Trump’s ICE expands spy arsenal: report
President Donald Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, ICE, is reportedly rapidly amassing surveillance technology — including iris scanners, facial recognition software, and drones — which could be used to track not only undocumented immigrants, but also to target members of “Antifa,” which the president has sought to label a “domestic terrorist organization.”
According to a report by The Washington Post, ICE also has technology to monitor individuals’ cellphone activity and location data, physical movements, social media posts — and even software that can hack cellphones remotely.
Some of the tools ICE has acquired include “cellphone location software that can enable the tracking of a phone’s movements without a court warrant.” The Post added that “federal contracts show ICE has been expanding its fleet of small, remote-controlled drones, which it has said it is using to film protesters.”
“Trump and other administration officials have used the term ‘antifa’ broadly to refer to protesters outside of ICE detention centers,” the Post noted, adding that “documents show that some of the technology may also be used to target what the administration regards as anti-ICE extremist groups.”
In his September executive order, President Trump alleged, “Antifa is a militarist, anarchist enterprise that explicitly calls for the overthrow of the United States Government, law enforcement authorities, and our system of law. It uses illegal means to organize and execute a campaign of violence and terrorism nationwide to accomplish these goals.”
According to the Brennan Center for Justice, as “both former FBI Director Chris Wray and the Congressional Research Service have explained, antifa is not a group or an organization, but a decentralized movement.”
ICE’s acting director Todd M. Lyons recently vowed to use special agents and criminal investigators “to track the money” and “to track these ringleaders.”
The Post added that “Democratic lawmakers, civil rights watchdogs and former officials have expressed concern that ICE now has a green light not only to monitor immigrant communities, but also to carry out broad surveillance of Americans exercising their First Amendment right to oppose government action.”
“I’m extremely concerned about how ICE will use spyware, facial recognition and other technology to further trample on the rights of Americans and anyone who Donald Trump labels as an enemy,” said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) in a statement to The Post.
