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Prank Calls Brought ICE Hotline To a Standstill, Internal Emails Show (theverge.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: When ICE launched an immigration crime hotline last year, the Trump administration pitched it as a way to provide resources to victims, but activists saw something else: an attack on the immigrant community. The hotline was part of the Victims Of Immigration Crime Engagement (VOICE) Office, an outfit established in February 2017. When the office first launched a line for its services the following April, protestors flooded the hotline to call in pranks and slow down response times. The plan picked up even more steam as the protestors shared the hotline number online, encouraging others to call in with fake tips.
According to internal emails and documents obtained by The Verge under the Freedom of Information Act, prank calls fully upended the system, leaving operators unable to answer more than 98 percent of incoming calls during the protest as the media relations team attempted to contain the narrative. In reports and emails produced in the first days of operation, ICE officials described an "overwhelming" amount of calls. The day after the launch, the office received more than 16,400. Of those, only a little more than 2,100 were placed into a queue, and only 260 answered. Callers in the queue waited as long as 79 minutes to reach an operator. An official noted that, should the rate of calls continue, they would need an additional 400 operators to field the hotline.
According to internal emails and documents obtained by The Verge under the Freedom of Information Act, prank calls fully upended the system, leaving operators unable to answer more than 98 percent of incoming calls during the protest as the media relations team attempted to contain the narrative. In reports and emails produced in the first days of operation, ICE officials described an "overwhelming" amount of calls. The day after the launch, the office received more than 16,400. Of those, only a little more than 2,100 were placed into a queue, and only 260 answered. Callers in the queue waited as long as 79 minutes to reach an operator. An official noted that, should the rate of calls continue, they would need an additional 400 operators to field the hotline.
Now this sounds like a fun AI voice challenge: something to weed out the protesting trolls and drop them into queues where they think they're tying up the lines, while allowing people who really have a complaint through, using a mix of incoming phone number, question/response with caller and perhaps other input. Same thing with tips.
Ah, 1968, halcyon days...
On April 4, Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated.
The Orangeburg Massacre on February 18.
The Black Panthers emerged, with their own special brand of protests.
Bobby Kennedy was assassinated on June 5.
And the Democrat Party National Convention, a festival of peace and nonviolence. Not.
Yeah, we need more of that like we need a new strain of smallpox.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
If you dont clean up the sugar spilled on the middle of the floor and spend all your time putting ant shield around the house you would be called an idiot.
But... all the outrage shown by these people against illegal immigration is fake. They want cheap strawberries and cheap fast food and cheap lawn mowing and cheap home construction. If they are really against illegal immigration they will prosecute the employers.
As a concrete contractor who only hires legal workers, I welcome this wholeheartedly.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
What's your point?
They came in legally back then.
How many other 1891 era laws do you want to go back to?