A Boring Dystopia

What’s new is that the federal government now openly says it will use its supercharged spy capabilities to target people who oppose ICE’s actions. Labeled as “domestic terrorists” by the administration, these targets include anti-ICE protesters and anyone who allegedly funds them — all of them part of a supposed left-wing conspiracy to violently oppose the president’s agenda.

ICE has powerful tools to crack down on people opposing the administration’s policies. It can trawl the internet for people holding anti-ICE views. It can track the locations where protesters and activists gather and identify their networks of friends and family. It can identify protesters using facial recognition. It may even be able to hack into phones. Information collected through these tools will be added to the Department of Homeland Security’s vast stores of information for potential future use. And all these data streams can be combined to develop detailed dossiers on people who are not suspected of any crime.

For too long, laws have failed to keep up with surveillance technology. Many are decades old and designed to prevent the government from listening to landline phone calls or reading emails. They do not protect free speech and privacy rights against persistent surveillance through social media monitoring, facial recognition, and location tracking. As a result, the government can easily turn these tools against anyone and everyone, with scant safeguards. Now, ICE is announcing that it plans to make this risk a reality for the swath of Americans who oppose the Trump administration’s agenda.