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A new investigation reveals the immigration agency has collected data on most Americans. Its the latest case in a worrying trend.

By Farrah Hassen / OtherWords

Growing up in the Southern California suburbs, government surveillance never worried me. But my Syrian-American parents were more cautious. They would often warn me against talking about politics over the phone in case Big Brother was snooping.

As a teenager, I dismissed their concerns. Listen, were not in the Middle East, I would counter.

My parents knew better though. I soon received a rude awakening in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks.

Almost 1,200 people, mostly Muslims, wererounded upand detained after the attacks, often for months without charges. Arabs and South Asians wereracially profiledand deported for minor immigration violations. The FBI begansurveillingmosques across America.

As part of the homeland security reforms following 9/11, Congress created the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency in 2003 to ostensibly fight terrorism and enforce immigration law. But the truth is, ICE went on to use its newly established authority to spy on nearly everyone in the United States.

An independent, two-year investigation has now revealed that ICE collected data onhundreds of millions of Americansunder a legally and ethically questionable surveillance system largely outside of public oversight.

Georgetown Laws Center on Privacy and Technologyuncovered this dragnet after filing over 200 Freedom of Information Act requests and reviewing ICEs contracting records from 2008 to 2021.

In itsreport, released May 10, the Center found that ICE has spied onmost Americanswithout a warrant and circumvented many state privacy laws, such as those in California. The authors conclude: ICE now operates as a domestic surveillance agency.

ICE hascarried out this surveillanceby turning to third parties like state Departments of Motor Vehicles, large utility companies, and private data brokers like LexisNexis Risk Solutions.

From these sources, ICE gained access todrivers license datafor 3 in 4 adults living in the United States, and scanned a third of the license photos withfacial recognitiontechnology. ICE is also able to view over 218 millionutility customers recordsacross the country, including for over half of Californias residents.

This surveillance network has unsurprisingly hit immigrant communities hardest. The agency has targeted immigrants for deportation by cruelly exploiting their trust in public institutions, such as when undocumented people apply for adrivers licenseor sign up for essentialutilitieslike water and electricity.

These practices point to an agency that has clearly overstepped its boundaries. ICE does not have the congressional authority to do this kind of bulk data collection on the public. This overreach underscores the need to shift U.S. immigration law away from the deportation-driven status quo.

Unfortunately, this ICE program isnt an isolated case. Its part of a broader domestic surveillance apparatus that spans decades and multiple federal agencies including theFBI, CIA, and NSA and ultimately impacts all of us.

During the 1960s and 70s,federal agencies spied on anti-Vietnam War protesters and civil rights leaders. More recently, in 2013 whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed that the National Security Agency created a massive surveillance program thatsecretly gathered telephone recordson millions of Americans, regardless of whether they were suspected of any wrongdoing.

And this February, newly declassifieddocumentsexposed the CIAs ownsecret bulk data collection programto spy on Americans. The type of data remains classified, but Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Martin Heinrich (D-NM) havecalledfor greater transparency on the agencys surveillance of Americans.

We should all be alarmed by this growing domestic surveillance state. Left unchecked, it corrodes public trust in our democratic institutions and undermines our civil liberties, most notably the embattled right to privacy.

The history of government surveillance demonstrates that we can never take this right for granted.

Farrah Hassen, J.D., is a writer, policy analyst, and adjunct professor in the Department of Political Science at Cal Poly Pomona.

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Excerpt from:
ICE Probably Spied on You - Scheerpost.com