5/7/2026 at 4:23:35 PM
It's surprising to me this is news. Governments buy and install this equipment and it flags license plates and anyone thought that wouldn't be used for things like immigration control? I'm not saying it's right, just that it's shocking people wouldn't realize that.by gleenn
5/7/2026 at 4:51:16 PM
No one is surprised, but the news is that Flock’s agreement with these pd’s said this was not happening and it’s now been shown it has.by JohnMakin
5/7/2026 at 4:37:02 PM
> it's shocking people wouldn't realize thatIt's really not. These systems are bought and paid for predominantly by local governments. Most of whom don't spend any resources on immigration enforcement. Some of which have policies prohibiting such co-operation.
by JumpCrisscross
5/7/2026 at 4:49:13 PM
[dead]by bubbi
5/7/2026 at 4:29:22 PM
[flagged]by MrBuddyCasino
5/7/2026 at 4:34:46 PM
there are at least weekly threads on hn about why people dont want to live in a mass-surveillance state with an astronomical potential for abuse (and plenty of evidence of abuse already: see the flock employees watching kids gymnastics recently)pretending that it is only "pro illegal immigration" people that are against what happened here is misguided at best, or purposefully manipulative and bad faith
by john_strinlai
5/7/2026 at 4:45:59 PM
No I get that. My impression is that the angle here is specifically not against Orwellian mass surveillance, but „the evil fascists at ICE use it too“ which I find hypocritical.by MrBuddyCasino
5/7/2026 at 4:47:03 PM
Why is that hypocritical?by pavel_lishin
5/7/2026 at 5:34:17 PM
Because if public video surveillance was only used for legitimate purposes, worked well and made everyone‘s life better as a consequence there wouldn’t be as much opposition to it. In practice this is not always the case.If every new proposed law to combat „child abuse“ was well intentioned and actually worked, there wouldn’t be much opposition either. But since they are mostly an underhanded tactic to censor the internet, there is.
So to use this legitimate actually useful example of fighting illegal immigration leaves a very bitter taste.
by MrBuddyCasino
5/8/2026 at 5:35:51 PM
The misuse of "child welfare" as a wedge for illegal legislation heavily predates the common use of the Internet. I remember Tipper Gore with music, Joe Lieberman with video games. I remember the "Satanic panics" of the 80s, which led my parents to forbid me from Dungeons & Dragons, because it was "evil" and "Satanic".by LocalH
5/7/2026 at 4:31:44 PM
Spying on people is a violation of plenty of amendments. Illegal immigration is a misdemeanor not a felony. Stop treating the law as a binary illegal or not. It just leads to brain dead interpretations of the law. There is plenty of “illegal” things people do every day and yet we don’t install public dragnet cameras to stop it. Illegal immigration hasn’t shown any real harm to people that regular citizens don’t also take part in. Immigration has just been used to rile you up because you can scream “illegal illegal illegal” a bunch of times without reading the 14th amendment and understand that you can’t have a country of rights if you don’t extend those rights to non-citizens within your borders.by righthand
5/7/2026 at 5:03:23 PM
> Illegal immigration is a misdemeanor not a felony.My understanding is that entering without getting inspected is misdemeanor (or felony in some cases), but that's often not the case. Usually people just overstay and that's civil case. And because it's treated as a civil matter a lot constitutional protections do not apply (to clarify: some still do).
by buzer
5/7/2026 at 4:38:38 PM
Viz: any public comment session on any proposal to add speed cameras to any American city.by kristjansson
5/7/2026 at 4:39:42 PM
[flagged]by xp84
5/7/2026 at 4:48:21 PM
> non-citizens don’t have any particular rights beyond the Geneva ConventionThat's just untrue.
https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artI-S8-C18-8...
> Shaughnessy v. United States ex rel. Mezei, 345 U.S. 206, 212 (1953); see also Mathews v. Diaz, 426 U.S. 67, 77 (1976) ("There are literally millions of aliens within the jurisdiction of the United States. The Fifth Amendment, as well as the Fourteenth Amendment, protects every one of these persons from deprivation of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.");
by pavel_lishin
5/7/2026 at 11:11:00 PM
Show me where it says sending them to their home country is depriving them of life, liberty, or property.If I'm overseas and overstayed my visa and broke, it's a huge favor if the authorities there pay my airfare to come home -- not a human rights violation.
by xp84
5/7/2026 at 4:42:37 PM
>A “misdemeanor”? I don’t really care what you define it as,the user 'righthand' didnt define it that way...
its how the government defined it in 8 U.S.C. § 1325
>Also non-citizens don’t have any particular rights beyond the Geneva Convention.
this is also wrong. the constitutions protections generally extend to all people in the US
by john_strinlai
5/7/2026 at 4:58:38 PM
You have a brain dead interpretation of the law it seems. You may be interested in the US Constitution Amendments 4-14 should give you quite a few answers to your confusion on how we treat people here. Your interpretation of the laws would make you an illegal for misinterpreting the laws. Let’s deport you.by righthand
5/7/2026 at 11:39:04 PM
You and others here have so much to say about these legal details, but you haven't explained where it establishes a right for people with no legal status here to just show up and move in, even commit crimes, and not be sent home.I'm not saying people should be harmed. I'm saying they should be fingerprinted (to track repeat offenders) and sent home.
IMHO part of why things have gotten so toxic, stuff like ICE etc. is that one side of the debate has staked out the position that coming here illegally should be met with zero consequences whatsoever - not even being gently walked back across the border with a stern but toothless warning! And any response other than complete acceptance of this form of immigration is a crime against humanity, racist, evil, fascist.
And most of the Democrats who hold those opinions live in large cities in the North with manageable amounts of such migration, not the rural border areas where the impact is most felt. So, with this going on for 30 years or so and not being taken seriously by Washington, it's in turn radicalized the other side of the debate, such that they are more likely to support measures we should all view as probably too extreme, like armed ICE agents being sent out on exploratory missions.
by xp84
5/8/2026 at 5:38:49 PM
I've said for years that the correct way to do it would be to pick up an undocumented immigrant, and give them the option right then and there to begin the legal process of immigration, in return if they accept then they will not be deported.Strangely I've never seen that idea pick up ground (and it's a basic idea, there's no way I'm the only one to have ever come up with it).
by LocalH
5/7/2026 at 4:48:13 PM
[flagged]by MrBuddyCasino
5/7/2026 at 4:51:04 PM
it is far from correct... its actually, like, the opposite of correct.by john_strinlai
5/7/2026 at 4:48:59 PM
None of this is true, see my other comment.by pavel_lishin
5/7/2026 at 4:55:24 PM
No it’s not correct. Please leave.by righthand
5/7/2026 at 4:54:01 PM
[flagged]by suburban_strike
5/10/2026 at 8:34:56 AM
The Due Process Clauses of the 5th and 14th Amendments due not provide for selective application depending on the specific suspected crime. If the suspected crime relates to unlawful immigration, the system is bound by the Constitution to practice due process.Few here, and few progressives overall advocate for dispensing with immigration enforcement. Most deeply reject the wanton, indiscriminate and violent manner in which the current regime has carried out its practices. But the mischaracterization of this stance is a favourite straw man of the right.
by kashunstva
5/8/2026 at 2:26:39 PM
Lol you’re a troll account and looking at your comment history reveals how pathetic and non-serious you are. Most likely non-American.The borders are enforced quit making up lies. In United States of America we still extend due process because that allows us to punish actual criminals. Instead you want to label everyone and deport them to a safe distance but do not want to actually punish anyone with the law or determine innocence. You have no respect for any law, and just use your own ideas of how things should work. So what is the point of the laws and punishment system if we can’t use it? When you just deport someone without due process you’re letting the “illegal” off the hook without consequences. But you know this, hence your phrasing.
by righthand
5/7/2026 at 5:00:20 PM
So assuming you drive, when a police car gets really inappropriately close behind you for a couple minutes and then backs off, then they are probably using their eyes to look at your license plate and having someone run that or texting while driving to do that on the computer in the car. I don’t think there is a fundamental difference between this process and using a camera other than a camera doesn’t expect you to give it a pension.by GorbachevyChase
5/7/2026 at 5:18:37 PM
The cops actions are vetted and have responsible party attached. The camera is used to bypass responsibility of bad actors entirely. Infact the camera is used to enable bad actors instead of catching bad actors. Huge difference in my opinion but okay just shrug your shoulders and claim there’s no difference.by righthand
5/7/2026 at 8:14:38 PM
And, crucially, cops are expensive, so the percentage of drivers they can do this to is low.Whereas a stationary camera can scan the license plates of ~100% of cars that go past it and save that data for later fishing expeditions. And is cheap enough that we can (and have) blanketed roads with them.
by BobaFloutist