In its continuing campaign to build the case for UK digital identity firms certified under the Digital Identity and Attributes…
2026-02-055:02284362www.biometricupdate.com
(ICE) is surveying the commercial advertising technology market for tools capable of supplying location data and large scale analytics.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is surveying the commercial advertising technology market for tools capable of supplying location data and large-scale analytics to federal investigators, according to a recent Request for Information (RFI).
Framed as market research rather than a procurement, the RFI seeks information from companies offering “Ad Tech compliant and location data services” that could support criminal, civil, and administrative investigations across ICE’s mission set.
The RFI, issued by ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), emphasizes that the government is not soliciting proposals or committing to a future contract, but it does signal active interest in selecting vendors for live demonstrations of operational platforms and data services, a step that typically precedes pilot deployments or integration into existing investigative environments.
ICE says it is attempting to better understand how commercial big data providers and advertising technology firms might directly support investigative activities, while remaining sensitive to “regulatory constraints and privacy expectations.”
The agency noted that its components are handling increasing volumes of criminal, civil, and administrative information from both internal and external sources and are assessing whether commercial off-the-shelf platforms comparable to large investigative data and legal analytics providers can help manage and exploit that data at scale.
At the center of the inquiry is a category of information traditionally associated with digital advertising rather than law enforcement: location data, device identifiers, IP intelligence, and behavioral signals derived from everyday consumer activity.
Advertising technology, commonly referred to as ad tech, is the sprawling ecosystem of software, data brokers, analytics platforms, and intermediaries that power targeted advertising on the modern Internet.
Ad tech companies collect and process information about where devices are located, how users move between physical and digital spaces, which apps are installed on their phones, and how devices can be linked across websites, applications, and networks.
While the industry typically frames this activity as anonymous or pseudonymous, the underlying data is often persistent, granular, and capable of tracking individuals over time.
Location data is a particularly valuable component of that ecosystem. Mobile applications routinely share latitude and longitude coordinates with advertising partners through embedded software development kits.
Even when precise GPS data is not available, companies infer location through IP addresses, Wi-Fi networks, Bluetooth beacons, and cell tower connections. That information is then aggregated, analyzed, and sold to advertisers seeking to measure foot traffic, target audiences, or assess the effectiveness of campaigns.
ICE’s RFI suggests that the agency is exploring whether those same mechanisms can be repurposed as investigative tools.
The document asks vendors to describe platforms and data services that can support investigative needs while remaining “Ad Tech compliant,” a phrase that reflects industry norms rather than statutory law enforcement standards.
ICE appears to be looking into tapping into the commercial data ecosystem rather than building bespoke surveillance tools from scratch, a strategy that allows agencies to access rich data streams without directly collecting the information themselves.
ICE’s interest is not limited to raw data. The RFI repeatedly references “operational platforms,” signaling a desire for systems that can ingest, correlate, analyze, and visualize information from multiple sources.
In practice, that means software environments capable of fusing location data with other records, such as criminal histories, financial data, travel records, social media activity, or administrative files, to generate investigative leads or support ongoing cases.
The agency frames its inquiry as exploratory and cautious. It notes that the government is seeking to understand the “current state” of ad tech and location data services available to federal investigative entities, particularly considering regulatory constraints and privacy expectations.
That language reflects growing scrutiny of commercial data practices by courts, regulators, and civil liberties advocates, especially when such data is accessed by federal agencies like ICE.
In recent years, federal agencies have increasingly relied on commercially available data to sidestep traditional legal barriers.
Because ad tech data is collected by private companies under consumer-facing privacy policies, agencies have argued that purchasing or accessing that data does not constitute a search under the Fourth Amendment.
Critics counter that this approach allows the government to obtain highly sensitive information, including detailed location histories, without warrants, probable cause, or meaningful oversight.
The U.S. Supreme Court has signaled skepticism of such practices in cases recognizing the sensitivity of long-term location tracking, even when data is held by third parties.
At the same time, regulators have brought enforcement actions against data brokers accused of selling sensitive location information without adequate safeguards.
Against that backdrop, ICE’s assertion that it is considering privacy expectations appears designed to reassure both policymakers and potential vendors that the agency is aware of the controversy surrounding commercial surveillance data.
Yet the RFI itself provides little detail about how those concerns would be operationalized. It does not reference warrants, court orders, or judicial authorization.
Nor does it explain how ICE would distinguish between data associated with U.S. persons and noncitizens, how long information would be retained, or whether data obtained for one investigative purpose could be reused for others.
That ambiguity is particularly significant given HSI’s broad mandate. Unlike agencies focused solely on criminal enforcement, HSI conducts civil and administrative investigations alongside criminal cases.
Location data or ad tech-derived insights could therefore be used in contexts ranging from immigration enforcement to customs violations to sanctions and export control investigations, often under lower legal thresholds than those required in criminal proceedings.
ICE’s emphasis on “Ad Tech compliant” services also underscore a fundamental tension. Compliance in the advertising industry typically refers to adherence to self-regulatory frameworks, contractual obligations, and privacy policies that permit extensive data collection so long as certain disclosures are made.
Those standards are not designed to constrain government use, nor do they substitute for constitutional or statutory protections governing law enforcement surveillance.
Companies marketing “privacy-friendly” location or IP intelligence tools often argue that they avoid directly identifying individuals. But researchers and regulators have repeatedly demonstrated that supposedly anonymized or aggregated data can be reidentified when combined with other datasets.
In an investigative context, reidentification is not a bug but a feature, enabling analysts to link digital signals back to real-world subjects.
Biometric Update earlier reported that a Government Accountability Office audit had found that publicly accessible data – from social media posts to commercial geolocation records – can be aggregated into detailed “digital profiles” that expose U.S. personnel, military operations, and senior leaders to targeting, coercion, and disruption.
In January 2025, Gravy Analytics, a prominent location data broker, disclosed that a significant data breach had potentially exposed through de-anonymization the precise location information of millions of individuals.
The RFI’s focus on live demonstrations suggests that ICE is interested in mature, deployable capabilities rather than theoretical offerings. Vendors selected to present would be expected to show how their platforms operate in practice, how data is accessed and analyzed, and how investigative outputs are generated.
While the agency stresses that it is not committing to a future solicitation, such demonstrations often inform subsequent procurements, task orders, or pilot programs conducted under existing contracts.
ICE has used similar market research approaches in the past to normalize new surveillance capabilities before formal adoption.
Social media monitoring tools, mobile biometric systems, and large-scale analytics platforms were all introduced through incremental steps that began with RFIs and demonstrations rather than headline-grabbing contracts.
For privacy advocates, the latest filing fits a familiar pattern. Commercial surveillance markets evolve rapidly, driven by advertising and marketing demand. Government agencies then adopt those tools after the fact, often before lawmakers have fully grappled with the implications.
Oversight mechanisms, however, lag technical capability, leaving key questions unanswered until after systems are already in use.
ICE’s RFI does not indicate when demonstrations might occur or whether a solicitation will follow. It does make clear, though, that the agency sees the ad tech ecosystem as a potential investigative resource worth serious consideration.
As debates over commercial data, surveillance, and constitutional protections continue, the filing offers a window into how federal law enforcement is adapting to – and seeking to leverage – a data economy built for advertising rather than accountability.
For now, ICE is asking industry to explain how ad tech-derived location and analytics services can be made suitable for investigative use while respecting privacy expectations.
What remains unclear is who will define those expectations, how they will be enforced, and whether existing legal frameworks are equipped to govern a surveillance model that blurs the line between consumer marketing and government intelligence.
Article Topics
data brokers | device fingerprinting | ICE | law enforcement | location data | RFI | surveillance | U.S. Government
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Comments
Since there's quite a few people here working at US companies with access to lots of user data, but they may not have decision making capacity, I just thought I'll link the Simple Sabotage Field Manual, out of context and for no reason at all https://www.cia.gov/static/5c875f3ec660e092cf893f60b4a288df/...
If some data is shared with an external entity, it likely needs to be included in a few usual disclaimers, with at least a few meetings to clarify the exact wording and verification of the legal implications with the right dept and double check how it complies with others data protection rules, and don't forget the audit, and I think this contains a mistake so maybe let's investigate this issue first, and ...
Might I suggest to instead reflect on why you are working in an industry that collects all this data.
By direwolf20 2026-02-0511:53 Money!
By Gud 2026-02-067:30 To conduct field sabotage
By frumplestlatz 2026-02-058:108 reply [flagged]
By amazingman 2026-02-058:42 We should be able to agree that no entity is authorized to violate the 2nd, 4th, 5th, and 14th amendments of the constitution. Whatever immigration laws you want to see enforced, they do not supersede the constitution.
Please, enlighten me a non-American, what laws allow shooting and killing civilians on broad light on the USA?
By Paracompact 2026-02-058:313 reply Some people have absolutist takes on these sorts of things. If the stated purpose makes sense ("stop illegal immigration"), they will dismiss tragedies as routine accidents of an imperfect world. If they have no sense of when exceptions become intolerable and course-correction becomes necessary, then by definition, no amount of evidence will change their mind.
What if we believe that those shootings are completely unacceptable (probably criminal), but that “have no immigration enforcement and permanently halt deportations” is also unacceptable? The latter seems to be the solution being pushed by one party.
Like always, the left’s problem is that their proposed solutions read like they were written by teenagers, based on emotions and dismissive of the reasons why their supposed “enemies” disagree with them.
Most Americans would support having ICE operate perhaps even entirely with nonlethal weapons. That would be a smart thing to push for! And popular too. But the party line is instead “Abolish ICE.” And of course nobody (who isn’t pro-open-borders) trusts that there’s any Democratic plan besides look-the-other-way and maybe amnesty.
By NoGravitas 2026-02-0514:091 reply People wanting to abolish ICE are not, generally, calling for doing away with immigration enforcement entirely. The main thing I've seen called for is the abolition of ICE, and the restoration of the pre-DHS Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), not under the DHS, but under the DOJ. I have also seen calls to eliminate the DHS entirely, and separate out the agencies under it to their pre-DHS organization.
Pardon my skepticism, but what difference would that make to rename or reorganize DHS into a different shape? If you want immigration enforcement to be nicer (which I think I support you on in broad strokes) the correct steps are:
1. Win elections
2. Pass laws (or win the Presidency, a cheat code that has been the main way most things get done since ... 2008 or so, and is basically effective unless the "thing" is kinda unconstitutional and SCOTUS is against you. Blame RBG btw for screwing Dems on that last part)
The reason why we won't get this outcome is that the Democrats stopped being serious about convincing the moderates to get onboard their platform, because they give too much of a platform to the people who just chant slogans like "No person is illegal!" Which, while I get the humanitarian point, reads to me like you'd really prefer that anyone caught here illegally should ethically just be let go, rendering the whole concept of borders, visa applications, green cards, all of that, a big joke on the people who follow the rules.
By NoGravitas 2026-02-0519:111 reply > Pardon my skepticism, but what difference would that make to rename or reorganize DHS into a different shape?
ICE, being under DHS, is part of the US security apparatus. It has a threat-orientation. INS did have an enforcement component, but it was substantially an administrative agency. Immigration enforcement agents should primarily be process servers, notifying people whose papers aren't in order either what they need to do to fix them, or when their court date is.
Okay. Out of curiosity, in this arrangement, what should happen when these upstanding individuals, after overstaying their visa by a few years, simply don't show up to court or bring themselves into compliance, because they never intended to? Let's imagine for fun that they live in San Francisco, where the police are bound by local law to hide undocumented immigrants from the Federal government at all costs.
By NoGravitas 2026-02-061:09 When someone doesn't show up for a required court appearance, the court issues a bench warrant, and they may be arrested, among other consequences: https://legalclarity.org/what-is-a-bench-warrant-and-what-ar...
I'll be honest, I don't think I've ever actually heard someone give a reason why the US having open borders would be a bad thing. You are a country of immigrants, and your greatness was built upon that foundation.
Yet now it's getting undone for seemingly no reason. But I hope that there would actually be one, so please enlighten me and the other commenters.
By xp84 2026-02-0517:59 > You are a country of immigrants, and your greatness was built upon that foundation.
This makes a great talking point, but those immigrants eventually assimilated into the culture, and also importantly, they were specifically allowed to come because the US needed more people in order to power its economy. The Chinese came to build the railroad, the Irish and Italians and Germans came over and worked in factories and as police and many other industries. This was badly needed 100 years ago.
Today most illegal immigrants are uneducated and are either working in the unofficial economy or in service-sector jobs, which depresses wages for everyone with low education. We don't need every restaurant to have an unending stream of desperately poor would-be busboys and dishwashers, or for Uber to have a stream of poor drivers. Or for rich people to have an ample supply of housekeepers paid in cash. All that does is keep wages in the toilet for working people.
But about open borders, why are so many Latin American countries such bad places to live that so many of their people want to come to the US? Open borders just means anyone can walk right in and bring all of their problems with them, not to mention their drug and human trafficking operations and the criminal gangs that operate them. We already have enough of that as it is.
No Western country can stay civilized with open borders. Anyone with half a brain can see how it is going in the UK and France, where they are only a bit more "open borders" than the US has been. Thankfully for Americans, Latin-American culture is more compatible with Western culture than Islamic culture is.
By hackable_sand 2026-02-0515:21 There is no defensible reason.
By AndrewKemendo 2026-02-0513:44 Because there is no ethical or logical argument for borders that isn’t pure bigotry and nationalism
By Paracompact 2026-02-059:061 reply Years ago, I would have agreed with most of what you wrote. The left, like the right, reacts with emotion and absolutism. No one is above this, so I think it is very important that we frequently assess what would actually change our minds.
Given the present tide of things, however, I think there's no amount of course-correction back toward the left that would prove excessive. My opinion on this will change as soon as the tide does, and e.g. a leftist president endorses indiscriminate murder of ICE agents, or something equally egregious to what we're seeing in the opposite direction.
In a more ideological sense, though, I tend to despise the left/right continuum and think it is unhelpful for analysis.
By throwawayqqq11 2026-02-0510:24 > a leftist president endorses indiscriminate murder of ICE agents
Comparing the rhetoric today, this might never happen. There are qualitative differences between both political geoups, so grouping them together as a single horseshoe is 'unhelpful for analysis'.
That said, you cant fully rule out leftist led atrocities aswell and maybe thats the reason why the right is escalating in violent rhetoric, they want this as a self fullfilling prophecy to justify more violence.
When Kirk was shot, all the "this needs to stop" commentary, as if it was an organized mass phenomenon, was sending shivers down my spine. We all know how the far right envisions stopping this 'mass' violence.
By AlecSchueler 2026-02-058:521 reply > "have no immigration enforcement and permanently halt deportations” is also unacceptable? The latter seems to be the solution being pushed by one party.
What party? What makes it "seem" that way? Could you link to anyone calling for this?
Those using memes along the lines of "nobody is illegal" (sometimes "on stolen land" is added)? This is a movement not limited to the US. Here in Europe there is a similar movement, using that same slogan. They don't want any borders or border enforcement at all.
Merely for illustration, a single example: https://abc7.com/post/protests-expected-socal-part-nationwid...
> Protesters were seen carrying flags, signs and spraying graffiti on nearby property, including on the U.S. Courthouse sign where it read "No one is illegal on stolen land".
>"nobody is illegal"
This is completely orthogonal to the conversation, but I think you misunderstood that slogan. It does not mean “immigration rules must not be enforced”.
It means differentiating between a potentially illegal action (illegal entry/overstaying) and the person itself. You never talk about an illegal driver, or an illegal drinker, but people talk about illegal immigrants, with the implication that the person itself is illegal.
It’s subtle but it’s a step towards dehumanizing a person, or making infractions to their rights “count less” in the public eye.
By AlecSchueler 2026-02-0515:38 > but people talk about illegal immigrants
Worse than that, we more and more often just see the term "illegals" being used, which completely removes the person from the description.
By AlecSchueler 2026-02-059:492 reply The protest you linked wasn't calling for completely open borders. That's also not policy of either of the main parties in the US, as was implied above. I understand "no one is illegal" to be a counter to the use of language like "illegals" to describe the humans involved.
I get that you can make the argument that they're merely making a semantic point. However, if that side of the debate actually agreed with us that these people shouldn't even be here at all, what difference does it make what we call them? If the side who wants them gone had their way, they'd be gone back home and they'd no longer be in any illegal status in any sense of the word.
It only matters what we call them, if you want to keep them here forever. I think the present-day recommended term is probably just "immigrant" right? So basically we should call them the same thing we call the people who waited years for their turn and proved that they had a positive contribution to make to our society.
By NoGravitas 2026-02-0519:16 The term for immigrants without papers is "undocumented immigrant". The largest group of undocumented immigrants are people who entered the country legally, and then overstayed their visas or otherwise violated their terms (usually by working on a tourist or student visa). This is a civil offense.
By AlecSchueler 2026-02-066:41 > It only matters what we call them, if you want to keep them here forever.
You think it makes no difference if we call them "the scum of the earth" or "below human entities" otherwise? Surely there's a line of what rhetoric you would tolerate. This is ours.
Why do you choose that single example, which I said was just that, and pretend my whole statement hinges on it?
You are either misinformed, willfully ignorant or lying, and I've had it with this discussion style.
Yes, people who use "no one is illegal" do also say "no more borders". Not every single one, clearly humans are diverse, but your statement is just false.
Here a UK example even combining the statements (as I said, the movement is not limited to the US). https://www.jstor.org/stable/community.11073215
Another example, also showing this is an older movement (2005): https://www.statewatch.org/media/documents/news/2005/apr/int... ("No Borders/No One Is Illegal campaigns")
By AlecSchueler 2026-02-0515:111 reply > Why do you choose that single example, which I said was just that
Because we're looking for people saying borders should be completely opened. An example of people saying something else is irrelevant.
> Yes, people who use "no one is illegal" do also say "no more borders".
Ok but the conversation is about people saying the latter. It was you who brought the former into the conversation.
> Here a UK example
Which British parties are active in the United States?
> Another example, also showing this is an older movement
The claim was that "the left" has no response to emigration issues beyond "open all borders" and that this was the policy of "one party." The existence of an anti-borders movement is again irrelevant to the questions I raised in response to this assertion.
By AlecSchueler 2026-02-0719:29 > Liar! That is mentioned by many throughout this discussion!
Not in this thread, no. I asked a question in response to a specific assertion.
> What does THAT have to do with anything??? Why do YOIU suddenly limit this international phenomenon to just the US?
Because the assertion I responded to with my questions was based in that context.
> I explicitly pointed out that it is older and international and not recent and US-only!
And again, it's irrelevant to the point at hand. Goodbye now.
Just because some people who say "no one is illegal" also say "no more borders," that does not automatically mean that the former implies the latter. If that were the case, we could paint everyone who agrees with Nick Fuentes on any point (including, in the extreme, "nice weather we're having today") as a antisemite. The old joke linking dietary choices to Nazism ("You know who else was a vegetarian? Hitler!") is meant to make light of this logical fallacy.
The grandparent post accurately captured what I have understood people to mean by "no one is illegal" -- it is meant to protest a dehumanizing way to describe a class of people.
By giaour 2026-02-0715:05 > What is a border when crossing it without permission is not illegal?
There aren't good statistics on how many undocumented immigrants overstayed a visa (and therefore legally crossed the border) vs how many entered without a visa, but experts estimate that it's somewhere around 40-45% [0]. It's not a criminal act to overstay a visa, though you do become subject to deportation. So a good chunk of "illegal immigrants" are doing something less illegal than, say, driving a car whose registration has expired (which is a criminal act), but, as another commenter noted above, we don't refer to "illegal drivers" on our roads.
The traditional term for someone who has not fulfilled a positive legal obligation like renewing their car registration is a "scofflaw," and I would not object to anyone referring to "scofflaw immigrants" the way I object to the phrase "illegal immigrants."
[0]: https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2018/aug/24/kevin-mcca...
By cassepipe 2026-02-059:49 Yes some leftists and anarchiste do. Do you really believe the Democrats support that motto ?
Don't you guys remind us about Obama being "the deporter in chief" every time you are given the occasion ?
By direwolf20 2026-02-0511:53 Then you're engaging in the black and white thinking fallacy.
By schiem 2026-02-059:10 The irony of this comment is that deportations were higher under Biden than during Trump's first term, which makes it seem exactly like it was "written by teenagers, based on emotions." The administration with the highest deportation rate in the past 60 years was the 2nd Clinton administration.
By UncleMeat 2026-02-0513:46 > The latter seems to be the solution being pushed by one party.
Is it? I'm not aware of legislation introduced by the democrats, either when they were in power or today, that proposed anything resembling this. There are individual congresspeople calling for ICE to be abolished (which is not the same as having no immigration enforcement) but leadership within the democrats is very clear that they support extremely minor reforms like making ICE agents wear masks less frequently. This is considerably more minor than disarming ICE agents, which you claim would have nationwide support.
By saubeidl 2026-02-0510:47 ICE as an institution is fundamentally evil.
It's using immigration as a pretext to build an unaccountable group of thugs that disappear people into camps, murder political opponents and surveil the populace (as seen in OP). It's recruiting primarily from far-right militias, regularizing them into a paramilitary force of the regime.
There is no justifiable reason to have them terrorize an entire city like they have been doing in Minneapolis.
The brownshirts needed to be abolished in the 1920s, a pinky-swear they wouldn't do the thing they were designed to do wouldn't have been enough.
The same applies to their modern equivalent.
By triceratops 2026-02-0515:54 > “have no immigration enforcement and permanently halt deportations” is also unacceptable? The latter seems to be the solution being pushed by one party.
Obama and Biden, famously, deported more people than Trump. And with a substantially smaller budget too. Is this "no immigration enforcement" party in the room with us right now?
By duk3luk3 2026-02-059:02 You are completely out of touch with what the immigration policy of the last democratic government (Biden 2020) was.
It was aggressive, it was inhumane, and immigrants were killed despite a massive effort by people from "the left" to feed and clothe people who were detained in open fields or between two border fences without any care being provided by the US agencies detaining them.
Maybe you are right that nobody who is right-leaning trusts that the US democratic party isn't pro border enforcement and anti immigration, but that's based purely on lies and propaganda.
By cassepipe 2026-02-059:56 Then shouldn't you blame the party making a absolute shitshow of enforcing immigration out of incompetence and cruelty instead ? (and pressuring a state for its voters roll in the foolish attempt at meddlmeddling with the next election)
If I want what I believe is a reasonable policy and the enforcers of that policy start doing the worst job ever, it is my duty to call them out, not to call out the opposing side for mostly imaginary reasons.
Abolish ICE is not a unreasonable take. If the agents working in this agency have become some ultra politicized paramilitary, it makes sense to abolish it and create a new agency altogether.
By actionfromafar 2026-02-058:56 ICE is being converted into a militia controlled by Trump. So keeping it around may be dangerous.
By decremental 2026-02-058:51 [dead]
By lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 2026-02-0613:02 > If the stated purpose makes sense ("stop illegal immigration"), they will dismiss tragedies as routine accidents of an imperfect world.
Indeed, this is the modus operandi, though I'd argue that it doesn't have to make sense but rather be in the political canon. I recall hearing arguments that "some gun deaths are necessary" (in the context of mass shootings at schools) for us to have our "god-given right" to own guns, but the purpose—owning guns for the ability to... checks notes... stand up to entities that can legally commit violence against you—isn't so obviously sensible.
By account42 2026-02-0510:54 And some people will use tragedies as am argument to just stop enforcing laws at all even when those tragedies are a direct result of people trying to interfere with that enforcement and would have never have happened when people opposing the laws acted in reasonable ways.
By runsWphotons 2026-02-058:326 reply When an officer has reasonable suspicion that a civilian poses a threat to his life, he can shoot them. Once police start shooting they are trained to continue shooting until the target is incapacitated. That's the law. Whether the recent shootings you saw meet that standard is up for debate.
By Cthulhu_ 2026-02-059:31 Sure, there's procedures to arresting someone and when they are allowed to shoot, that's all fine. But the danger is that these procedures are not being followed, and that there are no consequences to it.
That people get killed is a tragedy, but that the people that killed them do not get the proper training, guidance or consequences for their action is a problem.
By giaour 2026-02-0511:02 Beyond the reasonable suspicion of a threat to their life, the officer must believe that: a) the threat is imminent, and b) the threat will reasonably be mitigated by the application of force. An officer cannot, for example, immediately shoot someone who plausibly promises to murder them in 36 hours.
By donkeybeer 2026-02-0510:11 Absolutely, likewise we should shoot ICE officers who come near us because we have strong precedent they are mentally unstable and prone to psychotic bouts of insensate violence. Since we have more than reasonable suspicion of threat to our life.
By runsWphotons 2026-02-058:35 Also the officer should believe this threat is imminent.
By cassepipe 2026-02-0510:04 Sure but the first was arguably unreasonable and the second one was omg are you f@##%&@ kidding me, didn't you see the video about a peppered sprayed guy on his belly on the ground then not possibly brandishing with no gun since it had just been removed from him ?
It's fine to make reasonable sounding comments but for the love of God, a bit honesty wouldn't kill you.
"The party told you to ignore the evidence you see with your own ears and eyes*
By rcakebread 2026-02-058:471 reply [flagged]
By decremental 2026-02-058:53 [dead]
By frumplestlatz 2026-02-058:451 reply [flagged]
By frumplestlatz 2026-02-058:552 reply [flagged]
By duk3luk3 2026-02-059:08 Here's a complete refutation of your argument: Pretti did not attempt to "de-arrest" anyone at any point. Nobody, not even ICE, DHS, the White House, or the FBI has argued this.
Whoever told you this made it up. You should stop listening to whoever told you that. They are lying to you about this, and everything else they have told you is a lie too.
By jacquesm 2026-02-059:08 [flagged]
By superb_dev 2026-02-058:361 reply It’s so hard to believe people posting in support of ICE aren’t trolls or bots. Are you watching them commit obscene crimes in broad daylight?
By hdgvhicv 2026-02-0610:50 Is it really that hard - Trump didn’t get to power on a technicality - 70 million voted for him.
By _DeadFred_ 2026-02-058:321 reply Is that the 'police don't need to identify themselves and should wear face masks' or the 'you aren't allowed to film the police because it interferes with our trying to be a secret police force' laws?
Or the 'you aren't doing anything illegal but the masked government agents don't like it so they are going to use your biometrics to harass you in whatever ways the feds can make your life more difficult' laws?
By frumplestlatz 2026-02-058:494 reply [flagged]
Does that law allow killing them by shooting? I suppose that officers need to detain them, read their rights, and put them in court. That’s what I thought was the core of the American Law.
If the officers involved had could reasonably believe that they posed an immediate lethal threat at the time, yes it does. Whether or not that was the case is for courts to figure out after things calm down and all facts have been gathered and not a valid reason to call for the shut down of entire agencies with the intent of stopping enforcement of laws you don't like.
By nullocator 2026-02-0513:082 reply Is the immediate lethal threat in the room with us right now? I hope no one ever accidentally believes you're an immediate lethal threat simply for existing, or at least if they do, maybe you'll be lucky enough to not have yuppies on the internet trying to defend your murder.
Can the officers in any of these incidents even articulate a threat, and how the only remedy was to shoot through the driver side window, or in the back of the head?
By hdgvhicv 2026-02-0610:51 > Is the immediate lethal threat in the room with us right now?
No, it’s on the streets. They have already murdered two Americans on camera.
By mindslight 2026-02-0517:12 The presence of actual patriotic Americans who believe in individual liberty and limited government is an "imminent threat" to the agents' fantasy narrative where they're heroes doing good. Everything downstream of that is rationalization.
By donkeybeer 2026-02-0510:15 Minnesota is a castle doctrine state. Minnesotans have the right to shoot at violent home invaders on their property.
By cassepipe 2026-02-0510:06 under penalty of death ?
By _DeadFred_ 2026-02-0518:02 How many convictions has ICE got under that statute? Seems like if it's really happening, they would have a ton. But wait, they keep losing their cases.
And citing that statute doesn't address ICE saying on the street they are adding people using biometrics to a database for targeted federal harassment (without any conviction violating the Constitution, if you are, you know, concerned about our nation's HIGHEST laws). Does address ICE using and normalizing secret police tactics of hiding their identities for routine, daily enforcement operations. Doesn't address claiming administrative warrants (able to be issued on the spot by ICE agents Judge Dred style) have the same power as actual Article III judge issued criminal warrants.
i want to comment something violently hateful towards you. but at this point I feel bad for people like you. indeed you are already living out some twisted arc of the karmic cycle which results in your life and making this comment. i hope you find help eventually and i wish peace for you.
By frumplestlatz 2026-02-059:111 reply [flagged]
By jamboca 2026-02-059:58 firstly i dont dont care about you or what you have to think. second escalation is meaningless Lol what is this a boxing gym? we’re on an internet forum
put simply ice is a violent private militia. and people like you won’t see it until they are knocking at your door. or never. goes back to my first point. you are already living in hell
nvm this has to be bait Bye
By BoredPositron 2026-02-058:38 If you think enforcing the laws is the problem you are ignorant.
By mindslight 2026-02-058:23 And yet many more of us care about the centuries-old laws that ICE is violating.
By hdgvhicv 2026-02-058:39 Hurrah for the Blackshirts
Are you sure that not even the most mediocre insider threat program doesn’t have this accounted for? Especially when they’re an industry that knows itself well?
They will find out. And act accordingly. And your career will end, with the mess cleaned up and billable to you.
By viraptor 2026-02-0514:05 > Are you sure that not even the most mediocre insider threat program doesn’t have this accounted for?
I worked for a big corp. None of this is out of ordinary.
But yeah, if you need to survive and worry about being fired, you make your own decisions that you'll be able to live with.
By potsandpans 2026-02-062:39 You've obviously never worked in big corpo.
People unwittingly deploy this whole handbook back to front throughout the entire process of the sdlc.
It's impressive that anything ever gets done ever.
By doctoboggan 2026-02-055:3310 reply Hopefully this is a wakeup call to the software engineers and other employees at those companies - it's no longer a hypothetical future where the tools you are building might be abused, it's today.
By testfrequency 2026-02-057:234 reply If you’re not awake already, you support what’s happening.
Blind, which I realize is a bit of the wild west, is full of racist anti-immigration/pro ICE hatred. Obviously, you can see where users work/worked, and it’s every company you could imagine.
The sad reality is that a lot of people will do what they can to support racist agendas, possibly even motivate them to work at certain companies as it feels moralizing to their hateful beliefs.
> you support what’s happening.
I don’t know that things are that black and white.
Do you feel the same about the billions of consumers who buy and use the products these companies make?
No because employees are making the actual thing that inflicts harm while consumers' actions are completely diffused and many steps removed from the harm they cause. That's why ad-tech is so effective in the first place.
Consumer pays $1.10 for a can of coke, $0.10 of that goes to ad-tech, the consumer watches some coke ads, ad-tech pays $0.05 to the publisher and the consumer receives $0.05 in benefits in the form of "free ad-supported content" (which they already paid $0.10 for).
The only way for consumers to avoid this is to just stop spending money with any brand that advertises online, which is completely unrealistic and a much taller ask than asking employees to give up their deal with the devil (and work for just about anyone else except big tech).
By reactordev 2026-02-0510:372 reply Replace “tech” in this scenario with “ammunition”.
Does your argument still hold up?
>”employees are making the actual thing that inflicts harm while consumers' actions are completely diffused and many steps removed from the harm they cause.”
“employees are making the actual thing that inflicts harm while consumers' actions directly cause deadly harm.”
I’m not arguing that we shouldn’t be voting with our wallets and supporting these people but your initial argument is flawed. They produce goods precisely because consumers buy them…
By hamdingers 2026-02-0515:13 > Replace “tech” in this scenario with “ammunition”. Does your argument still hold up?
Can you explain why you think it wouldn't?
Tons of principled engineers choose not to pursue opportunities at military contractors, for instance, and this is not widely seen as unreasonable.
By dns_snek 2026-02-0512:27 I didn't say "tech", I said "ad-tech" and "big tech" (meaning ad-tech like Google, not TSMC) which aren't morally neutral like ammunition is. Invasion of privacy and exploitation of private information is an inherent part of their business model.
"The only way for consumers to avoid this "
Or they could stop drinking coke? But I guess that is too much to ask.
That's what gp said, except Coke isn't the only thing that funds the advertising industry - it's pretty much every product you can buy.
By cogman10 2026-02-0513:39 It's not perfect, but you can go a pretty long way by prioritizing store brands when possible.
Stores still fund the advertising industry but to nowhere near the extent that name brand goods do.
You can avoid coke but approximately every brand in the supermarket is funding ad-tech. And even if you can find brands that don't, your supermarket is likely funding ad-tech to advertise itself so you can't go to there at all. Maybe you still have a farmer's market but chances are that they're advertising online.
You can't buy a car or any smartphones you've ever heard of, you won't find an ISP that doesn't advertise online, and good luck finding a decent job without supporting ad-tech.
There's a large difference in the magnitude of spending.
A big chain like kroger, for example, is spending around 10 to 100M. Coke is spending around $5B.
Avoiding national branded products goes a long way in avoiding contributing to the problem.
Things don't need to be all or nothing.
By homeslice69 2026-02-0514:221 reply Coke is always a discretionary purchase. Basic food staples are not. Kroger relies on national brand advertising to lure people from the perimiter of the store into junk food land.
By cogman10 2026-02-0516:54 Most (maybe not all) basic food staples have store brand alternatives. Even junk food does. Sometimes (maybe even often) those products are just repackaged version of the name brand.
If the goal is to decrease money going into advertisement budgets, then the best thing you can do is buy store brand when possible. Even if both products are ultimately made from Nestle corp, the cheaper store brand will send less money into Nestle's pockets which means less money for advertising.
That's what I mean by "avoiding nationally branded products". A package of "signature frozen peas" will taste just as good as the "birds eye green peas" without sending money to a major company (Looks like all the major companies have spun off their frozen food departments, but at one time this was a Nestle brand. I spent too much time looking into major frozen food brands :D).
The advertisement budgets for the grocers are simply a lot smaller than that of the national brands across the board. It also doesn't seem (to me at least) to have been really spent on invasive advertisements.
By cindyllm 2026-02-0512:14 [dead]
By cindyllm 2026-02-0512:05 [dead]
By Paracompact 2026-02-058:391 reply There are degrees of culpability in any discussion. Generally, this is approximated by how much damage you individually are doing to your society compared to the alternative. You have to consume a lot of a company's products before your impact is comparable to working for them.
By Eddy_Viscosity2 2026-02-0512:54 Exactly. If you have regular meetings on how to best progress development of the torment nexus, then you can't claim innocence just because you aren't the one deploying the torment nexus for torment-purposes.
By cucumber3732842 2026-02-0511:01 Black and white thinking is a large part of what got us here.
By testfrequency 2026-02-057:481 reply Consumers less so.
They are the victims, not the source.
By amelius 2026-02-059:40 Fully agree.
If you want to put the blame on consumers, at least show them on your adverts, product packaging, etc. all the morally abject methods used in the production of the product.
If you hide it from them, all the blame is on you.
With the sorry state the software industry is currently in, I’m not surprised that developers would sell their soul in exchange for the peace of mind of being able to pay rent and food. Working for those companies does not make people “do what they can to support racist agendas”.
By hackable_sand 2026-02-059:59 I can pay rent and feed myself without hurting people
Everything else is an excuse
By testfrequency 2026-02-057:471 reply Is this your way of sharing that you work at X or are open to hurting people in exchange for cash?
Also, you can retain your morals and choose a career, it is optional to select where you work as it’s hopefully voluntary.
By surgical_fire 2026-02-057:564 reply There's nothing voluntary when your options are homelessness and starvation. The bank won't accept your morals in lieu of money when accepting mortgage repayments.
Thankfully I don't live in the US and I don't work for anything even remotely related to this. I don't know if I would have the fortitude in the current US job market (based on what I read here) to threat the well being of the wife and daughter by taking principled stances.
Dilapidating the world for an easy buck is gonna bite you and/or your kids eventually. We have reached technological sophistication where certain kinds of mistakes are not allowed if civilization as we know it is to survive.
By surgical_fire 2026-02-058:381 reply When the bank reposseses the house because you are not paying the mortgage, this will bite you and your kids too.
You can call it an "easy buck", and it is just coping. An easy way to make some poor schlemiel creating a miserable report with user location data during his sprint into a greedy bastard that is just enriching his bank account out of the suffering of plenty.
Atomization enables this. Any number of individuals are individually weak against their employer/some org, but a big group of them can be quite powerful.
If many were to sacrifice their morals out of financial pressure easily (the control over which is in increasingly few hands) the path the US is treading becomes pretty deterministic... We've seen it in the movies and read it in the books.
You guys seem to need collective action and civil disobedience.
Then again.. maybe the will for collective action comes only after the repossessions...
By surgical_fire 2026-02-059:332 reply > You guys
One of the reasons I chose to move to Europe is because I value the mininal safety nets and labor protections on this side of the pond. Yes, I make less money and pay more taxes but I believe this is how society should work, I reject the hyper individualism that ignores any sort of collective.
But I am also not naive. Expecting individuals to take the burden for decisions way beyond their control is silly. It takes immense fortitude to threaten the well being of those dear to you based on principle, when the only outcome is your own suffering (the company will likely find another employee right away anyway).
By jacquesm 2026-02-0510:20 The best way to evaluate any society is to look at what happens to people without power in the system. Inmates, illegals, the poor and children.
By TitaRusell 2026-02-0514:551 reply Actually the social safety net has allowed Europeans a level of individualism that is completely unimaginable for the rest of the world.
No charity from church or family needed. Just the State- and it does not care about your religion or sexual preferences.
By pickleRick243 2026-02-070:59 It certainly cares about your political preferences though?
By umanwizard 2026-02-058:211 reply Okay, I'll accept your point for those software engineers that have a choice between working at an immoral company or "homelessness and starvation".
Thankfully, that isn't most of them. Despite the job market not being as good as it used to be, the vast majority of software engineers in the US could still find another job to pay the bills before becoming homeless and starving.
By surgical_fire 2026-02-058:331 reply If that's the case, great then. I did work for a company I find morally objectionable in the past (i.e.: evil), and I eventually found my way out.
At the time I was still paying rent and needed employment to keep my visa. I also had little savings, and an ill parent that depended on me. I certainly couldn't take the principled stance of "fuck this, I'm out".
My point is that if you are in the position to take a principled stance, good for you. Maybe you already own your home, maybe you had time to accumulate savings, maybe you can do a few interviews and land a less evil job even in the current market (and perhaps a pay cut won't be a massive blow in you life). All that is awesome, but also a position of relative privilege.
Prescribing principled stance as universal without recognizing this is just cruelty though.
By Kim_Bruning 2026-02-0510:052 reply I sympathize with your situation, and I'm not calling you a monster. But "I had no choice, I had people depending on me" is the exact reasoning that has enabled every atrocity carried out by ordinary people; it's the banality of evil.
None of the individual acts seem evil. Conducting a census isn't evil. Collating the data isn't evil. Arresting people with the wrong papers isn't necessarily evil. Driving a train isn't evil. Operating a switch isn't evil. Processing paperwork isn't evil.
Look what's proposed now: Adtech has the data, this would feed into ICE systems leading to arrests, flights are conducted, and people get put into prison camps like CECOT where they have no recourse and where people are already talking about forced labor.
So no, I'm not saying to these folks "you're literally causing Auschwitz". That's a famous Vernichtungslager, and that's not true yet.
But people getting locked up in Concentrationslager or Arbeitslager (like historically : Mittelbau-Dora, Flossenbürg, Mauthausen, and Monowitz). I think we're getting there.
I guess the question is: at which point do you decide maybe to wear extra layers or skip a meal instead? We're not there yet. The chain has many links. Eternal vigilance is needed to make sure they don't actually link up.
(ps. Imagine if I was posting this in 2024! Can I exchange this timeline for another please? )
By surgical_fire 2026-02-0510:582 reply I understand quite well. The banality of evil is a thing because most people have actual very little power to enact meaningful change. Risking yourself for the well being of complete strangers is commendable, but often has an obscene cost for the individual.
I reject that societal and systemic issues can be fixed by individual action, unless as an individual you are extremely powerful (and the ones that are typically are the ones causing the societal and systemic harm).
As an common man you can do small things. Do a lousy job when processing the paperwork of evil. Malicious cooperation to the powers that be. Small acts of charity. That sort of thing.
Systemic change can only be achieved through collective action. Easier said than done.
The world is cursed. Life is tough even at the best of times. The system as it is ensures compliance through coercion and threats.
I honestly believe we would agree more than disagree on the current state of things. I just reject the approach that individual action is a way out of this sort of mess.
By Kim_Bruning 2026-02-0511:03 My father keeps asking me why I don't I ever apply to $BIGCO and earn more money. I certainly have the ability, he says.
But I ask him, "But would you work for Lex Luthor?"
He doesn't have a good comeback to that.
Anyway, I (mostly, hopefully) try to make my small corner of the world a happy place. And I hope everyone else does for theirs.
By computerthings 2026-02-0515:58 [dead]
> That's a famous Vernichtungslager, and that's not true yet.
But it may well become true soon.
By Kim_Bruning 2026-02-0510:29 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46897620
From the angle of your 2015 post, I can at least see where you're coming from. Modern adtech is much more granular and up to date than a census ever was.
And hopefully the worst case can be prevented.
By testfrequency 2026-02-058:041 reply You chose the most absolute and extreme predicament possible to cast your “money is money” belief.
You do realize this is what most criminals of the world just so happen to say as well, right?
Where is the line?
By surgical_fire 2026-02-058:151 reply There's nothing extreme in what I said, it is actually how the world we live in works.
It's an extremely unfair system based on coercion - you are beaten down into submission by the implicit threat that without work you won't be able to make ends meet.
Maybe you have a family that can support you financially. Maybe you already own the place where you live and could save up money over an extended period that you can weather a storm. If you are in these situations, that's great, but it is also an extremely privileged position to be in.
By account42 2026-02-0511:47 Absolutely no one with the skills to work in the software industry is in a position where working for unethical mega-corporations or literally starving are their only options.
By computerthings 2026-02-0515:56 [dead]
Perhaps to show the level of privilege I enjoy as a software engineer with some level of seniority, I have had zero problem resigning from a position (more than once in fact) because I objected to something my employer was doing. It's been enough for me to filter potential opportunities exclusively to tech-for-good concerns.
Sure, I don't earn half a million a year total comp to kiss some billionaire's ass, but I still have a very comfortable lifestyle that is well above the median.
By account42 2026-02-0511:42 Yeah, software is perhaps one of the industries where the "I got bills to pay" argument is the least justifiable. If your lifestyle can only be sustained by working for unethical companies then your lifestyle is unethical. You certainly don't need to sell your soul to FAANG to live a comfortable and happy life.
By watwut 2026-02-058:02 There was never shortage of developers who "would sell their soul" for higher salary in conditions where job with slightly lower salary was easily available. I really do not think we have to pretend to our selves that if one of us does it, it is because he/she is poor and the kids would starve.
Also, layers are resining from positions in doj they find unethical. It is not like the jobs for them were easier to find.
By AlecSchueler 2026-02-058:541 reply > With the sorry state the software industry is currently in, I’m not surprised that developers would sell their soul in exchange for the peace of mind of being able to pay rent and food
You really think adtech is the way to avoid starving on the street? There are a hell of a lot of jobs between entry level and adtech dev that could give you the same basic peace of mind.
No, there are ways to avoid working for adtech or tech support if you still have family or friends (I’m currently moving back to my parents’ place). But not everyone has this luck.
By AlecSchueler 2026-02-0719:26 You can find work outside of adtech without family or friends. What an absurd position.
By satvikpendem 2026-02-058:121 reply Blind is like 4chan, not representative of the vast majority of software engineers but rather their own self contained bubble. I wouldn't use Blind as exemplary of anything in this case.
By rkomorn 2026-02-058:39 I spent enough time in FAANG and adjacent to realize that some of the senior engineers and directors around me held 4chan/Blind-like beliefs.
Some of those folks were cultural leaders in the orgs I belonged to. Some even passed for nice people.
By tokyobreakfast 2026-02-055:411 reply But those tools buy Teslas and $8 donuts and cardboard apartments in trendy neighborhoods for people too young to understand how money works.
By tokyobreakfast 2026-02-056:48 Considering there are hundreds or thousands of users on this site who have taken cash—either directly or indirectly—in exchange for building the world's most egregious examples of privacy-abusing software that were formerly only memes in 80s sci-fi movies. Yet they choose to focus their energy on getting upset over things they don't understand and can't control—like immigration enforcement.
No, my conscience is clean.
By hsbauauvhabzb 2026-02-055:513 reply It’s worth pointing out that a non-insignificant subset of tech workers know the impacts and still don’t give a fuck though.
By hsbauauvhabzb 2026-02-056:253 reply @anoym - There isn’t something inherently bad about working for law enforcement or national security agencies as long as what you’re doing cannot be used now or in the future unethically. But too be honest I think this is a ‘don’t hate the player’ type things, if palantir didn’t exist, another company would take its place - privacy legislation is the only thing that prevents it, not relying on ethics of the masses.
By lan321 2026-02-059:43 > legislation is the only thing that prevents it
I strongly agree. There's even the argument to be made that if no legislation exists, even if you're anti X, you might get incentivized to build a company for X just so it's not a fan of X at the helm of the top company for X.
Blaming it on the employees is pointless. It's the law that should dictate what's allowed and what isn't and if the lawmaking or enforcement isn't working you probably want some "good" people in those companies.
By account42 2026-02-0511:52 Laws are a reflection of the collective ethics of the masses, or at least they should be in a democracy.
By fauchletenerum 2026-02-057:221 reply This is a childishly simplistic view of the world
For instance, the local cops checking in on grandma, or those checking in on a troubled child are really not the bad guys. You WANT them when you need them.
Not all LEOs are brown shirts, In my experience, few are, but they give the lot a bad rap.
Treating LEOs uniformly as evil is just counterproductive
By donkeybeer 2026-02-0510:17 Yes but I don't have a definitive map of who are the good ones, so we must treat it as a life or death situation and suitably defend ourselves in an interaction with any of them.
Why would I want cops doing that instead of social workers or teachers doing it?
No one becomes a cop because they want to be nice and help vulnerable people. Some might say they did but that is some coping technique. Being a cop involves exerting violence towards people who are vulnerable and desperate, and to become one you have to be fine with this. Some would say that this alone is enough to deem a person ethically dubious.
Even if one would accept the premise that society requires some degree of organised violence towards its members, one would also have to handle the question of accountability. Reasonably this violence should be accountable in relation to the victims of it, and police institutions inherently are not.
I think that we should also note that the other person above used "childishly" to denote something negative, apparently they don't think of kids as the light of the world and childish as something fun and inspiring. This is something that makes me quite suspicious of their morals.
Maybe you and I have vastly different experience with police. Disclaimer: From a rather small US state.
Your other note is also well taken, it does however not imply that anything a kid or teen does is OK or automatically positive.
Finally, it's OK to be suspicious. I am too. What I am saying is that one cannot just make the decision "all cops are evil or must be treated as such" and then hope for a good outcome in all cases. I argue it's a better policy to keep an open mind and decide on a case by case basis.
By cess11 2026-02-0622:05 Fine, to you it is unthinkable that the institution as such might be immoral and would need to be abolished to achieve a semblance of a just society.
However, many others have come to this conclusion and made a rather long tradition out of their arguments.
By hsbauauvhabzb 2026-02-059:43 No, I’m not ‘basically’ saying that. Stop putting words in my mouth.
By SpicyLemonZest 2026-02-056:411 reply Is it worth pointing out? It seems counterproductive to respond to a call to action by sarcastically complaining about the people being called to action.
By tokyobreakfast 2026-02-056:511 reply The call is coming from inside the house.
By SpicyLemonZest 2026-02-057:142 reply As effective calls to action often do! It's almost tautological when I say it this way, but if you want people working in ad tech to oppose ICE you have to convince them it's good for people working in ad tech to oppose ICE.
Perhaps the conflict is that you just want to make people who work in ad tech feel bad, and don't care whether or not they enable ICE? That's fine, I suppose, there's industries I feel the same way about. But then we don't have much to talk about and I'm not sure what you hope to gain from being here. To me opposing ICE is very important - I think tobacco companies are pretty bad too, but if ICE sent out a request for cartons of cigarettes I'd shovel praise on them for declining.
By CalRobert 2026-02-058:32 That’s the voice part of exit, loyalty, voice is it not?
> you have to convince them it's good for people working in ad tech to oppose ICE.
Yes—and one of the tools we have for that is shunning.
If enough of us who are appalled and disgusted by the state of things, and the people who willingly lend themselves to creating said state, make our disgust with those people known, it can lead to some of them choosing to act differently, because they care about being thought well of by their fellow techies.
By SpicyLemonZest 2026-02-057:52 I agree with what you're saying, but shunning has to be selective to be effective. People have to believe that you won't shun them if they avoid the terrible things you're trying to stop. It's too much to simultaneously beef with ICE, adtech in general, Tesla, $8 donuts, and anyone who lives in a trendy neighborhood.
By anonym29 2026-02-056:21 A lot of them are even proud of being the loyal partners of the US intelligence community, which includes DHS and ICE.
Hey there, I quit a job over similar concerns, knowing it would lead to a >70% decrease in comp. Without a significant nest egg or wealth, whether personal or through family.
Now let me say the same: But those tools buy Teslas and $8 donuts and cardboard apartments in trendy neighborhoods for people too young to understand how money works.
There, now there's no longer a high horse concern.
By rl3 2026-02-057:50 >...I quit a job over similar concerns, knowing it would lead to a >70% decrease in comp. Without a significant nest egg or wealth, whether personal or through family.
Hey, thanks for doing the right thing.
By jacquesm 2026-02-058:57 Thank you!
It takes real courage and it costs to have principles. And just like I detest those that fall for the money I have insane respect for those that stand up.
By niek_pas 2026-02-056:51 NARRATOR: It wasn’t.
By salawat 2026-02-057:34 It wasn't a hypothetical future back in the time of DoubleClick.
In the words of the XO from the Alfa class submarine to his CO in The Hunt for Red October: "You've killed us, you ass."
By cucumber3732842 2026-02-0511:01 >Hopefully this is a wakeup call to the software engineers and other employees at those companies
No, it won't be. Except perhaps to too few to make a difference. The money is too good.
By account42 2026-02-0511:37 If you need to wait until the tools you build are being used for things you disagree with before seeing the problem with building those tools then you have already failed.
By direwolf20 2026-02-0511:581 reply It's a wakeup call: there's a lot of money in the mass surveillance industry
Not really. Surveillance might create an arbitrage opportunity, but insurers hate data they can't trust. The more data the more noise.
By direwolf20 2026-02-063:21 Powerful people are paying a lot of money to locate their dispersed enemies. Think of the system in Palestine that tracks wanted terrorists back to their homes at night, so their whole families can be exploded.
What makes you believe that software engineers are against the stuff happening? This new movement is defined by male loneliness and other sad traits that are quite common among people whom life passes in front of a computer. Curtis Yarvin, one of the masterminds of this new age is a software developer himself.
I would argue that whatever is happening now is part of the revenge of the nerds once the nerds remain unsatisfied despite the material possessions they acquired as software ate the world.
People deeply disconnected from the real world, seeing numbers and thinking with numbers without understanding the underlying realities of those numbers is a trait of any low touch system that developers and other IT professionals operate within.
Just yesterday apparently when asked Trump said "it's just two people" that were executed by ICE and steered the conversation when he was pushed to elaborate.
Probably from tech perspective ICE is incredibly well working, in tech world you can take away the livelihood of thousands of people by a single line of a code that changes an algorithm that bans someone or re-sorts the search results. Someone loses their Youtube account they built for years due to algorithm misfiring, someone loses their developer account on an App Store and can't even get a reason for it.
The tech world is very used to operate in a fascist high efficiency environment that enshittifies everything that touches but keeps improving on some selected KPI. Maybe they wish it doesn't happen but they are not going to sacrifice higher numbers for the lives of a few people. Welcome to the highly efficient(according to selected KPI) new world order.
I know you don't like to hear that as this is a place for IT people but the governance of online platforms is quite fascist across the board. People are banned, shadow banned or rate limited when don't behave or don't say the right stuff. Preserving order and increasing engagement is above everything, even those who claim that they came to make "speech free again" quickly turned into just changing what speech to be allowed.
Anything controversial that is attracting negativity is hidden away unless it is feeding the narrative of the platform, then it is actively promoted.
Therefore, I don't think that IT workers have any remorse or any problem with this new reality. Its the reality they built and most are loving it.
The medium is the message but the medium was built bit by bit by IT professionals in a span of 20 years.
By direwolf20 2026-02-0613:511 reply A focus on preserving order is a far liberal/far centrist thing, not fascist. Fascists would ban to achieve political goals and not to maintain order.
Major political groups:
Liberals/centrists - maintain order/decorum at all costs
Fascists - gain power at all costs, in groups of decreasing size
Libertarians - reduce taxes at all costs
Leftists - argue for an equal society but never get there
Conservatives - return to monke
Yeah, no. In centrist governments you don’t have a a secret police type law enforcement that go around and “enforce laws”(in quotes because only the laws they like, i.e. laws that say you can't be here without permission but not the laws that say you have certain rights rights) without trials etc by intimidation and executions, that is a fascist thing. In centrist governments the order isn't preserved at all costs, it is preserved within the framework with well defined procedures and that's why its often imperfect and slow and when it becomes too inefficient(i.e. too expensive and too slow to prosecuted a perceived criminal activity) the population may demand fascism as a solution.
Gaining power is at all cost as a fascist trait is a good point, Tech companies do that all the time too so techies are often accustomed with that.
By direwolf20 2026-02-0621:45 Centrists find Gestapo disorderly, and prefer not to have them, but don't confuse this with supporting minority rights.
By prophesi 2026-02-057:10 Not OP, but I think the way ICE enforces immigration in the USA has a lot of issues. The bar is too low for people granted the right to utilize lethal force to join, they aren't revoked of the same civilian rights to privacy we give to public enforcers of the law, aren't required to wear bodycams because of their reliance in hiring more people before they can abide by what the law requires, and so on.
By intermerda 2026-02-057:031 reply What an incredibly shitty comment which is wrong on so many levels. You are the type of person who believes that Oskar Schindler should have been shot to death for breaking the "law" rather than being celebrated.
By jacquesm 2026-02-059:01 I'll be happy to bet he has no idea who that is and why supporting the Nazi's as long as they're doing your bidding is a bad idea.
ICE doesn't follow the law. It breaks it.
Its main mode of operation is fish-net-style catching brown people on the streets and making them sign voluntary deportation. That allows to bypass any court orders and any requirements of the law (like hearing, lawyer, etc).
Edit: to the commenter below:
>I care because my children are approaching the workforce and I want their opportunities to open up to them
do you really want your children to work in strawberry fields in CA in 100+ degrees weather? That is the opportunities which mostly get open when you remove the migrants, legal or illegal, that ICE is targeting.
I'm a brown immigrant, the process to get into the US legally was long. I trust US institutions to have good intent, but like all institutions they fail at times. The mandate is to remove 25 million illegal migrants. I reject the hostile posture that people are taking based on negatively biased information, which in my view, further reassures me they are acting in Americans' best interest. I care because my children are approaching the workforce and I want their opportunities to open up to them, unlike I've witnessed in the tech industry where unscrupulous businesses have happily replaced American workers with labor that is desperate. You can't convince me that the negative bias toward ICE isn't in large part, funded and astroturfed by elements in the business lobby that don't care about unemployed citizens and residents, and further drafted by those who have jobs so can afford to not care.
Do you honestly believe that when they're done with the illegal immigrants they're not going to come for the 'brown people in general'?
By enaaem 2026-02-0510:08 They will come after “domestic terrorists”.
By creatonez 2026-02-058:21 Deporting 25 million people using a terrorist militia is mass ethnic cleansing. Period. Has nothing to do with the job market, it is a basic historical reality.
If you want job opportunities to open up to your children, perhaps you should invest in parenting that teaches them good values (like hard work and good attitude), education and sense of agency in place of hoping some government agency will kidnap and deport enough immigrants (many of which are legal, like you btw) for market to offer enough demand for them. The above point about „quality” of jobs „taken” by the immigrants is also very valid…
You believe jobs are being taken and handed to deserving illegal immigrants because they have a better work ethic. I believe they are because investors are seeking ever greater returns no matter the cost to other others or even the long term sustainability of those very returns. This is the basis of our different positions.
By direwolf20 2026-02-0512:011 reply If you believe investors are ruining the country, why do you want to deport millions of immigrants instead of investors?
Because the rules of this land are the end result of waves of developments, over millennia, hard won through the observation of the cause and effect of policy on societies. I trust the effectiveness of American law on the basis of the success of the American Experiment. This very success is the draw that led me to leave my homeland and family and come here. So I'll go with American Law and legal system, rather than follow some reactionary duct-taped law some guy commenting on the internet says we should do.
By donkeybeer 2026-02-0518:20 American law is becoming third world like your home country now.
Enforcing racial purity laws is abuse? Why are you impeding the Gestapo, a federal law enforcement agency? Why do you hate law and order, dirty anarchist?
By jacquesm 2026-02-059:02 These are sad and dangerous times, you really should append the /s these because there are way too many people on HN who would take your comment and say 'he's one of us!'.
By blurbleblurble 2026-02-056:591 reply "It is an interesting and somewhat macabre parlor game to play at a large gathering of [hackernews readers]: to speculate who in a showdown would go Nazi."
Resorting to goodwin is an admission that you have no better argument.
By blurbleblurble 2026-02-0619:53 I'm not resorting to Goodwin. I'm watching the same exact thing play out worldwide.
Get a warrant. The federal government should not be "soliciting vendors" for my location.
I love how the accounts defending ICE are always brand new.
By donkeybeer 2026-02-0511:051 reply What? Where's the bad faith? You made a really dumb argument and got a simple factual response. And you still failed to engage with that response instead making up imaginary persecution.
By donkeybeer 2026-02-0711:28 Why did you vanish? Tell me which moderator blocked you? Are you okay in the head? You are imagining hallucinations where you are being censored or persecuted by some imaginary entity.
By donkeybeer 2026-02-069:06 No higher authority came in to block your speech. Your peers expressed disagreement with you. Where is the censorship?
By donkeybeer 2026-02-062:22 Downvoting is not censorship. Nobody involved here is a mod or admin. I see you still haven't responded to the simple fact asserted in the original post though.
By donkeybeer 2026-02-068:49 You had a chance to respond to the simple factual claims in this message and you still instead used your reply to hilariously claim down voting is censorship where there literally was no moderator involvement therefore literally nothing preventing you from responding. If you think downvoting is censorship why are you not on a website that doesn't have downvoting? You probably also think marriage between peoples of different countires is violent genocide given your hysterics in magnifying simple events into the dramatic and extreme.
By learingsci 2026-02-057:251 reply [flagged]
German here, with little stakes in your shitshow. At no point during the obama years did I think:
"Wow this looks just like the rise of the nazis!"
Which was covered extensively during my history classes.
Why did you even have all the school schootings if you don't use that stupid second ammendmend thing you have? This is the tyranical government you've all been waiting for.
By franga2000 2026-02-058:17 [flagged]
You can really tell which states actually fund their education programs by who understands this and who does not.
By jacquesm 2026-02-059:03 It's a disease and it is spreading, fast.
Perhaps "what you thought then and now" is the difference between those times more than "what happened then and now". With the former being largely influenced by "what your bubble told you then and now".
“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”
By learingsci 2026-02-0517:461 reply We don’t have good data because it’s illegal to, for example, ask citizenship status on our census, but if you believe the numbers many democrats cite, Obama deported more immigrants than Trump. You can use Google to verify that though I’ll warn you the rabbit hole runs deep when it comes to official statistics. Importantly, under Trump we have far more violent felons to deport. The media thrives on salacious and emotionally charged stories rather unbiased reporting based on nuanced facts. It’s the entertainment industry.
The recent tragedies are indeed thoroughly depressing for all of us, but we shouldn’t let our emotional reactions destroy our ability to reason and think objectively about history and statistics. We can feel and think. Some of us believe enforcement of laws is the villain in this. Some feel the laws themselves or the idea of borders and sovereignty are to blame. Others that a surge of violent criminals such as those who killed Jocylan Nungary or Laken Riley is the cause of the recent tragedies. None of these views are inherently evil. All of these views have some merit. Truth is manifold. Don’t be narrow minded, we need broad thinking not simplistic pathos driven dogmas and references to nazis. Grow up.
By j-pb 2026-02-0522:09 The number of deportations under obama was definitely higher, but he had only one concentration camp (guantanamo bay), and didn't use that for his own people.
Learn about the tolerance paradoxon, there is no negotiating, nuance and reasoning with fashists.
Your enlightened centrism is nothing but smoke and mirrors. Get educated.
By direwolf20 2026-02-0512:033 reply If you are German, then you are probably blind to the similarities between current German politics and the Nazis, so this is not a good point of comparison.
Which politics are you referring to? The AfD ("Alternative for Germany") who has been classified as a confirmed right-wing extremist organization by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution? And which has heavy ties to trump, musk, and the current U.S. government?
Just because we currently have our own right wing populist faschists rearing their heads again, doesn't mean that the parallels of the current events in the US and the rise of the Nazis aren't real and glaring to someone who has had this as part of their basic education curriculum.
https://web.archive.org/web/20250503162240/https://www.verfa...
By direwolf20 2026-02-0519:201 reply All parties of the government support and pay for ethnic cleansing in the middle east.
By j-pb 2026-02-0523:05 What does that have to do with the situation in the US? The situation in the middle east is completely orthogonal to that, and observing the rise of faschism there says nothing about my stance on the current german foreign policy in regards to the middle east.
If you want to know: In my personal opinion that conflict is fucked beyond repair because a small group of powerful people on both sides benefit from it, while a huge number of deep interpersonal conflicts and histories fuel it, with any moderates getting squashed by their own side. So I wouldn't send weapons, but I'd send humanitarian aid or the blue helmets. That whole region is thoroughly fucked beyond my pay grade.
Yeeeaaaah, I dunno if you wanna go there while the US is investing $100B in state sponsored ethnic cleansing, terrorism, and concentration camps. Glass houses, stones, etc.
By direwolf20 2026-02-0519:19 Germany invests less than that, but Germany is a smaller country. I'm not sure how much it is per capita.
But it's only Nazis if you disagree with them. After all, the whole point of drawing the comparison is to shut down any possibility for discussion and nuance - "people I don't like are just like the nazis so I don't need to treat those who who doesn't fully oppose them with any respect".
By mindslight 2026-02-0516:51 > After all, the whole point of drawing the comparison [to Nazis] is to shut down any possibility for discussion and nuance
Another way of phrasing this is that it's a call to stop assuming good faith discussion on the part of the boosters, stop being derailed by pondering nuance, and focus on putting the brakes on the new Nazi movement. History doesn't repeat but we're teetering on the edge of a large-scale horrific rhyme. Regardless of one's preferred policies regarding immigration, there is zero justification for where we're at.
By j-pb 2026-02-0513:21 Again, I have little stakes in your shitshow besides the international meddling they do with our own faschist party.
This dualist thinking seems to be a particular US thing, based on your two party system.
I see the erosion of the rule of law and decency in the US, the persecution of minorities, the populism, the defamation of journalism as "lügenpresse" and alignment of media to the party line, the personal police force (what the fuck is ICE doing in Italy), the person cult around a single madman, the violence without consequence, the fancy SS/SA style cosplay uniform by the head of ICE, and I think "that looks a lot like the stuff we learned about in school".
By direwolf20 2026-02-0512:121 reply The ones who are exterminating a race are the nazis
By direwolf20 2026-02-0519:191 reply Palestinian
By donkeybeer 2026-02-068:551 reply Any race or group can be genocidal. What's so special about Israelis?
Unfortunately the extend of what the average person seems to have learned from WW2 is jews = innocent victims, german/non-jew nationalism = evil.
By donkeybeer 2026-02-1014:03 To me all nationalism sucks, but yes my main point was genocidal extremism isn't really a unique property that jews or any other group are immune to.
By sham1 2026-02-055:56 I'm not the poster you replied to, but absolutely. Now personally I don't believe that this data should exist in the first place, but using it for law enforcement purposes is just very shilling and even worse than its "normal" use. I would think that someone with a fresh burner account would agree.
By hsbauauvhabzb 2026-02-055:502 reply That implies a crime was committed. I think you’ll find people on HN fairly unsupportive of population wide surveillance. Getting a warrant from a judge is far better than ICE doing what they’re currently doing.
By tokyobreakfast 2026-02-055:58 Unless of course that population wide surveillance pays $150k+/yr, with unlimited free snacks and gym membership, then all bets are off.
> I think you’ll find people on HN fairly unsupportive of population wide surveillance
Lately I'm not sure that's the case.
By jacquesm 2026-02-059:21 Exactly, more than enough bootlickers on here. Or actual boot wearers, as I just found out.
see:
You seem to be a bit scared of doing this all under your own name, comrade. But don't worry, we know exactly who you are.
By hikkerl 2026-02-0511:01 [flagged]
> Not only that, but your profile clearly says you aren't even American. Maybe you should focus on your own politics, or things you understand, and not try to threaten people.
I'm not threatening anybody, I'm just pointing out that in the aggregate anonymity does not exist as told by TFA whereas the GP seems to believe it holds some weight. The only reason you are able to write your comment is simply because I'm not hiding.
You on the other hand are.
> I personally, am glad we have this, so I don't experience what I do when I go to Europe, and get a bunch of illegal Africans terrorizing people in front of police. Or let alone the no go zones.
Funny, that hasn't happened to me yet. What also hasn't happened to me yet is that I got shot in the face at a protest.
But: you are part of the problem, you believe you are part of the solution. The fact that you believe that you are part of the solution but you're not proud enough of it to do so under your own name tells the whole story. It's the equivalent of the mask of those ICE goons.
https://jacquesmattheij.com/if-you-have-nothing-to-hide/
https://jacquesmattheij.com/trackers/
> I'm glad, to have spend most of my career in the government to stop these people coming in and terrorists. Which is why I can report, the US has a very low terror rate, especially when you look at foreign extremists, unlike other parts of the world.
That has something to do with two oceans and nothing at all with your efforts.
> I proudly stop terrorists, I proudly help law enforcement, and I proudly serve my country to make it the best in the world.
And you're proudly delusional.
But that's fine, stick your head in the sand and continue, you are so invested in this that the thought that you might be on the wrong side seems to scare you into flinging abuse and digging in deeper.
The USA is not 'the best in the world', not by a long shot. Witness the turd sitting in the half demolished White House that you serve.
> Anyways, I will be submitting a tip personally
Haha, so you are now threatening to take revenge on someone you've never met because they're calling you out for exactly that sort of thing. I don't think I could have asked for harder proof.
WTF dude, have you entirely lost it?
> Also, unless you're violating your visa and breaking American laws. You wouldn't have gotten shot in the face at a protest in America.
The women shot in the face by an ICE agent was not "violating her visa", nor was she violating American laws by being halted for a short time across a single lane with traffic passing her by.
She was given conflicting instructions by two agents, and was within her rights to leave as she did, slowly, carefully, when she was shot through the front and then through a side window by the same agent.
> I proudly stop terrorists, I proudly help law enforcement
These particular agents were a clown show textbook example of how not to behave .. you should be not be proud to associate with them.
As for American law - it's falling apart from the top: https://talkingpointsmemo.com/morning-memo/the-trump-doj-has...
The people shooting US citizens in the face and in the back are repeatedly in violation of judges orders.
By hikkerl 2026-02-0511:00 [flagged]
> So, the government did an investigation
Not the state government, and the federal government is in the midst of not a investigation under the pretence of having one.
> But if you try to run over the police.
She did not. It's very clear that she did not.
Also .. ICE agents .. not "the police" - these were immigration agents overstepping their bounds.
See stories about breaking multiple judges orders.
By throwawayqqq11 2026-02-0510:52
By throwawayqqq11 2026-02-0510:441 reply Since i cant reply to your flagged comment above, ill do it here.
> And I gotta ask, you think it's just two oceans, and what your experience is in the intelligence community field? Are you just assuming without knowing the inner workings?
This depicts the distribution of refugees caused by iraq and afghan wars. Which, to remind you, were proudly based on lies.
> https://www.unhcr.org/news/press-releases/iraqis-afghans-and...
> As a region, Europe received 75 percent of all asylum applications although the United States remained the single largest recipient country with an estimated 13 percent of all applications
Are you still proud making the world a better place? Maybe you are too busy fighting terrorists to reply.
Are you implying that refugees are terrorists? Also, according to any refugee agreement, you go to the first country of safe harbor. Not across the world. Why can’t they go back now, make Iraq great?
Also, they arnt killing Americans anymore are they? We gave them everything we could. But the afghan army chose to just do drugs and do nothing and now their women can’t go to school and don’t have rights again.
By throwawayqqq11 2026-02-0511:531 reply No, im not implying that all refugees are terrorists. Just pointing out the obvious outcome of terror: people flee to savety.
There are still terror orgs seeking to destabilize the region, like israel or ISIS. Besides the destruction, thats at least one reason why you wouldnt want to go back.
But why can they stay? Maybe a familiy -- a life -- is a reason to stay too. Why is "why dont they go back" your initial reaction? Why do i have to remind you about that human element of migration? Are you implying all refugees are terrorists? Or are you a racist?
Id really would like to see your mind rn. How it tries to spin the convo to "but they are illegal aliens". Such a pitty that even you cant see it.
By throw03837 2026-02-0512:301 reply [flagged]
By throwawayqqq11 2026-02-0512:451 reply How many face military conflict?
By throw03837 2026-02-0513:29 Not sure what you mean. Joining the IDF is optional for Israeli Arabs.
By stephantul 2026-02-055:555 reply This has bean a long time coming. This is a stark reminder that you should consider who the future stewards of whatever you are building might be.
We built a vast surveillance network under the guise of servings ads and making money, and lost track of how this power could be abused by an entity not aligned with our own values.
Don't lump me in that "we". I did no such thing. I know exactly how it could be abused and have spent 12 years intentionally not working for companies that perpetuate it.
By stephantul 2026-02-056:251 reply Well I guess I mean the pubic in general. I also don’t necessarily mean willfully creating technology that can be abused.
For example, we all stood by when we let Twitter and other US-based social media become the main way politicians communicate with the public. This has, in my opinion, had disastrous consequences on how they communicate and actively blocks politicians from achieving consensus.
This is to say that you don’t need to have actively worked on something.
I think that expecting the public to reason through the myriad n-order effects that were going to happen from the whiplash of technology in the last 30 years is a little much.
However, I think a lot of people in tech could and did see those consequences coming and were pretty vocal about it. So, I don't think we all did stand by, we exercised what limited power we had. I don't want to seem accusatory here and I don't mean it harshly, but maybe you just didn't see the folks who have talked about problems like this.
We also as individuals [without billions] have fairly limited capacity to directly act against these things. I donate a fair bit to the EFF for instance and I've sent outreach to representatives multiple times over the years for specific bills and when its possible I vote against surveillance.
By stephantul 2026-02-058:331 reply You are right, I do acknowledge their efforts but did not do so here, which I should have.
I don't necessarily mean to berate the public, but rather the politicians, who saw that they could use social media/big tech for their own personal gain, and the media, who went along with the narrative that putting all our public communication into privately owned platforms was good for democracy. And maybe our own governments and institutions (speaking from a EU perspective) for dropping the ball in protecting us.
I think Evgeny Morozov's 2010-ish writing was prophetic in this regard.
Several years ago in Stockholm (2014) during a conference focus on the Internet, the Chief Technology Officer for Barack Obama's 2012 re-election campaign held a talk on how they revolutionary the campaign process by using targeted advertisement campaign on social networks, mostly Facebook, and how effective the technique was to reach voters during fund raising and getting their voters to vote. In their view, this was the first major use of social media during an election. The talk is still available on Youtube for those interested. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3WS9bs3Aps)
There are also articles from 2011 where political commenters noted how the Obama campaign broke new ground using targeted Facebook advertisement and outreach, and how EU politicians could learn from it. The many smaller, but in total larger donations given to Obama was contrasted with Hillary Clinton who had larger individual donations but less in total, and the commenters attributed this to the use of Facebook and finding and meeting a younger audience on those online platforms.
People thought that targeted advertisement was a good thing and politicians looked on the techniques from that election and saw the potential for power. It was mostly just those privacy advocates, free software advocates and security experts that expressed doubt and warned about the dangers.
By stephantul 2026-02-0520:11 Yes! I distinctly remember the time magazine issue and article about this. This is exactly what I mean: we normalize and celebrate technologies without realizing what the repercussions are when we give the same tools and power to others.
By emodendroket 2026-02-0519:001 reply We are all very impressed, I assure you.
Going by the upvotes I have generally yes people do seem to think so. It's only weird folks like you and the other guy that seem to have a problem.
It's exactly why I don't do more because I really don't want to be associated with people like you folks.
By emodendroket 2026-02-0520:591 reply Well one thing we can be sure of is your self regard.
Yes because not assenting to the anon rando who makes a snide insulting comment is outside the bounds of normal well regulated self interest. I can't possibly eyeroll any harder at you.
By emodendroket 2026-02-060:121 reply I just don’t know what patting yourself on the back for your incorruptibility is really adding to the discussion.
By ianbutler 2026-02-0623:55 Had you said this first instead of the snark I would have had a more reasonable initial reply just fyi.
My intent wasn't to pat myself on the back it was to make OP aware people have not all just been going along with it using myself as an example, and then it turned into a nice little side thread with me and the OP talking about that conceptually.
I can appreciate you disagree with how I chose to go about that though as objectively it was self centered.
By AndrewKemendo 2026-02-0514:441 reply Good for you
What are you doing to organize around that?
Or is it just “I decided to leave so my hands are clean” self adoration?
By hackable_sand 2026-02-0515:311 reply Passive resistance is still resistance.
It's the gateway to any sympathetic contingency.
By AndrewKemendo 2026-02-0515:361 reply Where’s the passive resistance?
This user is still on twitter and actively promoting their handle there
"We also as individuals [without billions] have fairly limited capacity to directly act against these things. I donate a fair bit to the EFF for instance and I've sent outreach to representatives multiple times over the years for specific bills and when its possible I vote against surveillance." - from a parallel thread I was commenting in.
I'm totally fine stopping at minimizing my culpability. I sleep just fine at night and don't really jump at purity tests like you seem to want. I'm not other people's savior and I don't want to be. If you want to put your energy into that, I support you.
By AndrewKemendo 2026-02-0519:161 reply Then don’t jump into a conversation as though you have some answer if all you’re doing is virtue signaling that you’re detached
By ianbutler 2026-02-0519:54 > Don't lump me in that "we". I did no such thing. I know exactly how it could be abused and have spent 12 years intentionally not working for companies that perpetuate it.
I don't think you know how to read because I certainly didn't do that. But also go fuck yourself.
This is why no one cares about your causes btw because weird angry little dudes isn't a good look.
By fauchletenerum 2026-02-057:301 reply From day one everyone who worked on these ad-tech surveillance systems knew they had the capability for abuse. They were built to come as close as possible to the legal limits of surveillance and in several notable cases crossed that line. This isn't a surprise to anyone
The way I understand it, which may be dated: is that if it's automated or robotic it doesn't qualify as an "unreasonable search or seizure".
By direwolf20 2026-02-0512:061 reply Or if it's a third party. The government is allowed to hire corporate contractors that don't obey the constitution.
By tosapple 2026-02-0813:52 [dead]
By potamic 2026-02-0510:18 There was a narrative here earlier that I'd rather trust Google/Apple with my data than any other company or any government. The end result is the same in the end. When it comes to privacy, the only thing that works is zero trust.
By s5300 2026-02-056:20 [dead]
By IhateAI 2026-02-056:39 It was always intended to be used that way, the programmatic advertising industry is a product of US Nat Sec.
