(I have a very hard time to distinguish both in my memory since they were so similar in their themes)
Source? Where would they get the fingerprints from?
With all the trade in personal data in the US I assume it's only a matter of time before places like grocery stores start selling it.
Why stop at just gait though? Geometric fingerprinting of various body parts is also possible. Palm geometry readers have been commonplace for a long time.
Going out on a limb and guessing illegal migrants aren’t going through airport security.
But suppose there's no hit. That's a hit in and of itself. Someone just needs to have the idea to have the software that ICE agents use flag anyone who fails all recognition methods (facial, gate, etc) because it means they haven't been through an airport, haven't crossed a border in a legal manner, don't have a passport, and don't show up with any of the data brokers.
Wrong appendages, unless I don't know what "gait" means
Perhaps "profile" might work?
Home Depot was already selling at least some of this to Meta in 2023 https://strategyonline.ca/2023/01/26/home-depot-found-to-hav...
Where does the initial iris data come from? Is this actually collected now?
I would assume Iris scanners are normal - but I couldn't find anything to corroborate that for immigration control in NZ (legally they can, and I thought the equipment did, but I couldn't verify).
The customs line have been doing much more rigorous face scanning for a while now.
I have a bridge to sell anyone who thinks those are deleted after use.
I bet the airports are additionally recording gait using overhead cameras.
Visa photos. DACA applications [1]. Basically anyone who trusted the government at any point in the past.
It won't catch cartel members. But cocaine seems to be the one thing whose price this administration has driven down [2].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deferred_Action_for_Childhood_...
[2] https://www.wsj.com/world/americas/mexico-drugs-cartel-osegu... "Cocaine prices have fallen by nearly half to around $60 to $75 a gram compared with five years ago"
Over one million Afghanis voluntarily gave America their iris biometrics; now the Taliban has that data. US military negligently failed to secure it. Lists of American collaborators' biometrics and everything.
https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/taliban-afghanistan-biome... ("Taliban likely to have access to biometric databases of Afghan civilians who helped US" (2021))
The difference here is that some people consider "illegal immigration" to be more like a misdemeanor, others consider it to be something much more serious.
That's the problem with dragnet surveillance. People are okay with it for extreme cases. And then the scope creeps.
Free or secure. You can't have both. And you usually can't even have just the latter.
Agreed and wanted to add. If it exists, can do the job, and the person in charge is aware of it, then it will inevitably be used. There's no such thing as "only for certain situations" unless there is a large inherent cost to using it outside of the proscribed scenario.
If you mandate the placement of fireman's axes by every door, at some point someone is going to use one of them to commit murder or vandalism or some other crime. There is effectively nothing that can be done to prevent that other than choosing not to mandate their placement.
laws are knowable. readable. Opinion on them does NOT matter.
Quick, does the First Amendment allow the government to place any restrictions on speech? The words are right there for the reading and knowing, so that should be a simple question, surely?
We have limited funds for social safety nets for our own citizens: how is it not "serious" that we would deplete them on folks who are willfully and intentionally breaking our rules for financial benefit?
Deep down you know it's not true and it's not being used this way.
Clean yourself and your soul.
- Illegal immigrants make the choice to come to the United States for financial enrichment: jobs, handouts. Are you disputing this?
- The United States has a notoriously weak social safety net relative to other countries: this is not a disputed fact.
- We do not have an unlimited amount of resources: sorry, this is reality, not socialist fantasyland.
- Most US citizens do not cover their overall per capita government tax expenditures: illegals certainly don't.
Illegal immigrants are absolutely a net-negative financial, quality-of-life drain on society at large.
If it's weak social safety net then why would the immigrants choose this country for financial benefit? You're contradicting yourself right in the next bullet point.
They came here for the American Dream, which is about finding a new life free from oppression against all odds. It's what this country is built on. There's nothing more patriotic than welcoming the oppressed with open arms and helping them build a new life. It's what happened when your ancestors came to this country.
Really? None are paid under the table? Who pays their ER bills when they break their arm while performing illegal farm labor, for instance?
> If it's weak social safety net then why would the immigrants choose this country for financial benefit? You're contradicting yourself right in the next bullet point.
Because it's better than from wherever they came? These goals aren't incompatible. Jobs are reason enough, free shit is icing on the cake.
> They came here for the American Dream,
Breaking the law in the process, and pissing on everyone who bothered to obtain it legally.
> It's what happened when your ancestors came to this country.
My ancestors weren't given free shit upon arrival - you can have a welfare system or open borders, not both.
who pays bills of citizens w/o insurance that are rushed to the emergency room?
> My ancestors weren't given free shit upon arrival
you sure about that?
We're all the same people, stop hating.
Proportionately far fewer, obviously? What? Are you going to honestly try and argue in good faith that per capita, people already breaking laws with no legal means to work are paying taxes at the same rate? Either way: it doesn't matter!
> who pays bills of citizens w/o insurance that are rushed to the emergency room?
Guess what? - and this might be a hard pill to swallow: we don't owe foreigners anything.
Your argument distills down to: "there are some citizen lawbreakers, too, so a few more shouldn't hurt!"
> you sure about that?
Social security among other things didn't exist, so, yeah, I am very sure about that.
> We're all the same people, stop hating.
Not wanting to finance unskilled lawbreakers at the expense of my own people is not "hate" - sorry!
This isn't true, it's a pillar of the USA to harbor refugees and welcome immigrants. It's our entire history. It's our entire identity.
> Proportionately far fewer, obviously
I dont think so. There's a lot of people in this country, far more citizens than illegal immigrants.
> Not wanting to finance unskilled lawbreakers
capital punishment for every crime if you dont have a degree? what are you arguing?
yes, the argument is immigrants and citizens aren't different. we're all people
All of these dreamy tales are from before the New Deal for a reason.
> I dont think so. There's a lot of people in this country, far more citizens than illegal immigrants.
The word "proportionately" means something: if you believe that the same percentage of illegal immigrants pay taxes as legal citizens, you are definitively wrong. Legal immigrants probably pay taxes at a higher rate (by systemic design), but there's simply no way this is true for border hoppers.
> capital punishment for every crime if you dont have a degree? what are you arguing?
Deportation is not capital punishment!
So why invite more?
> Also "your people" are immigrants
Stop conflating legal and illegal immigrants: this strategy doesn't work as well in writing.
And how well do deported people fair? Sometimes they'll be returned to dangerous situations they were fleeing, sometimes to impoverished areas, sometimes even to prisons. I'm guessing some do end up dead. Even for those who manage, some might never see family members again.
I don't care if "many" people do anything: if they are here without status, they should be removed post haste.
I mean - source? Or are we just talking out of our asses?
Just intuitively, most immigrants pay taxes because they work regular jobs. And they're exempt from most social safety nets, too. How are they a net negative? Aren't we, basically, exploiting them, and not the other way around?
I live in Texas, and looking around, I'm gonna tell you right now it's not fatass white people pouring pavement or building homes. It's laborers who, I'm assuming, may or may not have immigrated illegally from Latin America and may or may not be paid a fair wage.
Source? Or are we just talking out of our asses? "Most" means something.
> And they're exempt from most social safety nets, too
Emergency rooms, census, etc. all still apply.
> How are they a net negative?
- Remittances directly take money out of our economy
- Per capita, as with most citizens, they cannot and do not pay their percentage of the government tax burden
- Free use of our social safety nets - ERs, many local government services, schools, etc.
- No community ties: if an illegal immigrant messes up, they can just move on the same way they came in.
- Directly stress an already-strained housing supply (inb4 'they do construction so they increase the supply!')
> Aren't we, basically, exploiting them
Yes! This is bad and needs to stop: by exploiting them (slave labor), we're additionally harming our most vulnerable part of the population - our own unskilled/impoverished workers.
> I'm gonna tell you right now it's not fatass white people pouring pavement or building homes
Because they are being undercut by illegal labor with no protections and lower wages? How is "we need slave labor!" a valid argument?
I just don't see how they're a strain on us, like, at all. And I actually live in Texas. Yes there's a lot of theories and conjecture, but I think most of it is, frankly, made up.
It's trivial, truly trivial, to eradicate illegal immigration for good. Just make a law where if you hire an illegal immigrant, your executives go to jail. The problem would solve itself expiditiously.
But the GOP would never propose anything close to that, because they don't want to reduce illegal immigrantation. They don't. It's one of their greatest vectors of exploitation and one of the few factors that makes some red states economically viable.
So, if you're operating under the assumption ANY of this is for the purpose of reducing illegal immigration, you've been conned.
As Benjamin Franklin put it: those who give up essential liberty for temporary security deserve neither. The tradeoff rarely feels extreme at the time. It feels reasonable. By the time it isn’t, there’s no way back.
Cars — essential for leveraging time to travel longer distances and carrying multiple passengers and heavy loads; ens up being used by one person to drive three minutes to get coffee.
Guns — to quickly précis a … complex topic: good guys, but also bad guys.
Electricity — power generation goes up decade after decade, but so too does consumption with wasteful consumption going hand in hand with productive consumption.
As you might be able to tell, I think the answer to the question “how do we stop technology X from destroying us?” lies in licensing and regulation enacted through legislation.
Surveillance is different. It’s inherently centralized and asymmetrical. By design, it gives one side - the state or large institutions - persistent visibility into everyone else, with little reciprocity. You can regulate how it’s used on paper, but the power imbalance remains.
It’s closer to nuclear technology than to cars or electricity. I can’t build a nuclear weapon or possess fissile material, not because it’s inefficient, but because some technologies are considered too dangerous to be broadly accessible. Mass surveillance belongs in that category. Once it exists, citizens don’t get to opt out, and meaningful oversight tends to lag far behind capability.
Licensing works when the technology is decentralized. With surveillance, the risk isn’t misuse at the edges - it’s concentration at the center.
In the golden age of the 90's we were able to ban CFCs, but I'm skeptical we could do that today. We no longer have that political ability, and I doubt we will get it back any time soon.
Any mechanism, once built, seeks to expand its scope. Until it delivers mail ;)
The peer-reviewed consensus of this in psychology describes a three-step internal process of Anticipatory Anxiety, Risk Aversion and Self-Censorship [1]. The Conforming Effect (Conformity Theory) has been measured in studies such as those by Jonathon Penney (2016/2021), where use of Wikipedia data and search traffic shows a statistical drop in "sensitive" searches (e.g., about "terrorism," "human rights," or "health") immediately following news of government surveillance. [2]
[1] Surveillance as a Socio-Technical System: Behavioral Impacts and Self-Regulation in Monitored Environments, https://www.mdpi.com/2079-8954/13/7/614
[2] Chilling Effects: Online Surveillance and Wikipedia Use, https://lawcat.berkeley.edu/record/1127413?v=pdf
We don’t yet have long-run examples of fully algorithmic surveillance societies, so the outcome isn’t certain. But if these dynamics scale, the risk is trading experimentation for legibility. Problems get hidden, metrics look clean, and warning signals vanish. When real stress hits, responses are late and blunt - overcorrection, cascading failures, accelerated exit. Stability holds until it doesn’t.
It's sad, but not surprising, to see. We'll design the most secure systems with the new shiny just to confirm whether the government believes you should be able post on Reddit or not.
And every step of the way the enablers will defend it on the grounds of "well you still technically can do the thing if you're willing to put up with some absurd risks or jump through some insane and impractical hoops specifically designed to be non-starters for many/most."
Heck, drop into any comment section about transportation infrastructure or environmental policy (or a few years ago public health policy as well) and there's all sorts of evil mustache twirling going on about how to use basically the same sort of technologies to deploy state violence in pursuit of some goal and they are either unable or unwilling to think a few steps ahead see that what they're advocating for will over time if not quickly lead to dark places as policy and priorities change incrementally.
As I'm concerned the people who are happy to peddle this stuff when it suits them are just as complicit as the people who are cheering for it right now when it's being used for "obviously bad" things.
>As Benjamin Franklin put it: those who give up essential liberty for temporary security deserve neither. The tradeoff rarely feels extreme at the time. It feels reasonable. By the time it isn’t, there’s no way back.
This quote is like a lightening rod for exactly the kind of people I'm talking about.
Specifically paragraphs:
127. A technological advance that appears not to threaten freedom often turns out to threaten it very seriously later on. ...
128. While technological progress AS A WHOLE continually narrows our sphere of freedom, each new technical advance CONSIDERED BY ITSELF appears to be desirable. ...
129. Another reason why technology is such a powerful social force is that, within the context of a given society, technological progress marches in only one direction; it can never be reversed. ...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/unab...
We can blame autocrats while also blaming the complicit tools. In Grand Rapids, Michigan yesterday the local police arrested the organizer of a protest against the invasion of Venezuela while she was on camera interviewing with the local news for "obstructing a roadway" (marching in a lane with other lanes open to traffic) and "disobeying a lawful command".
When we have local beat cops colluding with national secret police and suppressing dissent, we have a very serious problem and are running out of options very quickly.
To me, the more interesting question would be: why is law enforcement getting away with so much as of late? And the answer ties back to the current administration and the signicant part of the population behind them. If so many americans weren't cheering on ICE and cie., none of this would fly and it would blow over almost immediately. You get authoritarianism when authoritarian thinking wins. Authoritarian thinking wins when complex socio-political and socio-economical reasons I don't care to go into today.
The main thing I'm trying to say here, I guess, is that I reject the slippery slope fallacy ("get age verification today, get 1984 tomorrow"). If you want to fight authoritarian practices, find their source and fight that instead (the "how" is left as an exercise to the reader).
[0] https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/394/721/ ("Davis v. Mississippi (1969)")
Americans don't want to expend their tax dollars on folks willing to break the law for financial gain.
So stupid.
Sad, sick people. No empathy. No heart.
Why is importing unskilled foreigners the hill to die on?
Why should some be allowed to skip the line? If they are skilled, H-1B, O-1, etc. visas should be obtainable.
There's no implicit right to migrate wherever one chooses regardless of the laws of that country, sorry!
$170B should make a big dent! Southern border encounters are way down: I think it's working!
Criminal removals should be expedited, no doubt, but even visa overstays should be met with prompt deportation.
Removals of those with legal status should be corrected! I can simultaneously agree with you on this point and believe that all illegal immigrants should be removed! - this is actually the most fair and just solution to those who bothered to wait in line and follow the proper procedures!
Yes, I'm not. The Administration is.
Removing people is cruel. I doubt most deserve it, in fact I know most don't. Deport the actual criminals, sure. That's not what is happening today.
Ideally there is no "line." Proper procedures should be easy. If people are crossing the rivers and crawling through razor wire to get here then the policies make it too hard to enter the country. There's also a good excuse of being afraid of authority. So if they did cross the border improperly (not a criminal offense, btw), I would still like to hear them out and get them documented. Fine them, like the law says.
This is an opinion.
> not a criminal offense, btw
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1325
You were saying?
> Fine them
The law also says "jail them" - let's just deport them and save the cash.
Traffic ticket makes you a criminal? Deport you for speeding?
> The law also says "jail them" - let's just deport them
How about we follow the law. You're the one that cared so much about lawbreakers. Stop being cruel.
Maybe read or ask an LLM to summarize part (a) for you? Civil penalties are in addition to the criminal ones - reading can be tough, I know.
Please stick to the point and tell us - if this is your concern then why are you cheering on the large-scale openly criminal enterprise ? The total criminality and total cost of illegal (illegible!) immigrants is dwarfed by the current regime trashing our Constitution, trashing our economy, ballooning the debt, and trashing our standing as world leader, all to put our wealth in their own pockets. So please again, tell us, if this is really your actual concern why are you continuing to cheer support for the absolute worst offenders? Because they pointed at some outgroups and told you to distract yourself with them? Try having some self-respect.
By encouraging illegal immigration ("sanctuary cities"), you can "buy" depressed wages for the portion of society in need of the most help, House seats, electoral votes, and voters at the expense of the nation's citizenry at large.
> political districts count illegal immigrants for purposes of representation (census)
> you can "buy" depressed wages for portion of society in need of the most help, House seats, electoral votes
Your first sentence implies that the problem is representation of such areas going up. Your second sentence implies that the problem is representation of such areas is going down. Which is it? Because really, it feels like this is the minimally-defensible remnant of the nonsense trope that illegible immigrants are voting - essentially handwaving implying "bad people" are responsible for creating our bad outcomes, rather than the reality that our political candidates are a race to the bottom and that our government has become wholly bought by corporate interests (open season under Trump). Reassigning a few House seats is rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic - we're going to be paying for this Trumpist tantrum for decades, assuming we can even right the ship afterwards.
(also I will note that you have tacitly agreed that the current regime is a massive criminal enterprise stealing our "tax dollars" and accumulated national wealth)
1. I actually believe in many of these lofty ideals that are being dishonestly abused by the fascists.
2. Discussing things in terms of abstract ideals is a Schelling point that at least creates a chance for people from disparate tribes to find common ground.
3. There are other people reading along that might be swayed by the disingenuous chaff standing unquestioned.
4. I'd say it's going too far to write off most people spouting this nonsense as fully consciously aware of a contradictory agenda they keep hidden. I'd say it's more like they bought into feel-good nonsense posed as opposition to the blue head of the authoritarian hydra, and then basically haven't examined it too hard. And I'd say much of the opposition groupthink framed in terms of directly clashing overt values doesn't help either. So I think it's valuable to point out the glaring hypocrisy even if many of them have learned to revel in it.
Then why do they keep electing the lackeys of those people into office.
The American people are idiots.
At the expense of legal immigrants who bothered to do it the right way.
Law enforcement isn't free, unfortunately.
> Every study ever conducted on the issue has concluded that undocumented immigrants contribute far more to the economy than they consume in public welfare dollars
Some of these studies exist for legal immigrants, cite the one making this case for illegals?
Do these "studies" account for second-order effects on housing, local job markets, etc.?
Yes everything improves. Displaced workers find new jobs, markets and economies expand, etc. etc.
> At the expense of legal immigrants who bothered to do it the right way.
This is just nonsense, immigration isn't a zero-sum game.
> Some of these studies exist for legal immigrants, cite the one making this case for illegals?
Google it, I'm at work
edit: had a lull, here you go https://www.epi.org/publication/unauthorized-immigrants/
The money quote:
> If we examine just the net fiscal impact of unauthorized immigrants, even this is positive, despite the fact that lacking work authorization also means being trapped in low-wage work and being unable to adequately assert one’s labor and employment rights. A prime reason the net contribution is, nonetheless, positive is that many unauthorized immigrants pay income taxes and have Social Security taxes withheld yet are generally ineligible for government benefits and services.
How come it is at their expense? The end result is a growing economy which benefits everybody.
They didn't take Project 2025 or his alliance with the tech bros seriously. They didn't listen to former Trump officials who warned a second term would be a revenge tour and he would surround himself with loyalists and sycophants without anyone to hold his worst impulses in check. They didn't realize people like Stephen Miller would have such influence over his decisions. They didn't believe that Trump had such disregard for the rule of law and would actually prefer to rule like a king.
But people have been waking up to the new reality. Even some MAGA like MTG and podcasters like Rogan.
And that we don't have close to 100 million immigrants.
That the "kavanaugh stop" allows them to detain you on he basis of skin color or accent.
And that a driver's license with Real ID is no longer sufficient "papers".
I don't understand how the American public allows this administration to get away with half the shit it says and does. Every week is a new scandal.
KnuthIsGod•1mo ago
Now that we do this hundreds of times a day, it has become routine.
tartoran•1mo ago
SlightlyLeftPad•1mo ago
netsharc•1mo ago
The notion that future administrations won't be offshots of the current regime (again, why do you think laws regarding democracy, like fair elections, will be upheld?) is also too hopeful.
Happy new year!
otterley•1mo ago
(IAAL but this is not my primary field of expertise, and this is not legal advice.)
b112•1mo ago
And the latest admin is only a string in the ever increasing use of such tech.
It should be illegal, but people are deluded if they think it started here.
_delirium•1mo ago
I don't know if it's likely a court will do anything about this particular program, but from what I've read I don't think 4th amendment scholars think this area is at all settled.
otterley•1mo ago
More importantly, though, the cases so far have focused on the investigative activity that follows once a suspect has been identified. Here, we’re talking about de-anonymization: identifying one or more individuals who occupy a public space. AFAIK, the Court has never established a reasonable expectation of privacy of one’s identity in public. That will be a steep hill to climb.
bakies•1mo ago
otterley•1mo ago
reaperducer•1mo ago
Using facial recognition on people without their consent is illegal in a growing number of states.
Facebook lost a class-action lawsuit about this and I (and many other people) got a check for a little under $500.
otterley•1mo ago
> The settlement, announced Tuesday, does not act as an admission of guilt and Meta maintains no wrongdoing.
https://www.texastribune.org/2024/07/30/texas-meta-facebook-...
While you are correct that some states do regulate facial recognition, all they can do is regulate their own law enforcement and private entities doing business there. They cannot regulate the federal government (ICE and CBP are federal agencies).
wslh•1mo ago
golemiprague•1mo ago
thrance•1mo ago
FpUser•1mo ago
Normally questions like this would be labeled as whataboutism, false equivalence etc. One rule for thee, another one for me.
Personally I think we (The West) are heading to disaster. I really missed older times before 9/11
aurareturn•1mo ago
fc417fc802•1mo ago
Regardless, it's quite relevant to point out that at this point two of the world's superpowers are actively engaging in this. Claiming that the technology won't be used this way - that people are just fearmongering - clearly doesn't hold water. (Not that it ever did, but now we've got concrete evidence.)
FpUser•1mo ago
It is not, I said it is usually labeled as one here
expedition32•1mo ago
servo_sausage•1mo ago
So a system that supports the abduction of polital rivals (an actual human rights violation) is not the same as a system that supports the lawful arrest of someone breaking a law that's accepted as part of a democracy.
I also think the scale of investment plays a part, the investment in surveillance in China is absurd. Its a significant number of people (per capita) that do nothing but monitor people. These new systems are rather cheap; so much so that they feel a whole lot more inevitable.
kingkawn•1mo ago
concinds•1mo ago
mlrtime•1mo ago
This should be challenged in a court.
hwguy45•1mo ago
goatlover•1mo ago
I think it's cruel and inhuman to deport people already here unless they're engaged in criminal activities. Most of them are hard working people who gave up everything to flee bad circumstances in their home countries. We're a nation of immigrants.
You want the border secure, fine (I would prefer immigration reform since we have a large country and tons of economic opportunity migrants fulfill). But don't be so cruel as to support what ICE is doing to hard working people who have established lives here. Most of them are not criminals.
pandaman•1mo ago
mlrtime•1mo ago
Agreed on the reform, we are in a pendulum stage now where the previous admin let too many in without reform (The first 3 years) and how it's gone too far the other way.
heavyset_go•1mo ago
Asylum seekers are being abducted and deported to countries they have no ties to. It's perfectly legal to cross borders without inspection to seek asylum.
hwguy45•4w ago
And no, the vast majority are not overstays. Less than half are overstays that came here legally [0]. So 58% crossed the border illegally.
Asylum seekers have been coached on what to say to claim asylum. Few are seeking asylum at all. The system is obviously being abused when these people vacation back to their home country that was so "dangerous" they claimed asylum.
[0] https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R47848
mlrtime•3w ago
Why didn't the previous administrations change it? Perhaps next time they will?
hwguy45•4w ago
I think it's cruel and inhumane to let millions unvetted into our neighborhoods, schools, and communities.
It means less jobs for American young people. It means loss of culture and shared spaces. It means your kids can't play with their neighbors because they don't speak the same language.
It's weakness and we need to stop rationalizing it.
Would you want these people as your neighbor? Not speaking English? How about your whole town?
It's cruel. The modern left does not care about Americans, only the foreigners who can't build a safe and prosperous country of their own.
kingkawn•1mo ago
lostlogin•1mo ago
I’m not sure it is though, there are plenty of headlines about judicial orders being disregarded. This last few weeks it has been the required release of the Epstein papers, though that has been railroaded by a conveniently timed attack on a neighbour.
There are plenty of other examples.
15155•1mo ago
What is our legal or moral obligation to eviscerate our already-limited social safety net for outsiders who, by and large, do not contribute to them?
You are free to die on the cross and spend your income this way, but how is it "humane" to use violence (taxes) to reappropriate the fruits of my labor for your special interests?
kingkawn•1mo ago
15155•1mo ago
When an illegal immigrant making $2/hr under the table cuts his hand off at a meat packing plant, who pays the hospital bill? How many tax dollars does this one incident wipe out?
goatlover•1mo ago
A universal healthcare system would cover everyone in the country when it's needed. The US is a massive, highly developed economy, no reason we couldn't fund that.
Hikikomori•1mo ago
watwut•1mo ago
vkou•1mo ago
That is not the system that the US has had since 2025, and the executive has made it very clear that it is not the system that it wants the US to have.
Meanwhile, SCOTUS has made it very clear that nothing this executive does will have any consequences for it.
Rule of law is a fairy tale when ICE can snag anyone they want off the street and throw them into some CECOT torture pit.
Rule of law is a fairy tale when the executive disregards direct judicial orders.
heavyset_go•1mo ago
mindslight•1mo ago
oulipo2•1mo ago
fooker•1mo ago
Couldn’t have timed it better, we just pulled off the most high profile abduction of a geopolitical rival in history.
JumpCrisscross•1mo ago
We literally did the same thing in 1989 [1]. Russia planned to do it to Zelensky when they first invaded.
None of this makes it okay. But it's hyperbolic to say it's unprecedented, even in U.S. history.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_invasion_of_Pana...
FuturisticLover•1mo ago
fiyec30375•1mo ago
FuturisticLover•1mo ago
JumpCrisscross•1mo ago
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere" [1].
Beijing showed the way. We followed their path. Both are at fault.
[1] https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham....
lovich•1mo ago
lol, just like China invented social credit scores which are for social control and definitely not like US credit scores which are just good business sense
Edit: to be clear I am saying this from a US centric viewpoint. China is catching up but they’ve been behind us for over a century tech wise and the US has been really good at pioneering new forms of injustice. I’m laughing at the idea that we were trailing behind them on learning new for handling their population
JumpCrisscross•1mo ago
…yes. You don’t get your credit score dinged because you tweeted something naughty. You can be a felon with perfect credit.
lovich•1mo ago
Your credit score can be checked in multiple other situations that have nothing to do with you taking on debt, but still somehow your debt factors into the decision.
If you think there is no social control as part of this system, then you are just blind to the system you grew up in
JumpCrisscross•1mo ago
Sure. They’re evaluating your creditworthiness. What they’re not measuring is your political coherence or social “goodness.”
The closest thing we have to a social score is a criminal record.
lovich•1mo ago
Does the US system that gets used to influence your behavior also social control? yes
thrance•1mo ago
JumpCrisscross•1mo ago
I could really say the same to you. Emphasizing original sources, not summaries.
> In effect, it does little more than the US credit scores that inspired it
“Little more” does a lot of heavy lifting here.
The nuclear bomb was inspired by the explosive power of TNT.
lenocinor•1mo ago
lovich•1mo ago
It is infuriating to see my fellow countrymen criticize another system so heavily, when we are living under a largely similar system.
Especially after finding out that the current credit score system was only adopted in 1989, so it’s just another yoke millennials and younger have to live with, that our forefathers got to start their adult life without having to deal with
tomjakubowski•1mo ago
saubeidl•1mo ago
>You're thinking Chinese surveillance
>US-based surveillance helps victims and prevents more victims
https://xcancel.com/garrytan/status/1963310592615485955
American capitalists are ideologically driven hypocrites.
aurareturn•1mo ago
mizzao•1mo ago
In China government is controlled by chosen members of the ruling party who become wealthy through it;
In the US the government is controlled by billionaires who become powerful through it.
Neither is a "government by the people" nor a "democratic people's republic" and both are enacting more and more similar policies.