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phroyd · 5 years ago

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Agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Immigration and Customs Enforcement have turned state driver’s license databases into a facial-recognition gold mine, scanning through millions of Americans’ photos without their knowledge or consent, newly released documents show.

Thousands of facial-recognition requests, internal documents and emails over the past five years, obtained through public-records requests by Georgetown Law researchers and provided to The Washington Post, reveal that federal investigators have turned state Department of Motor Vehicles databases into the bedrock of an unprecedented surveillance infrastructure.

Police have long had access to fingerprints, DNA and other “biometric data” taken from criminal suspects. But the DMV records contain the photos of a vast majority of a state’s residents, most of whom have never been charged with a crime.

Neither Congress nor state legislatures have authorized the development of such a system, and growing numbers of Democratic and Republican lawmakers are criticizing the technology as a dangerous, pervasive and error-prone surveillance tool.

“Law enforcement’s access of state databases,” particularly DMV databases, is “often done in the shadows with no consent,” House Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.) said in a statement to The Post.

Rep. Jim Jordan (Ohio), the House Oversight Committee’s ranking Republican, seemed particularly incensed during a hearing into the technology last month at the use of driver’s license photos in federal facial-recognition searches without the approval of state legislators or individual license holders.

“They’ve just given access to that to the FBI,” he said. “No individual signed off on that when they renewed their driver’s license, got their driver’s licenses. They didn’t sign any waiver saying, ‘Oh, it’s okay to turn my information, my photo, over to the FBI.’ No elected officials voted for that to happen.”

Despite those doubts, federal investigators have turned facial recognition into a routine investigative tool. Since 2011, the FBI has logged more than 390,000 facial-recognition searches of federal and local databases, including state DMV databases, the Government Accountability Office said last month, and the records show that federal investigators have forged daily working relationships with DMV officials. In Utah, FBI and ICE agents logged more than 1,000 facial-recognition searches between 2015 and 2017, the records show. Names and other details are hidden, though dozens of the searches are marked as having returned a “possible match.”

San Francisco and Somerville, Mass., have banned their police and public agencies from using facial-recognition software, citing concerns about governmental overreach and a breach of public trust, and the subject is being hotly debated in Washington. On Wednesday, officials with the Transportation Security Administration, Customs and Border Protection and the Secret Service are expected to testify at a hearing of the House Committee on Homeland Security about their agencies’ use of the technology.

The records show the technology already is tightly woven into the fabric of modern law enforcement. They detailed the regular use of facial recognition to track down suspects in low-level crimes, including cashing a stolen check and petty theft. And searches are often executed with nothing more formal than an email from a federal agent to a local contact, the records show.

“It’s really a surveillance-first, ask-permission-later system,” said Jake Laperruque, a senior counsel at the watchdog group Project on Government Oversight. “People think this is something coming way off in the future, but these [facial-recognition] searches are happening very frequently today. The FBI alone does 4,000 searches every month, and a lot of them go through state DMVs.”

The records also underscore the conflicts between the laws of some states and the federal push to find and deport undocumented immigrants. Though Utah, Vermont and Washington allow undocumented immigrants to obtain full driver’s licenses or more-limited permits known as driving privilege cards, ICE agents have run facial-recognition searches on those DMV databases.

More than a dozen states, including New York, as well as the District of Columbia, allow undocumented immigrants to drive legally with full licenses or driving privilege cards, as long as they submit proof of in-state residency and pass the states’ driving-proficiency tests.

Lawmakers in Florida, Texas and other states have introduced bills this year that would extend driving privileges to undocumented immigrants. Some of those states already allow the FBI to scan driver’s license photos, while others, such as Florida and New York, are negotiating with the FBI over access, according to the GAO.

“The state has told [undocumented immigrants], has encouraged them, to submit that information. To me, it’s an insane breach of trust to then turn around and allow ICE access to that,” said Clare Garvie, a senior associate with Georgetown Law’s Center on Privacy and Technology, who led the research.

An ICE spokesman declined to answer questions about how the agency uses facial-recognition searches, saying its “investigative techniques are generally considered law-enforcement sensitive.”

Asked to comment, the FBI referred The Post to the congressional testimony last month of Deputy Assistant Director Kimberly Del Greco, who said that facial-recognition technology was critical “to preserve our nation’s freedoms, ensure our liberties are protected, and preserve our security.” The agency has said in the past that while facial-recognition searches can provide helpful leads, agents are expected to verify the findings and secure definitive proof before pursuing arrests or criminal charges.

Twenty-one states, including Texas and Pennsylvania, plus the District of Columbia, allow federal agencies such as the FBI to scan driver’s license photos, GAO records show. The agreements stipulate some rules for the searches, including that each must be relevant to a criminal investigation.

The FBI’s facial-recognition search has access to local, state and federal databases containing more than 641 million face photos, a GAO director said last month. But the agency provides little information about when the searches are used, who is targeted and how often searches return false matches.

The FBI said its system is 86 percent accurate at finding the right person if a search is able to generate a list of 50 possible matches, according to the GAO. But the FBI has not tested its system’s accuracy under conditions that are closer to normal, such as when a facial search returns only a few possible matches.

Civil rights advocates have said the inaccuracies of facial recognition pose a heightened danger of misidentification and false arrests. The software’s precision is highly dependent on a number of factors, including the lighting of a subject’s face and the quality of the image, and research has shown that the technology performs less accurately on people with darker skin.

“The public doesn’t have a way of controlling what information the government has on them,” said Jacinta González, a senior organizer for the advocacy group Mijente who was particularly concerned about how ICE and other agencies could use the scans to track down immigrants. “And now there’s this rapidly advancing technology, with very few guidelines and protections for people, putting all of this information at their fingertips in a very scary way.”

The records, which include thousands of emails and official documents from federal agencies, as well as Utah, Vermont and Washington state, show how easy it is for a federal investigator to tap into an individual state DMV’s database. While some of the driver photo searches were made on the strength of federal subpoenas or court orders, many requests for searches involved nothing more than an email to a DMV official with the target’s “probe photo” attached. The official would then search the driver’s license database and provide details of any possible matches.

The search capability was offered not just to help identify criminal suspects, but also to detect possible witnesses, victims, bodies, and innocent bystanders and other people not charged with crimes.

Utah’s DMV database was the subject of nearly 2,000 facial-recognition searches from outside law enforcement agencies between 2015 and 2017 — sometimes dozens of searches a day, the records show. One document from Utah’s Statewide Information & Analysis Center coached officers on how to make facial-recognition requests; offered four tips for better facial photographs (“lighting, distance, angle, eyes”); and said the database included “over 5 million Utah driver’s license & state identification card photos,” about 2 million more than the state’s population. State officials did not respond to requests for comment.

Many of the requests for searches in Utah came from local police forces across the country seeking to find suspects who may have traveled to the state, but roughly half the searches came from federal agents, according to a log of the searches. The records do not provide suspect names or say whether cases ended in arrests or convictions.

Washington state’s Department of Licensing said that its “facial recognition system is designed to be an accurate, non-obtrusive fraud detection tool” and that the agency does not share use of the system with law enforcement unless compelled by a court order.

Vermont officials said they stopped using facial-recognition software in 2017. That year, a local chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union revealed records showing that the state DMV had been conducting the searches in violation of a state law that banned technology involving “the use of biometric identifiers.” The state’s governor and attorney general came out against the face-scanning software, citing a need to balance public safety with residents’ privacy rights.

In the years before the ban, the records show, Vermont officials ran a number of face scans on driver’s license photos at the request of ICE agents. Investigators from a number of federal and local agencies emailed the state’s DMV with facial-recognition search requests as they pursued people accused of overstaying their visas, providing false information, stealing from stores or, in at least one case, being part of a “suspicious circumstance.”

The officers in some emails would provide descriptions of their targets: One was dubbed a “gypsy … scamming elderly people for money,” while another was said to have “VERY LARGE PROTRUDING EARS.” In others, DMV officials talked about the face-scanning tool as if it were the kind of awe-inspiring technical marvel most often seen on prime-time cop shows.

In one 2014 email, a police officer in the town of Manchester, Vt., asked a DMV official to scan for a man caught on video “brazenly” stealing. The official forwarded the email to a colleague with a made-for-TV flourish, writing, “Can we play NCIS for this officer?”

Phroyd

#surveillance #facial recogniton #dmv

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storiesbyaya · 5 years ago

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Story of A Hero- 23

{First}{Previous}{Mobile}{Next} Jazz was sitting on Will and the twins’ table monday at Lunch. She held a mysterious cardboard box on her lap and, for a moment, Will was confused…

Until he saw the familiar green lightning bolt logo. Instead of confused, he became excited, and nearly bounded over to the box. Jazz grinned at him, but continued to hold it close even as he approached. “So… Weird thing, but my sister came outta her room this morning. She gave me this. Made me promise not to let anyone but you touch what’s in it. And then, she ate breakfast with me and walked me to the bus. I don’t know what this thing is, and I don’t care. But I know you did something, and because of it, I got to see my sister, and hear her laugh and stuff. So whatever this is? You take good care of it.” She spoke with a serious tone, yet also seemed happy. Will was happy for her.

He nodded. “I know you said you don’t care to know, but… that box likely has my parents’ research,” he explained. “Oh,” Jazz said, understanding blooming on her face. She gave him a cheerful smile. “Explains why it’s so important… And why she’d only trust you with it.” Even though she didn’t know Will, as far as Jazz was aware. He held the box with the same care she had. “She trusted you with it, too. I think that’s a good thing?” “I think so too.” Their conversation ended when Percy and Lily arrived. She rejoined her table, and they ate together. It was hard to concentrate through the rest of the day, with the anticipation and fear all welling up at once. What could it contain?

-x-x-x

The box contained an external harddrive, as well as a note, written in green glitter pen. William decided to start with that first.

“Fun fact,” it read “A friend of mine has ‘Anaesthesia Awareness’. Waking up during the herein described procedures caused damage to his Adex. (Read up on subject KX-023) This break is what allowed us to break free.

I believe in you, William. Let the mistakes of our past become the tools to build a better future.

Tessa Nickols (xxx-xxx-xxxx. Let me know if you need any more help. Give my number to Kat too. I miss that brat.)

PS- For privacy reasons, many names and faces have been redacted. Hope you understand.

PPS- Hard drive password is your sister’s middle name.”

Diana. The password was Diana. William wondered if that was done by Tessa or by his parents, but he only wondered briefly.

The amount of stuff here was… Intimidating. He didn’t even know where to start. He had to take a deep breath and center himself to even try to tackle this. Maybe… weed out the unnecessary stuff? Grant applications. Letters to investors. A bunch of other money related things. That was irrelevant to his studies. It went into a special folder. Just in case. Facility descriptions… As the document began with nothing but maps of the facility, William was going to ignore it, until he noticed that there were several pages. The building only had four floors, if he remembered correctly. There should only be four pages, if it was nothing but maps.

“As this is a foreign field of research, much of our equipment has required upgrades, and some custom equipment has been needed to advance our research.”

The section below the maps continued on, describing what kind of upgrades and changes had been made to existing equipment. It was all incredibly fascinating to William, but one very specific section caught his attention.

It described, in great detail, a special instrument created to measure and observe resonance.

“Tests have revealed that Adex exude a special energy. It has been named “resonance” due to the way it reacts within human subjects. With this, resonance can be observed and measured. This advance has increased the success rate of forced symbiosis to 98.7% Forcing symbiosis with two subjects who’s resonances do not match almost always results in MEIR-Type entities, and/or loss of one or both subjects. Forcing symbiosis with a subject that exudes no resonance at all results in failure 100% of the time.”

“So resonance has… types. And this thing they made shows them in different colors,” he said to himself, and scribbled this fact into a notebook. To his surprise, Imshael hopped onto his desk. “Hello,” they greeted, before curling into a ball near the keyboard. “I want to help.” “You… want to… help?” William repeated, confused. The words themselves were not confusing, but rather the ‘who’ they were spoken by. Even after the first time he’d heard Imshael during training, they’d still stayed so quiet Will almost forgot they COULD speak. “Well, yes. Bayesh and I feel I may have answers to questions you might have. I am, after all, an Adex. You’d assume I would know a few things about myself.” “I think assuming that would be kind of silly. Humans have to learn about their bodies, I’m sure you guys do, too. But...unlike us, there is no school for adex.” “True,” they said, swishing their tail to and fro, “But you learn things with age. Like the fact that resonance’s color matches the color of the adex itself. The color of the thing within you. It also tends to dictate what kind of abilities we will grant. I’ve come to notice white adex mean white light, for instance.” William scribbled that down, and gave her a few small pets as thanks.

Then, he continued to read.

None of it was nearly as interesting as the resonance testing equipment, and most of it made him grumble in disgust. The schematics for Meir containment cells. The dampeners that kept the ‘subjects’ from using their powers. All kinds of resonance sapping weaponry.

“Oh. Hey, maybe that could be useful for… I don’t know, fighting bad guys?” Harley suggested. For a moment, William considered keeping the documents and then sending them to Angel. She’d know what to do with them, and how to make them into weapons that could be used to fight metahumans and meirs without the need for HeroNet. But William turned to Tessa’s letter once more, and sighed. “We promised we’d never let anyone else see this research, Harley. I’m not going to betray Tess’ trust…” William reminded her. Harley looked down, and would probably frown if her muzzle would allow. “Oh. My apologies. Shall I leave?” Imshael asked. William looked down to them, then back to the screen, and then to Harley. “Immy’s technically not another person… They’re an Adex.” While true, William gave a sigh. Technicalities didn’t sit well with him. But he had Tessa’s number, so he decided to ask her.

[Will] Hi Tessa, this is William Kray. We received the hard drive safely, but my father’s Adex wants to help. You said not to let anyone else see what’s on this drive.

[Peony] Oh! A wild Will! Right down to business, I see. Call me Peony, kay? Wow. She answered pretty fast. But Jazz did say that she never left her room, so she likely always had her phone.

[Peony] Would Kat trust this Adex? Knowing who your parents are, I would say there’s no one more trustworthy. But ultimately, I kept this stuff safe FOR your sister.

[Will] Right. Thank you, Peony.

Kat… She wouldn’t be angry if William let Imshael see the data. But she WOULD be angry if it was used to hurt anyone. So, ultimately, Wiliam chose to put a pin in it and continue to read.

He moved on to the folder that contained actual test results.

“KY subjects?” William read out loud. There were twenty entries, but no indication what the KY stood for. William had to examine them, and after a few, he noticed the pattern.

“These are… Older than me. The subjects were all adults… This must be the initial testing for forced symbiosis… Look, this person is deceased,” he pointed out. The other four sets of eyes looked to where he was pointing.

“Of course. Adults can’t fuse with us. The necessary changes can not be done to an already fully formed body. That it took them twenty people to notice,” Imshael grumbled. “Well… I guess… The good news is that they only resorted to using children because nothing else would work… Granted they could have just… Not continued their research on forced fusion.” “Not every question needs to be answered,” Harley agreed. “Like… I don’t actually want to know how many bugs I can fit in my mouth?” While Imshael and Harley continued to list off examples of things they did not need to know the answer to, William skimmed through the rest of the KY files, but they were ultimately more of the same.

He moved on to the KX subjects. Those he knew. “Kx-01 subject. 12 year old female. Volunteer, informed consent (See risk waiver) blah blah…” William read out loud, frowning. “This girl became their first Meir… But they ‘learned a great deal about Meirs, how to contain them, and how to destroy them’ thanks to her… I… Don’t…” William had to step away for a moment. Destroy. They meant kill. Murder. End a life, maybe even two. He couldn’t bear to read about the tests they did on the meir. He closed the file and moved on. More Meirs. More deaths. Some children saved at the cost of their Adex being destroyed. Few successes, until... “This one’s different. KX-14,” Will eventually said, his brow relaxing from the ever deepening frown he’d had previously. “Different how?” Imshael asked. “Successful symbiosis with ANB72… Result, the ability to mimic the abilities of other Adex. KX14’s ability has allowed us to predict the type of abilities an adex will have-”...Basically, this says she’s the reason we know Adex colors correspond to what kind of power they’ll give. She also… ‘claims to see a faint colorful glow’ coming from the Adex.’... She could… See resonance?” Though Harley was wagging her tail enthusiastically, Imshael showed no sign of interest. Their tail just… swished lazily. “Immy, there’s people who can see Resonance! Isn’t that cool?” he asked, putting his hands near them, but they didn’t move. “I suppose?” they said. William frowned. “You knew already.” “Yes. Sorry. I see you’re excited. I do not mean to detract from your excitement.” Imshael’s apathy aside, William continued, noticing that there was a small note at the end of kx-14’s file. They weren’t the only person to see Resonance, but it took until subject 19 to realize that this phenomena was a real thing and not a stress induced hallucination or something of the sort. From there, there was a lot more successes. 22, however, was an outlier.

Succesful at first, the stress and isolation turned them into a Meir. “Dr. Evergarden decided to use the Meir to test out the powers of successful subjects, beginning project Nightmeir.” It linked to the project, but this William refused to click. He continued.

Kx-023. William picked up Peony’s note and looked again. She’s mentioned this subject, told him to look.

“Subject awoke during procedure. Panic caused a small scuffle until he could be sedated again. No lives lost, but Adex suffered damage. See Incident reports.” And dated later, a note had been added stating :”Subject releases small amounts of Resonance even with Dampeners. Without dampeners, subject can not control his ability and destroys anything he touches. (Re: Request- Wall repair in B2-B wing,)” And a little later still, “Subject experiences blackening of veins in hands (What??) Sent to medical examination immediately, but no medical reasons have been found. He is perfectly healthy. Maybe this is caused by the Adex damage? Continue monitoring.”

William looked back to the floor plan, on an inkling that this wall that needed repairs might be one that resulted in the collapse.

Unfortunately, he realized that he was not an architect and couldn’t really figure it out, so he returned to his reading.

There were few deviations. Meirs, successes… He could tell that it was around there that they’d managed to get the Resonance measuring machine working. Hell, even the number of consenting subjects rose the closer he got to his sister’s number.

There wasn’t much to learn, but he did notice a naming pattern for the Adex, and understood they were named by their color. From there, he compiled a list of Adex colors and their abilities… But there was one strange code he didn’t understand. Some adex codes started with an “A”, but they were few. 14, 24,72…

Wait.

72? 72 was…

Kat!

#SOAH 23 #Story of a hero 23 #SOAH #Story of hero

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socialjusticeartshare · 4 years ago

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An Immigrant Detained By ICE Fears She Will Catch COVID-19 Before She’s Reunited With Her Daughter

Attorneys for the asylum-seeker from Ecuador said her health is deteriorating in ICE detention.

Maybelin spends her days inside immigration detention with a constant stomach ache, dizziness, and a urinary tract infection, hoping to be reunited with the daughter she last saw being dragged away by smugglers in Mexico.

When the 22-year-old left her home in Ecuador in November, she weighed 130 pounds. Today, she weighs 96 pounds. She also has lethargy, a lack of appetite, and hemorrhoids. Rosa de Jong, her immigration attorney, said Maybelin’s health is deteriorating by the day and worries her client’s immune system is compromised, making her more vulnerable to contracting COVID-19.

ICE officials told de Jong they have been unable to refer Maybelin to doctors outside the Texas facility where she’s detained to get a diagnosis, which could help get her released, according to documents sent to a detention and deportation officer at the El Paso Service Processing Center.

“Her case is a perfect example of how the current system makes immigrants vulnerable to becoming victims over and over again. It’s like a Russian doll; it just keeps compounding,” de Jong told BuzzFeed News. “She was kidnapped for six weeks. Her daughter was then kidnapped. And now she’s suffering through unnecessary detention during a pandemic.”

ICE declined to comment on the story without BuzzFeed News providing a privacy waiver signed by Maybelin.

Maybelin, who declined to use her full name citing privacy concerns, and her daughter requested asylum from US border officers at the southern border in November. They were sent back to Mexico under a Trump administration policy that forces immigrants to wait there while their cases are decided by a US immigration judge. Even when those cases were being heard, they are currently postponed amid the pandemic; immigrants have waited for months in cramped shelters, shared apartments or hotels, and a squalid camp in the Mexican city of Matamoros.

After an initial court hearing on Feb. 3, Maybelin's 4-year-old daughter started to have recurring fevers, stomach pain, and blood in her stool. A smuggler in Matamoros offered to get the pair to Ciudad Juárez and then into the US. But the smuggler’s deal turned out to be the beginning of a nightmare Maybelin hasn’t been able to escape from.

“The person she hoped would get her across ended up kidnapping her,” de Jong said.

In Ciudad Juárez, Maybelin and her daughter were held captive inside a home and forced to do housework from Feb. 16 to April 1. In that time, the Trump administration closed the US's borders with Mexico and Canada. The administration has been expelling most immigrants who try to enter the US under an emergency order it says is needed to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus. Even most unaccompanied minors, who have more protections than other immigrants trying to cross the border, are being turned away.

In late March, Maybelin was moved to another home in Ciudad Juárez where she was starved by her captors if she cried. On April 1, a man grabbed her daughter against her will and smuggled her into the US. One of the men who was guarding the girl inside a home in El Paso, Texas, called her grandparents who live in the US and demanded an increasing amount of money in exchange for her release.

Later that day, Maybelin was handed fake documents and dropped off at an official US border crossing in Ciudad Juárez. Once there, she presented herself to US Customs and Border Protection officers and quickly told them about her daughter's kidnapping.

Homeland Security Investigations, an investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security that looks into cross-border crimes, found Maybelin's daughter inside a house in El Paso four days later. She was sent to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which oversees the custody of unaccompanied minors, before being sent to live with her grandparents.

Caseworkers with ORR noted that the 4-year-old showed signs of trauma, specifically when approached by men, according to court documents filed with the Justice Department. Her family worries she may have been subjected to additional violence after she was taken from Maybelin.

An investigation was opened into the mother's and daughter's cases, but the US Attorney's Office in El Paso told de Jong it wouldn't be pursuing charges against anyone. No explanation was given, and the US Attorney's Office declined to comment.

There seems to be an assumption that immigrants always consent to being smuggled, de Jong said, but in cases such as Maybelin's, that consent was taken away.

“We have seen a spike of Ecuadorians in local detention centers, the large majority of whom seem to have had similarly awful experiences with smugglers in Juarez, almost always including extended kidnapping and abuse,” de Jong said.

Linda Corchado, the director of legal services at Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center in El Paso, said pursuing charges could've made Maybelin eligible for a "U visa," which gives undocumented immigrants who report crimes and work with law enforcement a path to permanent residency. Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center flagged the case to local FBI and prosecutors.

“We have these circumstances where people are becoming more and more victimized by [the "Remain in Mexico" policy], and people are taking dangerous routes to get here,” Corchado told BuzzFeed News. “At the same time, you have local prosecutors and agents who know we could corroborate and they declined to go any further, which is really sad.”

It sends the message that international criminal organizations on both sides of the US–Mexico border can operate with impunity, Corchado added.

Maybelin is currently detained at the El Paso Service Processing Center, which has 72 people diagnosed with COVID-19 and has seen a total of 119 cases since the start of the pandemic.

De Jong said ICE has been repeatedly exposing the people it detains to the coronavirus. Last week, Maybelin’s unit was placed in quarantine for the third time after a new immigrant who was sent there tested positive for COVID-19.

“She feels dizzy all the time, recurring urinary tract infection, constipation, hemorrhoids,” de Jong said. “They just treat the symptoms and never try to figure what’s going on.”

Advocates have long argued that because immigration detention is civil and not meant to be punitive, ICE has wide discretion to release anyone in its custody. Maybelin asked ICE to parole her while her case is adjudicated, but she was denied.

“You have failed to establish that parole is warranted based on urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit,” a May 20 denial from ICE stated.

De Jong filed another request for custody redetermination in Maybelin’s case on June 21, arguing that her client has no criminal background and a US citizen sponsor willing to house and support her.

Attorneys across the US filed several lawsuits to try to force ICE to release vulnerable immigrants it's detaining amid the coronavirus pandemic. In April, ICE said it would consider releasing immigrants who were over the age of 60, pregnant, or had certain underlying medical conditions. Nearly 700 immigrants were released under ICE’s guidelines.

But US District Judge Jesus Bernal, in response to one of the lawsuits, said ICE did not go far enough and ordered the agency to “identify and track” an expanded category of immigrants he considered to be at risk. As of June 25, 490 people have been released from ICE custody as a result of a court order, according to the agency.

If Maybelin has a serious or chronic health condition that makes her vulnerable to contracting COVID-19, she could be released under Bernal’s order, Corchado of Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center said. But it’s impossible without a diagnosis. So far, ICE hasn’t sent Maybelin to see a doctor outside of detention who could make a diagnosis.

“Like so many detained separated mothers, her heightened distress and anxiety is having a negative impact on her health, and every day that goes by without her daughter, our client is becoming more despondent and wants to give up,” Corchado said. “We had hoped that ICE would agree to release our client from detention. Unfortunately, that has not been the case.”

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#ICE #covid-19 #reunited #immigrant detained

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bountyofbeads · 5 years ago

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FBI, ICE find state driver’s license photos are a gold mine for facial-recognition searches

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/07/07/fbi-ice-find-state-drivers-license-photos-are-gold-mine-facial-recognition-searches/

FBI, ICE find state driver’s license photos are a gold mine for facial-recognition searches

By Drew Harwell | Published July 07 at 3:54 PM | Washington Post | Posted July 7, 2019 |

Agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Immigration and Customs Enforcement have turned state driver’s license databases into a facial-recognition gold mine, scanning through hundreds of millions of Americans’ photos without their knowledge or consent, newly released documents show.

An ICE spokesman declined to answer questions about how the agency uses facial-recognition searches, saying its “investigative techniques are generally considered law-enforcement sensitive.”

Twenty-one states, including Texas, Pennsylvania, plus the District of Columbia, allow federal agencies such as the FBI to scan driver’s license photos, GAO records show. The agreements stipulate some rules for the searches, including that each must be relevant to a criminal investigation.

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