The mass surveillance of innocent Americans continues as George Orwell’s 1984 becomes more of a reality with each passing day. “All told, we are barreling toward a future where every ritual of public life carries implicit consent to be surveilled,” writes Sidney Fussell for The Atlantic.
A new report from Georgetown Law‘s Center on Privacy & Technology (CPT) suggests that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) may be using the rampant problem of illegal immigration as a type of cover to track and spy on Americans in violation of their Fourth Amendment rights. Three years ago, the center revealed that nearly half of all U.S. adults are already in the FBI’s facial-recognition database, which is largely sourced from DMV photos.
ICE has apparently requested special access to Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) databases in at least three states – Utah, Washington State, and Vermont – which the federal agency plans to use in conjunction with facial-recognition technology to scan people’s drivers’ license photos and match them against criminal and residency databases, all without their knowledge or consent.
Mass Surveillance: The Pentagon Can Now ID You By Your Heartbeat With A Laser
The documents uncovered this week are the first confirmation that states have granted ICE specifically, not just the FBI, access to those databases.
This Vigilant Solutions database facilitates ICE’s efforts to track people’s movements by allowing the agency to analyze data on where their license plates have been spotted by Vigilant’s network of license plate-reading spy cameras, which are present not only on roadways but also at malls.
To American patriots still thinking inside the box, granting ICE access to such data might seem like nothing but a good thing, seeing as how at least 22 million illegal aliens are currently living in America without permission. But once this pandora’s box of privacy is breached in the name of fighting illegal immigration, it can very quickly be abused as a means to violate the privacy rights of all Americans. –Natural News
The same is true for any other law enforcement agency that’s given access to things like people’s private DMV information, which can very easily be abused for the purpose of conducted searches without a probable cause or a proper warrant. “In effect, these license databases have become criminal databases, each search justified by the chance that someone documented there is guilty of crime,” Fussell contends. “Everyone in them has become a suspect.”
The Omnipresent Surveillance State: Orwell’s Future Is Our Present Reality
Written 70 years ago, 1984 was George Orwell’s chilling prophecy about the future. And while 1984 has come and gone, his dystopian vision of a government that will do anything to control the narrative is timelier than ever…
“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”
