Malls In California Are Sending License Plate Information To ICE (theweek.com)

Presto Vivace shares a report from The Week with the caption, "And they wonder why some of us prefer to shop online." From the report: Surveillance systems at more than 46 malls in California are capturing license plate information that is fed to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Electronic Frontier Foundation reported Tuesday. One company, Irvine Company Retail Properties, operates malls all over the state using a security network called Vigilant Solutions. Vigilant shares data with hundreds of law enforcement agencies, insurance companies, and debt collectors -- including ICE, which signed a contract with the security company earlier this year, reports The Verge. "[Irvine Company] is putting not only immigrants at risk, but invading the privacy of its customers by allowing a third-party to hold onto their data indefinitely," EFF wrote in its report, urging the chain of malls to stop providing information to ICE.

Comments

Re:So, "immigrants"?

[Oswald McWeany]

My wife is an immigrant, is she at risk?

"Immigrants" don't have anything to worry about unless they're also "illegal".

For now that's true; however we've seen how nationalistic and bigotry have led to problems in other countries. Be it early 20th century Zimbabwe, or 1930's Germany, or... modern day Israel. Being a legal immigrant isn't always a guarantee that things won't eventually go pear-shaped if a worrying trend of nationalism or bigotry is left unchecked. You never know when overzealous action against illegals will change to outright hostility to all imigrants Especially if you're tracking a database of immigrant movements (even legal ones).

We have over 2000 years of history where immigrants have suddenly been turned on by their hosts. Earliest example I can think of is before the Pontic wars when Mithridates decided there were too many Romans living in his lands and had them all killed one night.

You could probably find dozens of examples throughout history of times when anti-immigrant sentiment suddenly resulted in a reverse of status of peoples settled in a region (frequently there originally with the blessing of the government). Fortunately, I think there are too many stable people in the US to allow this to happen now- but put a few more people like Trump in positions of power and you could find legal immigrants having their legal status reversed.

Technically, any legal infraction is reason enough to allow someone to have their legal status revoked. In today's surveillance state, it wouldn't be hard to get anyone booked on some obscure law.