Security News > 2022 > May > ICE Is a Domestic Surveillance Agency

Georgetown has a new report on the highly secretive bulk surveillance activities of ICE in the US:. When you think about government surveillance in the United States, you likely think of the National Security Agency or the FBI. You might even think of a powerful police agency, such as the New York Police Department.

Our two-year investigation, including hundreds of Freedom of Information Act requests and a comprehensive review of ICE's contracting and procurement records, reveals that ICE now operates as a domestic surveillance agency.

Since its founding in 2003, ICE has not only been building its own capacity to use surveillance to carry out deportations but has also played a key role in the federal government's larger push to amass as much information as possible about all of our lives.

By reaching into the digital records of state and local governments and buying databases with billions of data points from private companies, ICE has created a surveillance infrastructure that enables it to pull detailed dossiers on nearly anyone, seemingly at any time.

ICE has built its dragnet surveillance system by crossing legal and ethical lines, leveraging the trust that people place in state agencies and essential service providers, and exploiting the vulnerability of people who volunteer their information to reunite with their families.

Despite the incredible scope and evident civil rights implications of ICE's surveillance practices, the agency has managed to shroud those practices in near-total secrecy, evading enforcement of even the handful of laws and policies that could be invoked to impose limitations.

News URL

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2022/05/ice-is-a-domestic-surveillance-agency.html