CBP signs Clearview AI deal to use face recognition for 'tactical targeting' • Hacker News Board

Re: CBP signs Clearview AI deal to use face recognition for 'tactical targeting'

#151

Post by Manuel_D » Sat, Feb 14, 2026, 12:02 AM UTC

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote: post #150

Manuel_D wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but the point is, no law is being avoided. The comment I responded to wrote: > Always easier when you can avoid the law and just buy it off the shelf. (Emphasis mine) No law is being avoided, neither in your banking example nor in the situation with Clearview. To be sure, people can have whatever opinion on the law that they want. But I do want to make it clear the the government is not "avoiding" any law here…

> No law is being avoided Following the conversation, this reads as too strong a statement. The Constitution is law, and it (the fourth amendment) is being avoided via the Bank Secrecy Act. The Constitution supersedes any conflicting Acts of Congress.

Groups did sue after the Bank Secrecy Act, and the cases went all the way to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court determined that it did not violate the constitution: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_Secrecy_Act

> Shortly after passage, several groups attempted to have the courts rule the law unconstitutional, claiming it violated both Fourth Amendment rights against unwarranted search and seizure, and Fifth Amendment rights of due process. Several cases were combined before the Supreme Court in California Bankers Assn. v. Shultz, 416 U.S. 21 (1974), which ruled that the Act did not violate the Constitution

Re: CBP signs Clearview AI deal to use face recognition for 'tactical targeting'

#152

Post by dankebitte » Sat, Feb 14, 2026, 1:17 AM UTC

Manuel_D wrote: post #130

sailfast wrote: post #3

Always easier when you can avoid the law and just buy it off the shelf. It’s fine to do this, we say, because it’s not being done by the government - but if they’re allowed to turn around and buy it we’re much worse off.

That's not how the law works in the US. The government cannot have a third party take action on its behalf to do something that would be illegal for the government to do itself. This is why the Biden administration had a restraining order filed against it, on account of them pressuring social media companies to ban content it didn't like. This violated the First Amendment, despite the fact that it was a third party t…

> This is why the Biden administration had a restraining order filed against it, on account of them pressuring social media companies to ban content it didn't like. This violated the First Amendment

It's very strange of you to leave out that the extremely right-wing 5th Circuit's opinion was overturned 6-3 by SCOTUS because "pressuring social media companies to ban content" was a complete fabrication the plaintiffs failed to support whatsoever.

Re: CBP signs Clearview AI deal to use face recognition for 'tactical targeting'

#153

Post by LorenPechtel » Sat, Feb 14, 2026, 1:48 AM UTC

digiown wrote: post #87

asveikau wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't disagree with the sentiment. I feel like what we're seeing lately is that private companies are doing the thing that would violate the 4th amendment if government did it , then they sell to the government. The idea that it's not the government itself violating the constitution because they did it through a contractor is pretty absurd. What specific legal measures you do to enforce this, I don't know, there's…

I don't think there is an expectation of privacy for things you literally post to the public, like social media. Even the government doing the scraping directly I believe would not violate the 4th amendment. The third party doctrine also basically legalizes most types of search through people's "cloud data". To have an expectation of privacy, the data needs to not be shared in the first place. I don't think tying the…

The problem comes from what you post under something that's not your name.

Personally, I'm thinking perhaps the answer is the other way around:

Any company that collects data apart from what you directly provide them must make a best-effort to end you an e-mail every year with the data in a standardized format or links to the data. (Doesn't need to be burdensome--documents go behind a UUID with a non-readable directory. You either know the URL or you don't.)

You have data you didn't disclose, pay $1 per item + costs. (If you have useful amounts of data that per item will add up really fast.)

Re: CBP signs Clearview AI deal to use face recognition for 'tactical targeting'

#154

Post by Manuel_D » Sat, Feb 14, 2026, 1:51 AM UTC

dankebitte wrote: post #152

Manuel_D wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not how the law works in the US. The government cannot have a third party take action on its behalf to do something that would be illegal for the government to do itself. This is why the Biden administration had a restraining order filed against it, on account of them pressuring social media companies to ban content it didn't like. This violated the First Amendment, despite the fact that it was a third party t…

> This is why the Biden administration had a restraining order filed against it, on account of them pressuring social media companies to ban content it didn't like. This violated the First Amendment It's very strange of you to leave out that the extremely right-wing 5th Circuit's opinion was overturned 6-3 by SCOTUS because "pressuring social media companies to ban content" was a complete fabrication the plaintiffs f…

Regardless of the subsequent lifting of the order, it still illustrates that the government cannot make private parties carry out illegal acts on its behalf. If anything, the fact that the circuit's decision was later overturned shows that the courts are erring on the side of restraining the government when they try to make third parties carry out actions that the government cannot do legally.

Re: CBP signs Clearview AI deal to use face recognition for 'tactical targeting'

#155

Post by dylan604 » Sat, Feb 14, 2026, 2:02 AM UTC

hackingonempty wrote: post #58

lenerdenator wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Hey man, doctor's orders. Gotta wear it to get allergy relief. And no, can't ask about it... HIPAA stuff."

It is not a good idea to lie to an employee of the USA. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1001

You and I pay that employee's salary.

Re: CBP signs Clearview AI deal to use face recognition for 'tactical targeting'

#156

Post by digiown » Sat, Feb 14, 2026, 2:27 AM UTC

koolba wrote: post #131

digiown wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why it doesn't make sense to ban governments from doing things while still allowing private companies. Either it is illegal to surveil the public for everyone, or the government can always do it indirectly with the same effect. I don't think the deal described here is even that egregious. It's basically a labeled data scrape. Any entity capable of training these LLMs are able to do this.

What would such a ban look like? A private company can surely link its own cameras and data to create a private use database of undesirables. I’m certain that Walmart and friends do exactly this already. It’s the large scale version of the Polaroids behind the counter.

It can be banned explicitly as a regulation on surveillance cameras. Like:

- The footage must be secured / only stored locally, and can only be used in legal proceedings or liability, and can be stored for maximum 1 (or a different number) year

- It cannot be sold or used to train AI or processed for marketing or other purposes without consent of all involved (in practice impossible).

- And no people cannot "agree" to things by just entering the premises or view

- It is illegal to make decisions based on illegally obtained (as per above) analytics, like refusing entry/membership/service, with a private right of action

Re: CBP signs Clearview AI deal to use face recognition for 'tactical targeting'

#157

Post by digiown » Sat, Feb 14, 2026, 2:30 AM UTC

koolba wrote: post #137

bad_haircut72 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wouldnt "Any person found to have implemented a system which violates the rights of people in xyz way will be punished with imrisonment" work ?

In what way? A business can refuse to service any individual as long as it’s not a direct violation of things like civil rights laws.

The whole point of a regulation is to ban something they are currently allowed to do. There was a time before the civil rights laws where you can discriminate by race, you know.

Re: CBP signs Clearview AI deal to use face recognition for 'tactical targeting'

#158

Post by digiown » Sat, Feb 14, 2026, 2:32 AM UTC

ChoGGi wrote: post #149

digiown wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why it doesn't make sense to ban governments from doing things while still allowing private companies. Either it is illegal to surveil the public for everyone, or the government can always do it indirectly with the same effect. I don't think the deal described here is even that egregious. It's basically a labeled data scrape. Any entity capable of training these LLMs are able to do this.

Or that the government isn't allowed to purchase anything they'd normally need a warrant for?

So everyone and their mom and all the foreign governments can buy the data, but not your own government? Do you really think this is a sustainable arrangement?

Re: CBP signs Clearview AI deal to use face recognition for 'tactical targeting'

#159

Post by ChoGGi » Sat, Feb 14, 2026, 2:51 AM UTC

digiown wrote: post #158

ChoGGi wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or that the government isn't allowed to purchase anything they'd normally need a warrant for?

So everyone and their mom and all the foreign governments can buy the data, but not your own government? Do you really think this is a sustainable arrangement?

If the choice is between my own government and a foreign government spying on me, I'd rather the foreigners.

Re: CBP signs Clearview AI deal to use face recognition for 'tactical targeting'

#160

Post by dankebitte » Sat, Feb 14, 2026, 4:14 AM UTC

Manuel_D wrote: post #154

dankebitte wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is why the Biden administration had a restraining order filed against it, on account of them pressuring social media companies to ban content it didn't like. This violated the First Amendment It's very strange of you to leave out that the extremely right-wing 5th Circuit's opinion was overturned 6-3 by SCOTUS because "pressuring social media companies to ban content" was a complete fabrication the plaintiffs f…

Regardless of the subsequent lifting of the order, it still illustrates that the government cannot make private parties carry out illegal acts on its behalf. If anything, the fact that the circuit's decision was later overturned shows that the courts are erring on the side of restraining the government when they try to make third parties carry out actions that the government cannot do legally.

It's simply bizarre to claim that a blatantly partisan circuit court issuing capricious restrictions on their political opposition and having them vacated by SCOTUS is evidence of "the courts" erring against "the government" generally. The decision was overturned because the plaintiffs' case was a baseless fiction that the Biden administration was ever even implicitly compelling those third parties to do anything. The plaintiffs' standing was so plainly nonexistent that even 3/6 of the majority from Kennedy v. Bremerton School District couldn't pretend there was a case. The only example that case serves is of the most Republican-allied circuit court consistently issuing garbage opinions to empower Republican administrations and reconsolidate partisan policymaking to itself during Democratic administrations.