If they can, they will. That’s the only rule you need to know about business and politics.
Knowing this is at the level of life and death.
I consent
Does the US legal system still exist in any sense that it should in a democracy?
I ask because I don’t understand how all this is possible in a constitutional state: Masked brutes who arbitrarily kidnap people on the open street without even identifying themselves, people who are interned without due process and then often simply disappear without a trace in the administrative system, total surveillance without cause, and many other massive violations that the US legal system seems to enable rather than prevent, as it should.
All of this already looks very much like a dictatorship to me, i.e., an unjust state, as none of this can be possible with a democratic constitution - at least not with one that is actually upheld by the legal system.
I’m not going to excuse ICE and all the shit they are up to. I’m just going to point out that immigration status doesn’t require the same process to determine as the guilt or innocence of some other crime. In a murder trial, you have to prove motive, opportunity, etc beyond a reasonable doubt. With immigration status, it’s simpler: either you can document your legal right to be in the country or you can’t. When someone isn’t supposed to be in the country we don’t jail them for years to rehabilitate them and then release them into the population. We remove them. So everything about this feels and looks different from a standard criminal due process because it is different. Even without the aggressive tactics, masks, and all attendant bullshit, it would still be different.
Due process is recognized as a human‑rights protection in almost all democratic countries and generally applies regardless of citizenship; it helps prevent arbitrariness and abuse of power.
The fundamental safeguard against arbitrary state detention is habeas corpus or its functional equivalent: a person detained must be brought before a judge so the lawfulness of the detention can be reviewed and so the detainee can be informed of the charges against them.
ICE denies detainees even this, for which there can be absolutely no excuse in any reasonably civilized country.
Does the US legal system still exist in any sense that it should in a democracy?
Hybrid Regime is how I describe the US. It’s a weird limbo state between Democracy and Autocracy (because if this was a full autocracy, I wouldn’t have access to Lemmy and most anti-trump media would’ve been raided and shut down). Afaik, they aren’t doing exit controls yet.
The major difference between the US and PRC (where I came from), is that Americans seem more willing to resist the government compared to mainland Chinese, and these demonstrations in the US are actually being reported on, in China, its absolute silence, nobody even knows about the very little protests that do happen.
But, by the time EU starts accepting American Refugees, it’d probabably be too late and they would’ve imposed exit controls by then.
Idk what will happen, only time will tell.
Land of the free (for white people)
An ICE officer may ignore evidence of American citizenship—including a birth certificate—if the app says the person is an alien
Cool, so I guess that means I can ignore evidence of the person/people at the door being law enforcement before enforcing my 2nd Amendment rights and state self-defense laws that also allow me to shoot to protect others.
We should act on protecting our rights and then ask questions later.
Yup. If someone is abducting someone else and doesn’t self-identify, that sounds like an open and shut self-defense case, provided you survive the encounter.
Um, Americans also realize they’re ABDUCTING people without their consent too, right? And have been, for like months now?
Most of us are well aware of that. I live in a neighborhood with a pretty high Hispanic population. ICE was reported just a few blocks from my house on Thursday, zero trick-or-treaters on Friday. There are still a discouraging about of people saying they support Trump and what he’s doing on Nextdoor. I want to believe they’re bots.
Yup ice is in my neighborhood too, I’m trying to keep a look out and help anyone I can. I have a balaclava ski mask with prom night stitched into the forehead.
Hopefully they just don’t kno a how bad things are on the ground. Everything looks fine when your head is buried in the sand.
Time to start wearing face paint / face tattoos that fuck with facial recognition.
I don’t think anything like that would help. Especially over the last several years with the huge rise of things like Snapchat filters where people can take photos of themselves in various situations with various costumes, various themes. I’m sure all of that was data mined for someone’s purpose.
Is that why cyberpunk media always has people wearing face tats.
Sometimes it’s explicitly called out for that reason ya. Can’t say all the time though.
Reminder to everyone that it is COVID season, so wear a mask for your health.
And flu and cold season. Consider wearing gloves to keep your hands safe from diseases as well. Consider tinted glasses as well to keep the sun out of your eyes, and a hat or hoodie to protect from rain or snow.
Just basic health things, completely unrelated to cameras or anything.
We do like staying healthy
You may also consider carrying a firearm. It’s hibernation season, and the bears can get a bit frisky.
Bear spray also works on wild dogs, which are increasingly becoming a problem in suburban areas.
Nice! And it’s far less illegal of you happen to go to a national or state park or something. Good idea, I have some bear spray from when I went to Glacier National Park, I’ll have to bring them around in case I meet a particularly nasty one.
Wild hogs ain’t no joke either.
Lol. You never know when one might jump out at you from the forest or something. Don’t get too close though, just spray and run away.
So look, this is just gonna happen. It’s legal to film people in public (in the US) and we all know stores, etc. are already using facial recognition.
The real problem here is the (apparent, though almost certainly assured) lack of responsible use of the data. Scanning faces means you also get time, place, and event/activity, and the citizens then have zero control of what the govt does with this, who they share it with (e.g. Palantir), etc. All prior collection of US person data required appropriate approval, limited scope of access, and timely adjudication/disposal. But ICE is (again, apparently) operating outside the law.
Also, doesn’t this shit just waste like a fuckton of taxpayer money?
That’s the beautiful thing, we just print more so people don’t notice how much we actually spend on things. Inflation goes brr, but people blame the corpos.
Serious question, with all this surveillance, would it become a thing to always wear a full mask in public.
I know, feels weird to ask that post pandemic, but here we are.
We aren’t post pandemic. They just want you to think we are.
We are though. COVID-19 strains have become endemic, which is the step after pandemic if the disease is not eradicated. So it’s like the flu now.
A lot of cameras ID you by your eyes, so a medical mask wouldn’t really work. If you use a mask + something like Reflectacles, you’ll probably be okay.
are you “there yet” America?
We’re working on it, apparently.
