
ACLU: ICE and CBP Are Secretly Tracking Us Using Stingrays. We’re Suing - FireBeyond
https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/ice-and-cbp-are-secretly-tracking-us-using-stingrays-were-suing/
======
dang
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21766137](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21766137)

------
yingw787
I got my Guardians of Liberty card this year, third one after donating $15 /
mo to the ACLU for two or three years. The cards keep getting better, maybe if
I keep donating I can get like a silver or platinum card like those credit
cards. Or maybe it’s just this year that the card stock is good.

I should increase my monthly donations after I get a job, $15 / month is too
low for somebody in software. Maybe $50 / month.

------
sitkack
Regional directors of the organizations stonewalling the requests should be
fired.

~~~
sneak
I feel that demands like this fundamentally misunderstand the hows and the
whys of these posts being filled in the first place. The nature of power in
America seems to me to be widely misunderstood.

~~~
munk-a
I think that the ability for those organizations to stone-wall is important
and needs to be preserved - especially prior to the fact being released there
may be very valid reasons for withholding facts... but if the stonewalling is
without a just cause (which we can examine at lengths after the release of
information) then there should be more severe penalties.

We're getting to a point where claiming it's "a matter of National Security"
is pretty much a meme and it erodes legitimate uses of this privilege - and
that erosion will cause a lot of harm over time as legitimately sensitive
material is forced out early... but, at the same time, being overly aggressive
with punishment over borderline cases of withholding information may also have
a chilling effect over properly exercising those rights. So maybe we need to
leave a pretty wide grey zone.

~~~
sneak
Government derives its power from the consent of the governed. Consent cannot
be meaningfully granted from ignorance—it’s called informed consent for a
reason.

The thing that damages national security is keeping secrets.

~~~
munk-a
I, personally, want to know if the US is assassinating people with drones,
illegally detaining people overseas or snooping in on conversations... But I
don't need to personally know who is working in such-and-such embassy, nor do
I want to know (or want the public to know) which routes they commonly take to
drive to the embassy, what their favorite foods are or where their family
members reside.

National secrets are a thing, there are legitimate details about government
employees that are good to keep secret - so I don't think your blanket
statement is really all that valid.

~~~
sitkack
They should be approved or denied. Stonewalling is undemocratic. There is no
due process because there is no process. It is effectively a dribble or
slowloris attack against the requestor.

------
korethr
I misunderstood the title. I thought that ICE and CBP had somehow taken to
retaliating against ACLU for their inquiries about Stingrays, that the ACLU
had somehow found out about this and was counter-retaliating with a lawsuit.
Fortunately, nothing so dramatic is happening here; their FOIA requests having
been stonewalled, and they're taking to the courts to try to force compliance
with FOIA. Good on them. I hope they succeed.

I could do without some of the phrasing of the press release though, it comes
across as needlessly inflammatory, deliberately written to paint ICE and CBP
as some sort of anti-immigration evil league of evil. As an example, take the
scare quotes around the term "unlawful-reentry". Here, I use the quotes to
mark the word as a word under discussion, apart from the meaning the sentence
would have were it not quoted. There, the only common use of quotes that makes
sense to me is to mark the use as sarcastic. Sarcasm isn't helpful. If you
enter a country without going through a port of entry, that's unlawful entry.
If you go back to a country without going through a port of entry, that's
unlawfully reentry. That holds true at every national border on this planet,
and isn't some anti-immigrant invention of ICE or CBP.

This sort of thing makes me sad, because that kind of sarcasm and
disingenuousness makes it easier for people and groups who actually _are_
actively opposed to rights for various other groups to paint the ACLU as
acting in bad faith. Don't give your enemies free ammunition. Stick to the
facts, and leave the emotionally inflammatory remarks for personal social
media accounts.

~~~
jshevek
I agree, but took the intent to be worse than sarcastic, rather a manipulative
effort to invalidate another's position by implying the very language they use
to describe reality is invalid. In other words, it's like prefacing the words
with "so called."

------
einpoklum
While such legal action is commendable, it seems to me that surveillance of
anyone-and-everyone, at whim or at all times, is by now very ingrained in
federal-level organizational practice and culture. So much so that it will not
go away just because it is ruled illegal or unconstitutional. Plus, its
continued use may also have legitimized it enough in the view of judges for
them to have developed a large blind spot for their constitutionality.

------
jimbob45
Seems like the real news is that ICE and CBP haven't been given direct access
to the data of cell towers from the get-go, right? Or is that not how that
works?

------
no_opinions
> to track down an immigrant suspected of “unlawful reentry” into the country.

In other words - we don't know who they even are. Just that they're furtive
and evading authorities.

The unlawful entry in itself is bad, but what exactly they're doing, which
could range from a scheme to dodge customs fees, unfairly circumvent
immigration procedures our democratically elected congress put into law, to
drug running, to spying, to hurting people.

Every country identifies its entrants. Why are people so eager to make light
of such a fair procedure?

There is a serious national security rationale backing identifying an
"unlawful entrant" ASAP. I hope the law gives the government maximum authority
and upgrades their tools so they can keep us safe.

I wish places like ACLU would be good examples and be candid. By the way they
talk in this letter - it's not like they disagree with a law - it's like
they're against the concept of the most basic principle of international
travel: Getting your passport stamped.

------
Karunamon
> _[ICE /CBP's] continued efforts to target and tear apart communities across
> the country._

Is this kind of partisan dog-whistling really necessary? The ACLU does good
work at the end of the day, but this sentence makes their stance on border
control loud and clear.

And I call it dog-whistling because it does nothing but detract from an
otherwise reasonable stance on surveillance abuse, for the sake of a wink and
a nod.

~~~
nostrademons
Their stance on civil liberties has been pretty consistent. All people are
equal, and all are entitled to equal protection of their fundamental civil
liberties. Their position on border control follows from this: you are
entitled to civil liberties because you are human, not because you are an
American citizen. There're some pragmatic limitations on this (there's little
that the ACLU can do to protect the civil liberties of people residing in
China or Russia, for example), but they've consistently fought to extend civil
liberties to _everyone_ \- even, for example, American citizens of Iraqi
descent residing in Iraq.

It's both of the major parties that have inconsistent stances on this, which
can largely be summed up as "civil liberties for me, but not for thee". That's
why the ACLU tends to get flack from both sides of the aisle. Both parties try
to define one group of people as their "tribe" and maximize their own
liberties, while defining another group as an outgroup and trying to deny
their liberties. And it works: there's nothing quite so motivating as an
outgroup. But I'm glad that there are organizations that take a principled,
logical stance toward freedom without discriminating against _who_ gets that
freedom.

~~~
rayiner
> Their stance on civil liberties has been pretty consistent.

Except the right to bear arms, of course.

~~~
positivejam
Has the ACLU's stance on the right to bear arms has been inconsistent, as in,
changed quite a bit over time? Or they just haven't had much of a stance to
speak of? Honest question.

~~~
likpok
In 1991, they believed it was an individual right. Now they believe it's a
collective right. I don't know of any major cases the ACLU brought on behalf
of gun owners (but probably wouldn't know if they had).

[https://reason.com/2019/04/12/the-aclu-defends-the-rights-
of...](https://reason.com/2019/04/12/the-aclu-defends-the-rights-of-gun-
owner/) has some discussion of this.

