Biden stopped ICE from buying Israeli spyware, but Trump admin allows it to proceed ICE may soon have a new weapon in its arsenal. The White House has reversed a Biden-era decision to suspend the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)'s purchase of software from commercial spyware maker Paragon Solutions. Israel-based Paragon Solutions' contract with ICE was signed in September of 2024, but quickly placed …
>It got downvoted quite a bit.
Yeah because it's nuts to suggest democrats should conduct themselves in such a way. The factors to conducting and winning a civil war is so anathema to the few tent poles of the Democrats it would be suicidal to enter into conflict as them.
A) Guns. Democrats have spent decades disarming their partisans and the zeitgeist is mocking the militia types, forgetting that even weekend warrior types can be used to occupy territory.
B) Lack of financial power. Now that big tech has fully defected to be another big business supporting Republicans there's no real financial base for a liberal operation.
What about other parts of the US government? If the FBI etc. were still free to buy it and all that's been changed is that ICE can buy it too I don't see this making things much worse than they already are.
It is hard to imagine how ICE would use this, especially with Trump's lackeys prioritizing numbers - you don't need to decrypt Whatsapp messages to know going to farms, meatpacking plants and Home Depot are fertile grounds for round-ups of people who are here illegally but aren't "violent criminals" or the "worst of the worst". They get the numbers up the those so they can meet Steven Miller's aggressive goals.
The way the current US administration is going ICE is basically becoming the US secret police, and in decades time will be talked about along side organisations such as the Gestapo or KGB.
People need to wake up to the fact that once all the 'criminal illegal aliens' have been got rid of, they won't stop there and start going after anyone else they dislike, LGBT people, liberals, activists etc.
I find it very depressing that the far right has successfully weaponised objection to the Zionist government of Israel, conflating it with anti-semitism. The problem, of course, being that most Jews (and certainly all the Jews I know) object to the behaviour of the Israeli government and the concept of settling Palestinian lands. They might not go quite as far as calling these settlements lebensraum (and yet that is what they are), or recognising the irony of the Israeli government acting in a demonstrably fascistic manner and visiting the sins perpetrated by the Nazis against the Jews upon their Muslim neighbours, but they still recognise the sins that Israel is committing now. And, to be honest, I can understand why they might not want to make that uncomfortable connection - after all, if someone in my family was a Farage supporter or a Trump supporter I’d still love them, and I might shy from recognising that they were fascists too.
So this is what it has come to. The press, oil companies, weapons manufacturers are propping up fascist governments in the United States, Israel, Russia etc (and trying to do the same in the United Kingdom amongst others), and those right wing governments are banding together to ensure that policies are enacted which is in the best interests of their supporters (filling their pockets) whilst making life demonstrably worse for the poor gullible mugs who voted for them.
Take a gander at Alien Earth where the movie arc sub-plot about Weyland-Yutani mega/evil corporation has grown legs to 6 corporations controlling the Earth.
It’s at the opposite end of the spectrum to Star Trek:TNG and Statfleet/UFP … though recognising there was a World War 3 in the back narrative.
"successfully weaponised objection to the Zionist government of Israel"
I think you will find that there are supporters of this approach on both sides of the aisle in the US govt. Actually I'd say that this is more prevalent amongst those with a D by their name.
https://www.npr.org/2025/03/15/nx-s1-5075324/sen-chuck-schumer-discusses-his-new-book-antisemitism-in-america
And then there is the ACLU and SPLC. They all sing from the same sheet.
Sadly, I fear that you’re right. The same applies to the (supposedly centre left, but actually far from) Labour Party in the UK.
The axis of oil / media / weapons / (anti)‘social’ media has utterly fucked up this planet. The good news is that we can defeat it through the application of critical thinking and tactical voting…
Oh.
Oh dear.
No - we really are screwed.
"The same applies to the (supposedly centre left, but actually far from) Labour Party in the UK"
Jeremy Corbyn laying a wreath on the graves of people believed to have carried out, or at least orchestrated, the 1972 Olympics massacre was not exactly the best optics. The kneejerk reaction and the investigation was also far from good optics.
At my last 2 companies (over the last 15 years) it has been policy for staff to take a mobile from the pool (in the previous company) and now a 'personal' mobile (with a US contract) that is turned on only when in the US. They are loaded with a few company contact phone numbers when supplied and are otherwise as new. We have laptops from a pool if we really need to take one, that are wiped and reimaged on return, and if we need data it is loaded via VPN when we are in the US. The image contains wiper software that is meant to be run on any data before leaving the US.
Exactly the same rules as visiting any other rouge surveillance state.
"President Trump has made no secret of his desire to go after political enemies using the government"
I am guessing the reg didnt wish to use the example of the weaponised government going after Trump for the last decade? Intelligence services squealing as their classified documents are declassified showing the terrible corruption and the DOJ being forced to look into participants.
"and ICE was seen as a massive domestic surveillance operation before Trump even took office for the second time"
The article you link to being 2022. Under Biden the border dissolved and sanctuary cities were doing everything they can to shelter the gangs and criminals flooding over the border. Some democrats have made it their mission to show the party in a terrible light by being as public and vocal about protecting actual criminals over their own people, not helped by Judges of the left leaning persuasion hiding, homing and protecting criminals.
If the concern is that ICE has this facility then maybe the rest of the agencies need to be looked at too. Surely there cant be more concern about this than the FBI obtaining warrants for surveillance using what they knew to be fabricated evidence? I wont be surprised if this malware is installed on illegals phones as they get picked up to help locate more of them.
"Restored deal reignites domestic global spying worries"
The whole point of this spyware is that it enables the US Gov't to conduct surrepticious surveillance on anyone with a device that will support it. (Which will also benefit anyone else who can get their hands on the data acquired which, given how US cyber security has been decimated in the past 6 months or so, will be much easier than it used to be.)
So why would that be limited to deployment within US borders? Expect it coming soon to a device near you!
‘Paragon Solutions Ltd. was established in Israel in 2019. The founders of Paragon include Ehud Barak, the former Israeli Prime Minister, and Ehud Schneorson, the former commander of Israel’s Unit 8200. Paragon sells a spyware product called Graphite, which reportedly provides “access to the instant messaging applications on a device, rather than taking complete control of everything on a phone,” like NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware.’
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