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ICE bought vehicles equipped with fake cell towers to spy on phones

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Re: ICE bought vehicles equipped with fake cell towers to spy on phones

#111

Post by JumpCrisscross »

cosmicgadget wrote: post #75
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "They want/intend to be a paramilitary organization therefore calling them wannabe paramilitaries isn't correct." (I never said what you’re falsely quoting.) An armed civilian organisation that wants to be—and behaves like—the military has satisfied the most important (and usually difficult to prove) requirement of paramilitarism. The only remaining question, if we’ve established intent, is capability. They obvious…

> Falsely quoting What's the acceptable notation for paraphrasing? I typically use > for quotes. Agreed, most of this is an unnecessary argument over terminology when I was simply calling them Temu Stasi. We'll see about the secret police thing, for now they seem to be just about getting their deportation bounties.

> What's the acceptable notation for paraphrasing?

No clue :P. But I think quotation marks should be saved for actual quotations, particularly in a threaded context. (Air quotes absolutely muddy the waters.)

Re: ICE bought vehicles equipped with fake cell towers to spy on phones

#112

Post by gruez »

fzeroracer wrote: post #50
gruez wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They're rounding up, detaining and arresting US citizens and destroying their property under the guise of sweeping illegal immigrants. What's the proportion of US citizens arrested compared to actual illegal immigrants?

I'm sorry, why does the proportion matter? What happened to the presumption of innocence? Are you saying you, personally, would be OK with being rounded up and arrested as long as they got X illegal immigrants along the way?

It matters because the wording of the OP implies they're targeting citizens, but in reality they're getting caught in the dragnet. That's regrettable, but it's unclear how it's worse than any other sort of law enforcement, which also have false positives. According to wikipedia the felony conviction rate in the US is only 68%, which implies for every 100 "criminals" that are arrested, there are 32 "innocent" people. That's probably far worse than ICE's rate of catching citizens, so does that mean we can call the entire US law enforcement apparatus a "paramilitary force"? One final thing to note, Canada's conviction rate is even lower at 62%, and China's is even higher at 99.975%.

Re: ICE bought vehicles equipped with fake cell towers to spy on phones

#113

Post by [deleted] »

nxobject wrote: post #81
auguzanellato wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another nice tool is CellGuard https://cellguard.seemoo.de/ It works on iOS devices without any extra hardware, even on non jailbroken devices, by analyzing baseband debug logs exported by the OS.

For what it’s worth, the authors note that since this is installed on a phone, by the time CellGuard has detected a rogue base station, it’s too late anyway.

[deleted]

Re: ICE bought vehicles equipped with fake cell towers to spy on phones

#114

Post by potato3732842 »

softwaredoug wrote: post #104
potato3732842 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's either right or wrong for ICE to run a dragnet through a city, cuffing everyone, checking their papers, as they hope to find someone undocumented. What does the fact that ICE is doing it to catch illegal matter? Because as far as I'm concerned ICE has no bearing on this. It's wrong no matter who does it or what their goals are. Being an illegal is barely a crime. Whoops, you overstayed your visa, big fucking de…

ICE is just particularly egregious example. But a lot of Federal agents on the ground are participating in Midway Blitz.

You're missing the point. No agency should be behaving this way over a paperwork crime.

Re: ICE bought vehicles equipped with fake cell towers to spy on phones

#115

Post by JumpCrisscross »

theultdev wrote: post #59
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Difference between deportations under Obama vs Trump is they aren't coming right back over “U.S. Border Patrol agents recorded nearly 238,000 apprehensions of migrants crossing the southern border illegally in fiscal year 2025” [1]. For 2012 to 2015, the chart shows about 360k, 420k, 480k and 330k, respectively. So ICE is spending $330 to 580 thousand dollars per additional Southwest border encounter in 2025 versus…

Interior enforcement is the focus currently. Crossings are lower overall due to securing of the border.

> Interior enforcement is the focus currently

If it is, it's being pursued corruptly and incompetently.

From the top of the thread, ICE is spending boatloads more money to deport just about as many people as Obama did with a tenth of the budget [1]. Cross-border encounters are within 100,000, so the difference is not explained by recividism.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45506994

Re: ICE bought vehicles equipped with fake cell towers to spy on phones

#116

Post by stackskipton »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #80
theultdev wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> I'd imagine the California arrest restriction at it's courts is not constitutional as it conflicts with enforcement of existing federal immigration laws Preëmption is about conflicts of laws [1]. You’d need statute giving ICE the power to enforce its will in state courthouses to preëmpt California law. > Even if it's for cheap labor, Democrats I live in a red state. We started to see ICE enforcement and then our Se…

>You’d need statute giving ICE the power to enforce its will in state courthouses to preempt California law.

Legally, it's up for debate on how much power localities can regulate Federal Law Enforcement operations. Federal Government takes the view that it's restrictions on operations by states is almost zero. There is 9th Circuit Ruling that says states can if "a federal officer [must do] no more than is necessary and proper in the performance of his duty" but that's pretty untested ruling.

States are loath to attempt to regulate Federal Law Enforcement by running it up the courts since their worry is it hits SCOTUS and they come back with "States have no power, LOLZ"

Re: ICE bought vehicles equipped with fake cell towers to spy on phones

#117

Post by yibg »

k33n wrote: post #78
softwaredoug wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well it might be emotional if you're one of these people about to be sent to South Sudan It's either right or wrong for ICE to run a dragnet through a city, cuffing everyone, checking their papers, as they hope to find someone undocumented. Either human beings have rights and deserve due process, or they don't. People are reduced to the point of keeping airtags on them so loved ones and their lawyers can find them be…

[flagged]

I'm not trying to be combative here; genuinely would like to see things from "the other side" here and have a rational discussion. Using some specifics, I see the following as wrong:

1. Doing mass detentions and checking papers. Of course not literally through the entirety of a city, but do you agree this happens in mass at say home depot parking lots, construction sites etc, where ICE doesn't know who exactly is here illegally, so they detain everyone and check. This vs having a specific individual in mind and going to arrest that person.

2. Sending people to countries they have no ties to. CECOT for instance, where they're imprisoned indefinitely without a specific charge.

Do you agree these have happened? If so do you think they're ok?

Re: ICE bought vehicles equipped with fake cell towers to spy on phones

#118

Post by Zetaphor »

nulbyte wrote: post #25
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why aren't they using the official lawful interception interfaces? They may not want to leave a paper trail. “To obtain a [legal] wiretap order, law enforcement must demonstrate probable cause to a judge” [1]. Given ICE has been arresting Americans, they probably aren’t bothering with cause. Legal intercepts also require “minimization procedures to limit the interception of conversations unrelated to the investigat…

But, isn't intercepting communications using a fake cell tower a wiretap?

We're far beyond the point of them caring about the laws. Judges are granting temporary residency to immigrants in court proceedings, and then those same people are detained and deported by ICE as soon as they walk out of the courtroom.

Re: ICE bought vehicles equipped with fake cell towers to spy on phones

#119

Post by mothballed »

potato3732842 wrote: post #114
softwaredoug wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ICE is just particularly egregious example. But a lot of Federal agents on the ground are participating in Midway Blitz.

You're missing the point. No agency should be behaving this way over a paperwork crime.

It's not even a crime. It's an administrative infraction.

Re: ICE bought vehicles equipped with fake cell towers to spy on phones

#120

Post by joshuahedlund »

cosmicgadget wrote: post #36
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> as a general rule, what they are doing is completely legal In general, particularly in the past, yes. Currently, a statistically significant number of ICE agents are acting outside the colour of law, in some cases with possibly treasonous intent.

Huh? They're either chasing down people with an administrative warrant (which as far as I can tell are largely valid) or they're using reasonable suspicion which SCOTUS just decided can be determined by a combination of ethnic, economic, and geographic factors. The latter seems wrongly-decided but it is lawful by definition. What actions are you referring to and what is the treasonous intent? They seem to just be sel…

How about denying the Fourth Amendment rights of US citizens to be secure in their homes in the recent Chicago apartment raid? https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/the-sufferable-evil

How about detaining US citizens without warrants for days at a time and then releasing with no charges? https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/09/george-...

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