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ICE Uses Facebook Data To Find and Track Immigrants, Internal Emails Show (theintercept.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Intercept: ICE, the federal agency tasked with Trump's program of mass deportation, uses backend Facebook data to locate and track immigrants that it is working to round up, according to a string of emails and documents obtained by The Intercept through a public records request. The hunt for one particular immigrant in New Mexico provides a rare window into how ICE agents use social media and powerful data analytics tools to find suspects. In February and March of 2017, several ICE agents were in communication with a detective from Las Cruces, New Mexico, to find information about a particular person. They were ultimately able to obtain backend Facebook data revealing a log of when the account was accessed and the IP addresses corresponding to each login. Lea Whitis, an agent with Homeland Security Investigations, the investigative arm of ICE, emailed the team a "Facebook Business Record" revealing the suspect's phone number and the locations of each login into his account during a date range. Law enforcement agents routinely use bank, telephone, and internet records for investigations, but the extent to which ICE uses social media is not well known.
It has billions of users. Of course law enforcement is going to use it.
Yes that's correct, compassion for people who committed a minor civil violation in order to come here and help their families.
Well, that depends upon how they "come here".
The civil violation is "unlawful presence", and can come about a number of ways, such as illegal entry or overstaying a visa.
Illegal entry, aka, border jumping, is most definitely a criminal -- not civil -- offense that carries a penalty of not more than 6 months in prison, and a fine of up to $250.
There should be a -1 Uniformed Partisanship moderation.
I agree with you on that one.