Do I look like an immigrant?
Trump Border Czar Boasts ICE Can ‘Briefly Detain’ People Based On ‘Physical Appearance’
This is what our country has deteriorated to under Trump. T hink about whether this is acceptable to you, and if not, what you can and will do about it.
David Moyes reports:
President Donald Trump’s border czar Tom Homan went viral on Friday after practically boasting on TV about all the ways ICE agents and Border Patrol agents can go after suspected illegal immigrants.
Homan was being interviewed on Fox News about a potential ruling from a federal judge in Los Angeles over whether the Trump administration could be ordered to pause its ICE raids on immigrants.
He responded by claiming that immigration law enforcers don’t actually need “probable cause” to detain a possible suspect, despite it being a key part of the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment.
“People need to understand, ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] officers and Border Patrol don’t need probable cause to walk up to somebody, briefly detain them, and question them,” Homan said. “They just go through the observations, get articulable facts based on their location, their occupation, their physical appearance, their actions.”
Homan also insisted that if his agents briefly detained someone, “it’s not probable cause. It’s reasonable suspicion.”
Read more at HuffPost.
All students are criminals?
https://www.jmir.org/2025/1/e71998/
School-Based Online Surveillance of Youth: Systematic Search and Content Analysis of Surveillance Company Websites
Background:
School-based online surveillance of students has been widely adopted by middle and high school administrators over the past decade. Little is known about the technology companies that provide these services or the benefits and harms of the technology for students. Understanding what information online surveillance companies monitor and collect about students, how they do it, and if and how they facilitate appropriate intervention fills a crucial gap for parents, youth, researchers, and policy makers.
Objective:
The two goals of this study were to (1) comprehensively identify school-based online surveillance companies currently in operation, and (2) collate and analyze company-described surveillance services, monitoring processes, and features provided.
Methods:
We systematically searched GovSpend and EdSurge’s Education Technology (EdTech) Index to identify school-based online surveillance companies offering social media monitoring, student communications monitoring, or online monitoring. We extracted publicly available information from company websites and conducted a systematic content analysis of the websites identified. Two coders independently evaluated all company websites and discussed the findings to reach 100% consensus regarding website data labeling.
Results:
Our systematic search identified 14 school-based online surveillance companies. Content analysis revealed that most of these companies facilitate school administrators’ access to students’ digital behavior, well beyond monitoring during school hours and on school-provided devices. Specifically, almost all companies reported conducting monitoring of students at school, but 86% (12/14) of companies reported also conducting monitoring 24/7 outside of school and 7% (1/14) reported conducting monitoring outside of school at school administrator-specified locations. Most online surveillance companies reported using artificial intelligence to conduct automated flagging of student activity (10/14, 71%), and less than half of the companies (6/14, 43%) reported having a secondary human review team. Further, 14% (2/14) of companies reported providing crisis responses via company staff, including contacting law enforcement at their discretion.
Conclusions:
This study is the first detailed assessment of the school-based online surveillance industry and reveals that student monitoring technology can be characterized as heavy-handed. Findings suggest that students who only have school-provided devices are more heavily surveilled and that historically marginalized students may be at a higher risk of being flagged due to algorithmic bias. The dearth of research on efficacy and the notable lack of transparency about how surveillance services work indicate that increased oversight by policy makers of this industry may be warranted. Dissemination of our findings can improve parent, educator, student, and researcher awareness of school-based online monitoring services.
