Watching the Watchers: “A Surveillance State for Purposes You Like Is Still a Surveillance State”

“Even committed border watchers who favor stronger enforcement of immigration rules should have qualms about the deployment of surveillance state capabilities by the government,” writes J.D. Tuccille in Reason. “Tools and techniques adopted for one purpose are inevitably redirected to others.”

Tuccille goes on to round up recent news articles that underscore his point.

• “In the battle against illegal immigration, the U.S. is spending hundreds of millions of dollars on tools that give federal agencies easy access to the home and workplace addresses of American citizens, their social-media accounts, vehicle information, flight history, law-enforcement records, and other personal information, as well as data to track their daily comings and goings,” write Shane Shifflett and Hannah Critchfield in The Wall Street Journal.

 

• The Georgetown Law Center on Privacy & Technology reports that by 2022, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had “scanned the driver’s license photos of 1 in 3 adults,” “had access to the driver’s license data of 3 in 4 adults,” “was tracking the movements of drivers in cities home to 3 in 4 adults,” and “could locate 3 in 4 adults through their utility records.” We can only imagine how these capabilities have expanded in the subsequent four years.

 

• “ICE is currently using the Mobile Fortify app in the field to identify anyone they happen to encounter and want to identify,” warns the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC). “By pointing their phone at an individual for face identification, ICE can query various databases and obtain data related to ‘individuals, vehicles, airplanes, vessels, addresses, phone numbers, and firearms.’”

EPIC reports that scanned protesters have lost TSA PreCheck and Global Entry status for travel.

Tuccille writes: “In itself that may not sound like a big deal, but it means the federal government is willing to identify and retaliate against people for exercising constitutionally protected rights. That can extend to even more severe consequences.”

As Congress returns this week to resume the debate on Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act – an authority enacted by Congress to enable the surveillance of foreign threats on foreign soil, but often used to spy on Americans – Members would do well to take stock of just how much the surveillance state has grown.

Tuccille concludes: “Ultimately, there’s no such thing as a single-purpose surveillance state. There’s just the misuse and abuse of the government’s ability to monitor and identify people who come to its attention.”

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