When it can be assumed that you are being surveilled while expressing negative opinion about the federal government, it’s probably best to go ahead and make the assumption, particularly during the punitive heights of the second Donald Trump administration. New reporting from the Associated Press this weekend detailed some aspects of not only United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) latest anti-immigrant and deportation campaign in New Orleans, but also some interesting insights into how both the federal and state law enforcement agencies involved have been engaged in online surveillance campaigns to track public sentiment toward that crackdown. The story paints a chilling profile of a United States in which dissent against the regime’s campaign of immigrant-targeted cruelty is being carefully compiled, filed away for the potential of future use against American citizens. Not that any of this should be a surprise for any of us. We have, after all, been warned over and over that organizations like ICE have been wanting to vastly expand their online operations, using the same vastly expanded budget that recently saw them purchase a new $7.3 million fleet of (Canadian made) armored vehicles. The online expansion of ICE, meanwhile, is not just in the name of locating more groups of undocumented immigrants to target, but also to compile sprawling digital enemies lists, creating databases of those who have expressed anti-ICE sentiment. Earlier this year, The Intercept wrote about surveillance contractors sought by ICE, who would be expected to perform algorithm- and AI-aided deep dives into social media users’ post histories, searching for, among other things, “proclivity for violence,” which could include “empathy with a group which has violent tendencies,” among other things. Hope you haven’t expressed “empathy” at any point for any group with “violent tendencies,” right? How does it feel to know that you’d be at the mercy of a freelance surveillance contractor’s mastery of “social and behavioral sciences” and “psychological profiles,” according to ICE’s statement of objectives? How much of these draconian operations have already been implemented isn’t entirely clear thanks to the shroud of secrecy surrounding the DHS and ICE, but fresh reporting in October noted that ICE was in the process of seeking an additional 30 full-time surveillance contractors to staff two of its “targeting centers”–and yes, that is apparently the official, deeply dystopian term for these facilities. These facilities, in Williston, VT and Santa Ana, CA, would run 24/7 shifts as surveillance analysts “receive tips and incoming cases, research individuals online, and package the results into dossiers that could be used by field offices to plan arrests.” The obvious question: How long until the same resources are being used to target those critical of ICE, or those organizing to impede ICE crackdown efforts, under the guise of “interference with law enforcement operations”? It should also be noted that even if ICE isn’t directly targeting those individuals yet, the unspoken threat of this kind of online surveillance could be intended to have a chilling effect on anti-ICE criticism.

If ICE wants to crack down on people’s 1A rights then they may quickly be finding issues with the 5A folks. Well, in some states anyways.

If ICE wants to crack down on people’s 1A rights… …As if those rights even exist anymore outside of a dead letter.

Cops seem to be justified in shooting and killing people that just show a gun in their own house after they break down the wrong door(or the right one). 2A rights don’t really exist either.

Rights always exist. They come from God or Nature. Our fellow men either respect or ignore those rights. But even ignoring a right or disrespecting it doesn’t make the right just vanish. It is not our fellows who give us rights. Nor can our fellows take them away.

They come from God or Nature. Bullshit. Gods aren’t real and nature gives nothing.

Rights as a concept I described correctly. I have my interests and my dignity. I prosecute my interests. Where did I get all that from? Interests and dignity, what is that if not another way to describe rights? The fact that I will prosecute and defend those regardless of your opinion, what is that? Rights again. When we say Nature “gives” we don’t mean it transfers something to us. It’s just a way of saying we have some qualities or properties as beings by way of simply us being what we are. In this case “gives” is not literal. As for Gods not being real, I won’t bother arguing for God being real in the interests of time. I purposely included Nature as an alternative to God.