Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 230 posts

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

#41

Post by fzeroracer »

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…

The SCOTUS abdicating their duty to the constitution does not make ICE's actions any less illegal, it just makes the Supreme Court as an institution illegitimate. It is unfortunate that things have devolved so far, but it is more important than ever that we state things clearly and succinctly in the face of those that have decided the constitution no longer matters.

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

#42

Post by JumpCrisscross »

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…

> What actions are you referring to

The deportations to Ecuador despite a court order not to. Detaining an American and refusing him a lawyer [1]. Ignoring state law (where not superseded by federal law).

[1] https://chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/2025/10/01/massive-...

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

#43

Post by myko »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #17
NoiseBert69 wrote: post #6

Why aren't they using the official lawful interception interfaces? They will get all the data. Not only voice, data and SMS/RCS. All modern smartphones (like Pixels) allow you to switch off 2G. They even warn if you want to activate it.

> 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…

> They may not want to leave a paper trail.

This makes sense, considering the regime is hiring Jan 6th insurrectionists like Jared Wise. Legality has gone out the window.

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

#44

Post by cosmicgadget »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #19
cosmicgadget wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They bring their own ill-fitting gear and jump out of U-hauls. Sure they have the occasional off-the-shelf imsi catcher. "Wannabe paramilitary", final offer.

> bring their own ill-fitting gear and jump out of U-hauls ICE ran a 5AM motorcade through my mountain town, compete with helicopter escort. We’re in a red state, though, and border a red farm state, so I understand they were actually told to knock it off. > "Wannabe paramilitary", final offer The only part of a definition [1] that ICE might fail is in whether they’re professionally designated to act as a secret poli…

Lol what? "They want/intend to be a paramilitary organization therefore calling them wannabe paramilitaries isn't correct."

Genuine curiosity, what did the motorcade look like? Gov plates or personal vehicles? Was the helicopter ICE or local police keeping an eye on things?

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

#45

Post by JumpCrisscross »

theultdev wrote: post #9
kokanee wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might not like the tone, but I don't see what makes the words false. "Paramilitary" describes a non-military group behaving similarly to a military group, and we're talking about armed masked men sweeping homes, taking prisoners, and engaging in violent conflicts. "Operating illegally" means that federal, state, or local laws have been broken, and that seems to be the case, e.g. Gonzalez v. ICE.

Federal law supersedes state law. ICE is simply enforcing federal immigration laws.

> Federal law supersedes state law

It does. That doesn’t mean federal agents supersede state law.

California restricted civil arrests at its courts [1]. The Congress can pass a law superseding this. What ICE can’t unilaterally do, legally, is ignore it. They have, the same as they’ve ignored federal court orders.

[1] https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm...

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

#46

Post by JumpCrisscross »

cosmicgadget wrote: post #44
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> bring their own ill-fitting gear and jump out of U-hauls ICE ran a 5AM motorcade through my mountain town, compete with helicopter escort. We’re in a red state, though, and border a red farm state, so I understand they were actually told to knock it off. > "Wannabe paramilitary", final offer The only part of a definition [1] that ICE might fail is in whether they’re professionally designated to act as a secret poli…

Lol what? "They want/intend to be a paramilitary organization therefore calling them wannabe paramilitaries isn't correct." Genuine curiosity, what did the motorcade look like? Gov plates or personal vehicles? Was the helicopter ICE or local police keeping an eye on things?

> "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 obviously have the manpower, budget and equipment to constitute a martial force.

TL; DR If ICE is a “wannabe paramilitary,” they’re a paramilitary. If you’re giving that up you’re giving away the game.

> Gov plates or personal vehicles?

Civilian. (The relevant bit for whether a group is a paramilitary.)

I’d note that whether ICE is a paramilitary is a red herring. Paramilitaries are fine. Militias as paramilitaries.

The problem is ICE is acting as a secret state police.

> local police keeping an eye on things?

Not state or local.

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

#47

Post by softwaredoug »

cosmicgadget wrote: post #38
softwaredoug wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean slavery was legal, Jim Crow was legal... A lot of things are legal and still wrong based on our core principles as a country. Its our duty to oppose them.

So call what they're doing 'wrong' not 'illegal'. The remedies for those two things are very different.

Well also a lot of what they're doing to enforce laws without warrants, arresting citizens without cause, lack of due process, etc is illegal.

But a lot of this won't change without "active, provocative, non-violent" resistance as Gandhi would say.

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

#48

Post by gruez »

fzeroracer wrote: post #20
psunavy03 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A Federal government agency is "a paramilitary group operating illegally inside the US?" What? "I think they're being employed in a shitty and potentially illegal manner outside their remit" is a perfectly arguable take that doesn't require tinfoil-hattery.

It doesn't require any tinfoil-hattery though because everything they're doing is very public. Like you look at their actions Chicago [1] and I think it's impossible to NOT think they're an illegal paramilitary group. They're rounding up, detaining and arresting US citizens and destroying their property under the guise of sweeping illegal immigrants. They've violated people's constitutional rights multiple times over…

>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?

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

#49

Post by jfyi »

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?

Are you familiar with the concept of parallel construction?

If evidence of the wiretap never needs to be entered into the official record, did it really exist in the first place?

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

#50

Post by fzeroracer »

gruez wrote: post #48
fzeroracer wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't require any tinfoil-hattery though because everything they're doing is very public. Like you look at their actions Chicago [1] and I think it's impossible to NOT think they're an illegal paramilitary group. They're rounding up, detaining and arresting US citizens and destroying their property under the guise of sweeping illegal immigrants. They've violated people's constitutional rights multiple times over…

>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?
Post reply on HN