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Motel 6 to Pay $12M after Improperly Giving Guest Lists to ICE

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Re: Motel 6 to Pay $12M after Improperly Giving Guest Lists to ICE

#151

This is... strange. When the federal government comes asking for your help, I think it's pretty normal for people to provide that help. In a just world, if the government asks for something inappropriately, then the party at fault is the government. (In other words, Washington should sue ICE, not Motel 6.) If we want companies to require a subpoena to share information with the federal government (and personally I do…

If you do something illegal to help the federal government, you are still on the hook for it.

Re: Motel 6 to Pay $12M after Improperly Giving Guest Lists to ICE

#152
post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I thought companies like Twitter and Google routinely rebuffed requests for information from government agencies and opposed restrictive rules They say this but look at AT&T and room 641A and the NSA.[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A

Guilt by association? AT&T is a completely different kind of company than SV tech companies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_%28surveillance_program%...

The documents identified several technology companies as participants in the PRISM program, including Microsoft in 2007, Yahoo! in 2008, Google in 2009, Facebook in 2009, Paltalk in 2009, YouTube in 2010, AOL in 2011, Skype in 2011 and Apple in 2012.[22] The speaker's notes in the briefing document reviewed by The Washington Post indicated that "98 percent of PRISM production is based on Yahoo, Google, and Microsoft".[1]

Re: Motel 6 to Pay $12M after Improperly Giving Guest Lists to ICE

#154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First of all, could you please directly link to the source. Second even if this number is accurate, it is misleading and I will attempt to put it in perspective. People are coming to us border to claim asylum. They are unable to do that because border agents are understaffed (it's been like that since 2015 during Obama administration) and can only accept so many applications. In the meantime they have to live in appa…

just because the conditions are appalling doesn't make doing illegal things okay. you don't see me break into my rich neighbors property and move into his garden cottage just because my house is in appalling condition.

Is it wrong to steal a loaf of bread to feed your starving family?

Re: Motel 6 to Pay $12M after Improperly Giving Guest Lists to ICE

#155
I can't believe the number of people who are defending Motel 6 here. Anyone who works for a mid-large sized company in certain departments will know that government agencies and police departments are always asking for stuff. It is not illegal for them to do so. The correct answer to 99% of these requests is "this is confidential/proprietary information" or "come back with a warrant". There is zero excuse to do anything illegal because someone official-sounding asked you to do it.

Re: Motel 6 to Pay $12M after Improperly Giving Guest Lists to ICE

#156
post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I thought companies like Twitter and Google routinely rebuffed requests for information from government agencies and opposed restrictive rules They say this but look at AT&T and room 641A and the NSA.[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A

Guilt by association? AT&T is a completely different kind of company than SV tech companies.

No, reread the parent, you're missing context.

Re: Motel 6 to Pay $12M after Improperly Giving Guest Lists to ICE

#157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well anyone who has dealt with ICE, Border Patrol this does not even remotely surprise me. I had a French-American friend who went to France without his daughter's American passport. When he returned back the Agent did not even ask to see the little girls passport. Had this guy been Latino he would be called a child smuggler.

Strange stuff happens when exiting France when you're not white too. I was in line at the exit control, and the black family ahead of me had issues because they couldn't provide the passport they entered the country with (they came for renewal of their French passport, the Prefecture had it, they were exiting on their Canadian passport). I was completely baffled at the policeman harassing freaking Canadian citizens e…

The passport control officers were probably upset/suspicious because they couldn't establish when the family entered the country (or schengen zone), and thus couldn't confirm that they hadn't overstayed.

From the officer's perspective, here's this Canadian with no entry stamp in their passport. One would assume that the usual procedure for expats to renew their passport is to do it through the embassy or consulate in their country of residence.

Re: Motel 6 to Pay $12M after Improperly Giving Guest Lists to ICE

#158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

except there's no need to make shit up, the CBP conveniently also publishes statistics regarding the total number of apprehensions every year, broken down by month. unlike you, who presumably got the information from Trump on Twitter, I will post my source: https://www.cbp.gov/sites/default/files/assets/documents/201... the total number of apprehensions every year for the past 12 fiscal years has been less than 1 mil…

Sigh. So where's your source that apprehensions ~= illegal entries? Intuitively it makes sense to me that more people get in than are caught, but I don't have data. Nor do I see how you can accurately count the number of people you didn't catch...

https://www.gao.gov/new.items/d06770.pdf via https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_entry#United_States

Re: Motel 6 to Pay $12M after Improperly Giving Guest Lists to ICE

#159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I'm pretty sure ICE's actions were what tore those families apart." ICE only enforce the laws that already exists. So only two possible parties are at fault here: 1. Congress, if the current laws are bad. 2. Parents, if they are in violation of the law.

If you sign up to enforce evil laws, you're voluntarily choosing to do evil. Multiple parties can all be at fault at the same time.

How are border/immigration laws evil?

Re: Motel 6 to Pay $12M after Improperly Giving Guest Lists to ICE

#160

This is... strange. When the federal government comes asking for your help, I think it's pretty normal for people to provide that help. In a just world, if the government asks for something inappropriately, then the party at fault is the government. (In other words, Washington should sue ICE, not Motel 6.) If we want companies to require a subpoena to share information with the federal government (and personally I do…

Seriously, I would think too. Although I agree that maybe Motel 6 broke a law and should be held responsible for that, I'm also pretty sure that ICE fully knows and abuses of their position to extort information illegally out of people knowing no better. Imagine being a clerk or a manager at Motel 6, probably paid around minimum wage, potentially not very aware of state laws and having an ICE agent storm in and ask about a guest. What do you do? Government agencies should be held accountable to the same degree if not higher than private companies. They literally work for us (gvt), they have to be accountable to us the people!
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