenters make them out to be. Enforcement-first proponents often seem unaware of or indifferent to the difference between civil and riminal violations and the lack of mandatory remedies. I've also noticed a distinct tendency to hyperbolize and outsize lie about past policy choices in order to justify their position.
I don't think most people on either side of this issue can speak to the nuances of immigration law.
A lot of people who support the current US government do not want the laws to be enforced, they just want to see people who look brown or foreigners to be deported, regardless of if they are in the US legally or illegally.
The immigration laws are saying that we should stop illegal immigration, but respect the legal immigration. And because of that, it means that each case should be carefully treated to discover if the person is illegal or not.
But a majority of people supporting the crack-down on immigration are more than happy to see 10 innocents being deported if it means 1 illegal being deported, and they will wave around the illegal being deported to explain that before the crack-down, the law was not respected, forgetting that the current situation is breaking the law way more than the previous one (before: 1 illegal not deported, 1 error. after: 10 innocents being deported, 10 errors).
In other words: if you care about the law, you cannot "pick and choose" and say "the laws are not respected because 1 illegal is not deported" but also "10 innocents are being deported, this breaks the law, but this does not count".
Where are you getting the idea that 10 innocents are being deported for every 1 illegal? Or that the "majority" of people supporting the crackdown would support that?
The information I can find suggests only a handful of cases, maybe a dozen, out of 600,000 or so.
I'm saying that the majority of the people supporting the crackdown don't care about the fact that the crackdown may break the law. Which is demonstrated by the fact that these people totally don't care of what is the number of innocents deported. You can see these people saying "we should deport the illegals", but how often you can see them saying "but I also want to know the number of innocent deported, and if this number is too high, we should stop the deportation"?
I'm not saying what is happening right now is 10 vs 1, and I did not in my comment. These numbers were illustrative, to explain that if you want to "apply the law", you should care about how many illegals are not deported AND how many innocents are deported.
This is the demonstration that people supporting the crackdown don't do it because they want to see the laws being applied, they just want "the laws that benefit them" to be applied. So we should stop pretending these people are acting because of their love for justice or for the laws.
edit: another way of explaining what I want to say: if you care about "applying the law", then you know that the correct measure will be a balance between the false positive and false negative. The large majority of the discourse of people supporting the crackdown is denying that. They are saying that "every single illegal must be deported". This discourse is explicitly saying that not deporting 1 single illegal is still not fine, and does not mention anywhere the balance with false positive. It shows that they don't care about "applying the law".
(And about "an handful of cases", that would be extremely unrealistic. Maybe you are talking about the number of cases that are surfaced, which is only a small proportion of the real numbers of case, as it is for all false positive)
If there were any evidence of widespread deportations of people who shouldn't be then I think you'd see more people speaking up, but there's not. People don't have to caveat their support of every policy with hypotheticals.
I also don't think most people want illegal aliens to be deported for "justice". They (rightfully or wrongly) think they're taking their jobs, contributing to crime, facilitating drug trade, costing taxpayers money, etc.
Would love a source
Federal district judges in mpls are releasing dozens of illegally detained individuals per day. You may not be hearing about it, but it is absolutely happening. Your not hearing about is part of the problem.
[1] https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ca8.113...
That's my point and the reason of my first comment, which answered to a comment saying
I was reacting to that by saying that we should not pretend that the motivation here is "applying the law". It is not the case and it never was. (and also that "applying the law" does imply a balance between false positive and false negative, but that suddenly, trying to avoid the false negative is strangely not applying the law)
Somehow, I doubt it. You are yourself saying "they think (rightfully or wrongly)". They are not interested in evidence, they don't really care to check if what they think has any evidence supporting it, it is just convenient for them.
If there are evidence of widespread false positive, they will just hold tight to the idea that "they were traitors anyway". It is more convenient for them. (and in fact, there currently is a lot of evidence of a high number of false positive, but they deny it exactly like that)
The proof of that is that there are already plenty of red flags everywhere showing that officials are incompetent. The officials say that there are plenty of bad illegal dangerous persons, and yet, the only people they manage to shoot just appear to be non-illegal with no history of extremism. Then, when it happens, they starts fabricating excuses that turn out are total lies. And then ... it happens again. Even if you buy into the idea that there are indeed plenty of bad illegal dangerous persons, you have to admit that they are awful at fixing it.
It is not technically a "widespread false positive", but it is already something that a neutral reasonable person will be incapable to deny that there is a problem. And yet, right now, these people who, according to you will totally "start to speak up", don't hesitate to bury their head in the sand and insist that it is all normal.
It is totally unrealistic to pretend that suddenly, when there is widespread evidence of false positive, they will not continue to find excuse and pretend that these evidences are fake news and lies propagated by traitors.
What is the motivation here then? In your opinion?
And speaking of false positives, could you explain what you mean by that?
The people who oppose don't care about the fact that illegal immigrants are continually breaking US law by continuing to be in the US, and often explicitly argue that laws restricting immigration into the US are immoral. There's no reason grounded in an ethic of general respect for the law why formal law-violation associated with the crackdown is more important than formal law-violation associated with the illegal immigration.
Ok. First, the people who oppose don't justify everything with "apply the law". They in large majority are consistent and honest and explain that cracking down without respecting basic right is disproportionate and that you need to have a good balance. The large majority agree with the existence of law and agree that just ignoring illegals does not make any sense (they may propose better process to avoid that they end up being illegal in the first place, but also better process to treat illegals, in which case, they are literally proposing solution in which breaking the law is punished, just not by using violence and recklessness).
But again, this is a false dichotomy. You are pretending that the only way to stop breaking the law is by accepting an incompetent organisation (ICE) to act as bullies without having to answer for their actions (while I'm not sure if the people involved in the recent killing will be punished or not, plenty of unjustified violence happened without any consequences for the perpetrators). They are incompetent: they keep making stupid mistake, saying things that appear to be obviously wrong as soon as we see the footage, ...
If you really want "applying the law", why are you not contesting ICE for not being able to arrest illegals while not breaking the law themselves in situation where breaking the law is totally useless (and don't tell me it is not useless: cops and local authorities managed to do the same without creating the mess that ICE has created).
@cauch: let me ask you this: how do you weed out the illegals besides asking for proof or citizenship or proof of a passport visa that you are in the US legally?
Really, you're going to go with "papers, please" ?
ICE is on record of requesting ID from _children_. I don't know if you're a parent, but my kids didn't carry ID until they were nearly adults. That's okay, though, because they're white. I don't like bringing race into this, but we're not seeing ICE ask white people for their passports.
I don't have a problem weeding out dangerous criminals, but flagging someone who had a parking ticket a decade ago is wrong. Additionally, removing TPS from groups and then subsequently deporting them up is wrong. Arresting individuals and deporting them when they are going through the proper legal avenues to become citizens is wrong.
How soon until other "undesirables" are targeted?
Did you carry proof of citizenship as a child? Do you carry it today? I don't, as my license is not a "real id" yet. They could scoop me up as I walk into Home Depot and send me off to god knows where tomorrow.
Where I'm from, I am legally required to have proof of ID with me all the time. So basically used to never leaving home without it.
No, going back to what you're saying: why is it wrong to deport somebody that came to the US illegally? Just because they were good citizens is it OK to be forgiven for crossing the border illegally? How does that make any sense?
And speaking about TPS, you know what the T stands for, right?
Yes, I too have proof of ID. It does not prove that I am a citizen. I can also tell you that children in the USA do not carry ID.
If they were brought here as young children, yes, it's wrong -- they're being punished for the actions of their parents.
Of course. Let's look at Somalia, who recently had their temporary protected status designation revoked. Their home country is currently involved in a civil war, and the US government simultaneously lists Somalia as "Level 4: Do Not Travel". There's a good chance that we're sending these people to their deaths. You are okay with this?
I guess here is the misunderstanding. I cannot get an ID without being a citizen.
Citizenship is a Federal thing, but our IDs are provided by the State.
You also didn't answer my question about us likely sending Somalis off to their deaths.
Do what other civilised countries do?
What I don't understand is that ICE are clearly incompetent: they shoot the wrong guys, they keep claiming they arrested bad guys and it turns out they totally misunderstood and the persons in question are not who they thought they were. Even with Pretti, ICE declared they were there to arrest a known illegal with a "significant criminal history", but turns out the Minnesota officials have said it was not the case.
This is an usual strange situation: some people want to see "less illegal immigrants", and yet, they are ok with paying big money to pay incompetent people do an half-assed job.
Other civilized countries routinely ask for proof of citizenship or legal residency when people interact with their bureaucracies and deport people who are discovered by law enforcement to not be legally resident. This happens all the time in every civilized country and in many countries we don't consider civilized.
I've lived in several civilized in Europe, and they don't do raid like it is happening in Minnesota. What is happening in Minnesota makes the front pages in Europe, and a lot of people are saying that according to them, it will never be possible here (I'm not sure I agree with them, but it shows that the idea that the ICE methods are "the usual way to deal efficiently with immigration" is totally crazy).
I guarantee you, in Europe, illegals are arrested and deported regularly, and yet, the large majority of people don't even notice. There is no masked troops doing raids. And some people push for more care in managing illegal migrants expulsion, they do demonstration, they organise events and sometimes even are present and makes small obstruction during interventions. Yet none of them are being killed.
There is a huge disconnect with reality in US right now, with a part of the population so uneducated with the "usual" migration regulation and so fed with fear that they are painting the situation as if having unhinged ICE acting outside of due process is the only alternative to "open border and lawlessness". What a joke.
I really don’t understand why there are so many people in the US hellbent on doing everything they can to support illegal immigrants.
They are not. They want illegal migrants to be processed and deported if they are illegal. What they are complaining about is the fact that current, people are "marked" as illegal (or fail to be regularised) for arbitrary reasons and the process is not fair. Imagine if you were doing everything correctly as much as you can and still being treated as a thief? It does not give you a fair chance. You can be marked as illegal just because of quotas or because you had bad luck and the officials did not read your file, or because you did not do something that no one told you you should do despite the fact that you ask, or because you followed the proper process and ask what you should do and the person you asked decided to arrested you, ...
All of this happens in western countries (maybe not all in US). Immigration processes are just really badly designed. Look it up, it is crazy: from some countries, the only way to be considered as "legal" require you to be "illegal" during to the time of the admin process. Even if you pretend that it just means they are just not accepted, it does not make any sense: in this case, why the process does not say "no, sorry, from this country, no one can be legal". But the process is "you want to be legal, good, come to my country and walk this way. Oh, by the way, now that you are here, you are technically illegal, let me arrest you".
The reason is that the victim of the bad design cannot complain because people say "they are illegal anyway, so their voice does not count". For this reason, some citizen noticed that the system is just stupid, and just ask that for each illegal person, we give them a chance to demonstrate if they are really not fit to be regularized. But right now, the whole system is just a waste of money, and some idiots are trying to defend it just because they are too lazy to consider fairness and justice.
edit: if you want more concrete information on why the immigration system is unfair, badly design and waste your money, you can watch John Oliver on youtube about "legal immigration"
People cannot live without money. A huge swath of illegal immigrants work for money. Wouldn't it make sense to target the individuals who are _hiring_ them rather than the actual laborers themselves? This logic seems to work perfectly fine when cracking down on drug use, but seems completely ignored when it comes to immigration. (Yes, I'm aware ICE cracks down on some employers, but it's obvious this isn't their primary strategy.)
Seriously, think about it. If _you_ were tasked with cracking down on the immigration situation, what would you do in good faith? Send masked goons to check every single individual's papers and rough up people who can't show them? Or just send men in suits to every labor operation and ask for their I-9s, at 100x less cost? It's absolutely mind-boggling to me that people even assume a shred of good faith from the current administration here. This is terrorism, not law enforcement.
No, just because something is illegal doesn't mean it should be ruthlessly enforced with dangerous and deadly action or even enforced at all when the majority of the public doesn't support them. Do you believe the feds should go into marijuana legal states and start arresting everybody for breaking the law? Marijuana is illegal after all.
If the president campaigned on a promise to arrest everyone breaking marijuana laws, then maybe.
This has nothing to do with immigration law. If it did, there would be no offer on the table to withdraw the ICE troops in exchange for the MN voter database.
Why do you have voter databases? I always thought it's a bad idea, who doesn't?
That has an easy and uncomfortable answer: to check that all registered voters are actually citizens. And this is why Democrat run states refuse to share that database, because it might show they have non-citizens voting. I guess the same could be said about Republican run states, but those seem like they have a lower rate of illegal immigrants.
You could people just show their ID right before voting and you would not need such lists? So no illegal person could vote, right. I don't get it.
In the US you can get a driving license without being a citizen. And that is accepted as proof of ID pretty much anywhere. That's the rub.
Requiring voters have identification is very controversial in the US. The Democratic party generally opposes it. Even in states requiring ID, there are almost always options to bypass it (by signing an affadavit, for example), and in almost no case does an ID prove citizenship - the US doesn't actually have a "US citizen database" anywhere, and people can be legal citizens with a right to vote with no ID.
Every other democratic country in the world doesn't. How you can justify allowing people to vote based only on "trust me bro"?
Like that law that says it's illegal to HIRE workers that cannot show work authorization? IIRC that carries pretty steep penalties. And if enforced, will have a huge chilling effect on the whole illegal immigration thing. But, as sibling commenters have pointed out, it's not about enforcing laws but punishing outgroups. This is only not obvious to the willfully ignorant.
There’s a lot more nuance than might be obvious at first thought. For example, many of the people being violently deported now came here legally, followed the rules, and are now being targeted because their protected status or asylum cases were cancelled under highly suspicious circumstances, with a lot of the rush being to get them out of the country before the shady revocations are reviewed.
We also have a lot of inconsistent enforcement because some employers love having workers who can be mistreated under the threat of calling ICE. If we really wanted to lower immigration, we’d require companies to verify status for everyone they hire. You can see how this works in Texas where they’ve had a ton of bills requiring that get killed by Republican leadership on behalf of major donors:
https://www.texastribune.org/2025/06/05/texas-e-verify-requi...
Palantir missed out on JSON as ticker symbol.
Imagine what they could do with mental health data if they ever decide to start deporting people with mental "problems", just like the Nazis did in their time. The same goes for people with physical disabilities.
Or religious affiliation oops wait that one already happened.
Tangent: Palentir should absolutely not be granted NHS contracts.
How could a non citizen who came illegally be on Medicaid?
It’s likely citizen children on Medicaid with potentially undocumented parents that they are targeting, which is pretty sad to think about.
They cannot receive from federally funded Medicaid but some states have programs or state-funded Medicaid programs that allow non-citizens to benefit. CA and NY do for some categories. See this example for WI: https://www.dhs.wisconsin.gov/medicaid/noncitizens.htm
These programs really support illegal immigrants? They support legal immigrants, for sure, but the question was about illegal immigrants?
The states that run these programs have political leadership that doesn't want to make a distinction between legal and illegal immigrants, and wants to give state -funded benefits to illegal immigrants, and so deliberately doesn't check citizenship or legal residency status when you apply for benefits.
One way to use this data is to increase the success rate of random stops.
1) Take the medicaid data.
2) Join that with rental/income data.
3) Look for neighborhoods with cheap rents/low income and low medicaid rates.
Dragnet those neighborhoods.
Much easier just to ask a local cop "what neighborhoods do the illegals mostly live in?"
The fourth amendment is basically gone at this point. Private companies can harvest location data from phones or facial recognition cameras/license plate readers in public spaces and sell that to entities like Palantir that aggregate it for government use (or for other commercial use). No warrants required, very little oversight (especially in this admin).
One favorable ruling could cause all of that corporate fuckery to come crashing down, but it doesn't seem imminent.
Wake up Americans, your country is becoming a shitshow.
The problem seems to be that half of America voted for this, twice, and will continue cheering this kind of outcome on, despite any amount of evidence it is harmful.
Something, something, even dumber than that.
So it appears Medicaid recipients data is target rich for illegals, who would have guessed that?
It's time for Americans to overthrow the Trump regime.
It's time Iran Blitzkrieged D.C in order to free the American people from the MegaPedoEpsteinEllison Regime
I didn’t get the article completely. Is ICE using Medicaid data to identify citizens or is it using it to identify people not legally in the country?
Medicaid is meant to be used only by citizens and green card holders who are eligible to be citizens.
I’m also confused. I think the Medicaid data might just be one additional source they’ve added to a data lake style system, which they pull from for some reporting based on address?
So if ICE puts your address into their computer, they get to see something about the people inside. How much do they see? Do they get to see your medical conditions too? Could a creatively inclined person get an LLM to read medical data out of it? Who knows, there’s no transparency for this sharing.
Dang was this article manually unflagged ? The comments are just angry insults and a good reason the flags should have been left on.
Hopefully.
Wait, I thought illegal immigrants don't have medicaid? Weird.
I summarized all comments using LLM for better reading: https://hn-discussions.top/palantir-ice-medicaid-surveillanc...
Something seems to have gone wrong with the timestamps on comments on this thread. At present nearly all comments have been posted < 4 min ago. I know I'm slowing down as I get older, but I don't think the internet is jabbering that fast, is it?
Yes, sorry, that was a keyboard error on my part as I'm working very late at night to deal with a follow-up/duplicate thread about this topic that hit the front page. We'll restore all the correct timestamps in due course. I'm manually doing the top level ones now.
Thanks!
And still there are people here using Twittler for communication. Who drive Swasticars. Who applaud AntichrisThiel. RapisTrump from the parts of Germany known to grow Potatoes in the soil and in the minds.
It's a pity our American friends haven't noticed that while yes, indeed, the worst of the worst scum got sent to the US. It is just that you had set your brain UI theme to dark mode, and did not notice that the threat isn't that kid with brown skin getting sent to concentration camp by your Gestapo, but those "we want immigrants that look like they are from Norway" folks. 1)
In the distant past, you US Americans still had libraries. You could have used them to find out what there is a reason we over here in Europe and Africa did not want the Trunps and Thiels and Musks and Karps. 2)
For those who are reading this from inside the US: At what point if EVER are you going to get out of your chair, use your second amendment rights, and get rid of your crazy fascist brainworm Nazi scum that you had been praying to?
I know. It is too much to ask for. OK OK. Outside of your comfort zone to fight back. Then go watch MELANIA, a documentation on how about rape and abuse and illegal immigration is totally fine as long as your skin has the right color and the boob job was done well.
1) I myself am German, male, straight, blonde hair. I am allowed to say that our type is the cancer of the human race. After all these hundreds of years, you STILL haven't understood you can not trust us?
2) I know Karp is not from Germany. But he wrote his doctoral thesis in Germany, and it can be summarized as "I am a totally crazy asshole and want to cause as much pain and suffering as possible onto humanity, can I please do that kthxbye?"