The Department of Homeland Security uses an expanded monitoring network to identify people facing deportation orders, but in practice it is also used to watch journalists and activist circles, the report said.
Media have described agents photographing faces and license plates and suggesting they know targets’ home addresses, while lawyers have flagged covert biometric identification of their clients.
DHS has declined to disclose operational tactics, and immigration leadership has denied the existence of a database of protesters. The report said agents use a facial-recognition app called Mobile Fortify, and border authorities work with Clearview AI, which holds billions of images from the internet.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement can also aggregate data from motor vehicle agencies and utility bills, enabling it to locate most citizens, NPR reported.
Nathan Wessler of the Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at the American Civil Liberties Union said the public still does not know the true scope of the surveillance.
“It’s dangerous that people don’t know what’s happening. Nobody should live in uncertainty about whether they are merely being intimidated or subjected to invasive biometric scanning,” Wessler said.
Civil liberties advocates warned that growing use of surveillance technology threatens online free speech. Steve Loney of the ACLU’s Pennsylvania affiliate said a pattern has emerged targeting critics of immigration enforcement.
“It seems the pattern is: as soon as people become outspoken critics of what is happening in immigration law enforcement, they get an email from the company running their social media service saying the government has demanded access to their data,” he said.
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Source: PAP