Not to be glib, but most fascist foot soldiers are convinced (via years of propaganda) that they are getting rid of criminals and corrupt citizens.
These CBP officers who’re making up evidence for innocent legal/documented immigrants, what are they thinking? Or is there some kind of central source making up digital evidence?
drivingmenuts · 10m ago
My guess is that the thought process is "looks foreign = bad".
jMyles · 36m ago
> These CBP officers who’re making up evidence for innocent legal/documented immigrants, what are they thinking?
I'm guessing... quotas? With significant economic incentive, official or otherwise?
> Or is there some kind of central source making up digital evidence?
This seems to be, by far, the most important question, and is kinda the buried lede here. Is anyone investigating this?
It raises a real question: can a free society survive in a digital age amidst a legal system which proscribes particular strings of data? It's so trivial to frame, much moreso than physical evidence. The evidence can be manufactured, as you suggest, without even the low-level agent performing the enforcement action realize that it is synthetic. It seems like an end-around the entire legal system.
ranger_danger · 51m ago
"Just following orders"... we've heard that before.
lesuorac · 38m ago
It's pretty hard (impossible) to make the deportation quotas as required legally.
Unless you can figure out someway to remove the quotas CBP is going to continue to falsify evidence so that they can make their quotas.
There's a similar issue with many police departments where they function as revenue generating so officers have quotas for traffic tickets they have to write and the same effect occurs (but just monetarily fine not deportations).
trhway · 36m ago
Actually, more than that. They are proud to be cleaning up the society from "scum". It is a very desirable and comfortable mental state - to be a part of such a governmental violent all-the-power that can do no wrong. In Russia it is known as "Oprichnina" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oprichnina, kind of a fascism long before fascism existed. There is a novel imagining Oprichnina in the modern days Russia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_of_the_Oprichnik (has English translation) - when it was written 20 years ago people were "That is an overblown unreasonable imagination" and today - "Wow, how did the author guess that right", yet if one looks back 20 years ago the things were already sliding along that slippery slop. And in US it is kind of similar story - starting with Gitmo 20 years ago - though much less pronounced, and it will take some time before the state will start nabbing in that way actual upstanding citizens)
mothballed · 1h ago
When/if the war on drugs finally ends this will be the next tool. It's such a radioactive topic that no one wants to point out the obvious ease with which information possession laws can be used to frame innocents.
mingus88 · 58m ago
Or how genAI makes it trivial to create copious amounts of evidence
Spooky23 · 55m ago
No need. We’ve determined you are an enemy alien. Off to South Sudan with you.
ranger_danger · 52m ago
I fear that random arrests and detentions under the guise of bogus "suspicion", no matter how baseless, will be continually turbocharged and weaponized for political purposes, as there doesn't seem to be a good way for most citizens to fight back in a meaningful way. And the fact that it causes irreparable damage to the victims, and often no penalty for the authorities, is really a tragedy in my opinion.
These CBP officers who’re making up evidence for innocent legal/documented immigrants, what are they thinking? Or is there some kind of central source making up digital evidence?
I'm guessing... quotas? With significant economic incentive, official or otherwise?
> Or is there some kind of central source making up digital evidence?
This seems to be, by far, the most important question, and is kinda the buried lede here. Is anyone investigating this?
It raises a real question: can a free society survive in a digital age amidst a legal system which proscribes particular strings of data? It's so trivial to frame, much moreso than physical evidence. The evidence can be manufactured, as you suggest, without even the low-level agent performing the enforcement action realize that it is synthetic. It seems like an end-around the entire legal system.
Unless you can figure out someway to remove the quotas CBP is going to continue to falsify evidence so that they can make their quotas.
There's a similar issue with many police departments where they function as revenue generating so officers have quotas for traffic tickets they have to write and the same effect occurs (but just monetarily fine not deportations).