So I’ve just been thinking about privacy, and how everyone’s location can be tracked. Then I realized: What about people who have no permission to enter the country?
Like do they just decide to not have a phone, or do they still have phones and just roll the dice and hope they don’t get caught?
That depends on the country we’re talking about. I wouldn’t do it in authoritarian countries. But in the USA or other western countries for example, they usually don’t use their total surveillance technology to pursue minor and ordinary crimes. That’s mainly reserved for terrorism. You could end up in trouble by chance. But I’m not aware of any routines that connect cell tower data to deport immigrants. I’m not saying they can’t do it, they certainly already have the data ready to analyze. It’s just that it doesn’t happen to date. So your chances of getting persecuted are low. And a phone is a very useful device to carry around. (And strictly speaking, all phones leak your position and lots of personal information. If that’s valuable to someone, they shouldn’t carry a connected phone with them. Regardless of the situation.)
It’s pretty naive to believe, after everything in Project 2025, and after everything that Trump has said, that they will not use these powers in their upcoming mass deportations program.
Well, if they do what’s in Project 2025, you have a lot of other things to worry about. That’s full on autocracy. Probably no as bad as like in Afghanistan where women are prohibited to go outside… But it’s going to oppress everyone. Minorities and women first, of course. But as far as I read it’s also going to make economy worse. Take away everyones freedom, healthcare etc and replace it with the medieval version of it.
As soon as manufacturing (of which a significant portion is food processing!) starts losing shifts and closing due to not having enough employees they’ll see the shortages and flip pretty fast. Manufacturing jobs rely heavily on immigrant labor because nobody wants to work in factories despite the pretty good pay and benefits, so the only people who do work in factories are the people who simply can’t get better jobs.
They don’t use tracking capabilities to help people, they use it for law enforcement. And if you want to track someone illegally entering the country cellphone triangulation is the least effective method. The person could: - Not have a phone - turn the phone off - use a burner phone and number. And by the time you’ve found them they’re already across. If their traveling by boat they could drop the phone in the water aswell. And cell tower triangulation is inaccurate anyway, a 5G triangulation can pin someone down to the cm. (Half a hotdog for the Americans.) And you need to have towers close enough to the entry point aswell. If the tower is too far away it will be inaccurate.
Despite recent events with certain groups using “dangerous illegal immigrants” for political gain. Almost all illegals just want to live and not cause problems. Not only are they not dangerous they serve a much needed function in the economy.
How would they know who’s phone to track if the individual is undocumented?
But again - how would they know that someone was undocumented? If someone started new social media accounts when they arrived, and bought a new phone/started new service, then what do they have that’s going to reasonably demonstrate that they’re undocumented? Particularly if they buy a pay-as-you-go phone, which doesn’t require any kind of ID to buy and activate?
Yes there is plenty of track-able info on this person’s phone.
Law enforcement still needs to know exactly who they’re looking for, in order to know exactly which phone to track.
If the individual in question is undocumented, by definition they can’t know exactly who they’re looking for. They can’t tie them to a specific individual phone.
You’re talking about CIA levels of surveillance for what amounts to basically nothing. Despite the Republican politicians constantly ranting about illegal immigration, they’re the ones benefiting from undocumented labor. They’re not going to put much work into changing something they benefit from.
Law enforcement got their hands on the location records of the people who stormed the white house by… buying it from google.
Not every government has as much spying going on as some might think.
I know right, I wish I was kidding
here’s the first result when you google it. There was more detailed coverage on the news at the time.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2024/01/06/jan-6-google-location-warrants/
