Specs offenders
Yeah, don't want to be accidentally recording evidence of criminal activity which could be subpoenaed or used against the people in charge.
ICE boss to agents: Leave the Meta spy glasses at home
Some ICE employees seemingly needed a reminder not to wear their Meta pervert glasses to work. Because only ICE can spy on ICE. Meta smart glasses are essentially “body-worn cameras,” as they can covertly record video and audio, David Venturella, Immigration and Customs Enforcement acting director, reportedly reminded agency …
-
-
-
Wednesday 19th August 2026 22:34 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Specs offenders
Going by the downvotes, there appears to be at least 2 ICE loving fascists here.
I guess they think they are somehow immune from Trumps Gestapo. They don't realise that they may be white, they may love Trump, but if he gets his way, sooner or later they'll be ICE fodder just as much as the next guy.
-
Thursday 20th August 2026 07:23 GMT blu3b3rry
Re: Specs offenders
When I found myself travelling to the US (specifically Florida) twice last year, I wasn't keen, but at least figured that my face fits as someone likely to be allowed across the border, and unlikely to be profiled when passing anyone to do with ICE (pale-skinned, pretty nondescript). The only giveaway that I wasn't a yank would have been the british accent.
Recent events show that just about anyone, US citizen or not, can be considered a target regardless of appearance.
"But I didn't think the leopard would eat my face."
-
Thursday 20th August 2026 09:26 GMT ShadowDragon8685
Re: Specs offenders
Odds are currently running high that Mango Mussolini plans to deploy ICE as "poll watchers" because the organ that actually is trained to do poll watching got DOGE'd, which would suit Velveeta Voldemort just as well since he likes untrained goons running around thugging up the place under color of law.
-
Thursday 20th August 2026 09:49 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Specs offenders
Or people here realise that most ICE agents know not to wear anything identifying while they're out murdering innocents.
I imagine the concern is more that the perv specs could identify the thugs while they're getting kitted up and therefore be able to identify them once they're fully incognito. Or potentially that it could inadvertently livestream an attack which might lead to armed civilians showing up to defend the innocent that's being targeted.
-
-
-
Thursday 20th August 2026 07:46 GMT Steve Button
Re: Specs offenders
Nobody would be surprised if an FBI agent, Secret Service agent, police officer, prison officer, or Department of Defense employee was told not to wear personal recording glasses at work. When ICE does the same thing, some commentards portray it as evidence of secrecy or wrongdoing. Either personal recording devices are a security risk in sensitive workplaces or they aren't. Applying a different standard to ICE because of people's views on immigration enforcement is inconsistent.
Official body cameras, internal oversight, inspectors general, courts, freedom of information laws, and congressional oversight are accountability mechanisms. An employee wearing their own Meta glasses is something entirely different. The question isn't transparency; it's whether staff should be allowed to bring uncontrolled recording devices into a workplace that handles sensitive information. Most people would answer "no" for almost any law enforcement or government agency.
-
-
Thursday 20th August 2026 09:03 GMT Steve Button
Re: Specs offenders
"ICE is bad, therefore ICE employees should be allowed to wear personal recording glasses" doesn't really follow. If anything, agencies under the greatest scrutiny should be subject to the most controlled and accountable recording processes, not a free-for-all where individual employees decide when and what to record on privately owned devices.
You basically taking the Disney movie approach, where you split everything into good guys and bad guys.
-
-
-
-
-
Thursday 20th August 2026 11:59 GMT Jedit
"Godwin's law. Didn't take long."
The regular reminder that Godwin's Law does not apply when there is a legitimate reason to make the comparison to Hitler or the Nazis. I only have 30 minutes for lunch so I don't have time to type out all the ways in which comparing ICE with the Gestapo is valid, but we all know they exist. Some of us are just less willing to admit it than others.
-
Thursday 20th August 2026 12:56 GMT Steve Button
Re: "Godwin's law. Didn't take long."
I also don't have endless time. So will keep it short. Let's just say, hypothetically, that there are some valid comparisons with the Nazis. Would that mean somehow that things would be better if these guys were allowed to have personal video recording devices in use? How is that going to help anyone? Wouldn't it be easier to delete unwanted footage from your own device compared to an official body cam? And don't the body cams make it pretty difficult to tamper with footage, which is surely what you'd want for transparency?
"We all know ICE is basically the Gestapo" is not an argument. It's a conclusion. If someone wants to defend that comparison, they need to do the work of defending it. But even if they succeed, they'd still have to explain why a rule that is considered sensible for the FBI, police departments, prisons, courts, and defence organisations suddenly becomes objectionable when ICE adopts it. Those are two separate claims, and people often skip over the second one.
-
-
-
-
-
-
Thursday 20th August 2026 13:53 GMT BartyFartsLast
Re: Specs offenders
Ah, so the trials of the ICE agents who killed unarmed civilians who were no threat on the pretext of "personal safety" will be happening soon then?
Oh.
Well, how about the investigations into the killings?
Oh.
What about the ICE agents lying to cover up their actions? What consequences have they faced?
Oh.
Tell me again how ICE are fully accountable and aren't the bad guys?
-
-
-
Thursday 20th August 2026 19:22 GMT doublelayer
Re: Specs offenders
The post you replied to and those that agreed with them weren't exactly championing smart glass use and complaining that it was unfair to take it away. They discussed their views on ICE and basically didn't comment on the policy at all other than to allege what cameras might record. So there appears to be little point in your argument since it exists to disagree with things people aren't bothering to say.
If it helps, it's quite normal to forbid use of these devices while working, both for avoiding exposure of things the workplace has a valid reason to keep undisclosed and for privacy of the public for employees in public-facing roles. I don't see anyone disagreeing with that point. I do see people who would disagree that that's why ICE is doing it.
-
-
-
-
Thursday 20th August 2026 09:06 GMT Bebu sa Ware
ICE employees need daily reminders on a lot of things.
Foremost might be: what you dish out now might be coming for you when the wind changes.
I would pray that no one exfiltrates the PII of operational ICE agents as terror works both ways.
It might be imagined that some of glasshole agents are wearing cameras to protect themselves against when things go pear shaped but I don't imagine any would have enough braincells for that.
As far I can see the US is vying with North Korea to be the least desirable destination in the world amongst the nations that aren't suffering an Ebola outbreak.
-
Thursday 20th August 2026 14:00 GMT Steve Button
Re: ICE employees need daily reminders on a lot of things.
The US has plenty of problems, but claiming it's competing with North Korea for "least desirable destination in the world" is a bit detached from reality. If we're talking about places most people would rather avoid living in, there's a long list ahead of the US: North Korea, Afghanistan, Eritrea, Haiti, South Sudan, Somalia, Yemen, Syria, Myanmar and Sudan would probably all feature near the top.
You can strongly criticise ICE, US immigration policy, police conduct, or the current administration without pretending the US is somehow on par with a totalitarian hereditary dictatorship, a civil-war zone, or a failed state. If millions of people are still trying to move to the US every year, that's a fairly strong indication that most of the world doesn't see it as comparable to North Korea.
By all means argue that America is becoming less attractive than it once was. That's a defensible position. Arguing it's one of the least desirable countries on Earth requires ignoring a lot of countries where people face war, famine, state collapse, political imprisonment, or all of the above.
And somehow that retarded comment gets ten thumbs up. I think a lot of people in the West have no idea how good they have it compared to most of the rest of the world. Particularly people in tech it seems, who must live in some kind of bubble. Switch off CNN and watch some Al Jazeera for a 1/2 hour and you'll see some undesirable places.
-
-
-
Thursday 20th August 2026 07:42 GMT that one in the corner
Similar wearable devices capable of recording audio or video
Like mobile phones?
You can argue about the meaning of "wearable" (as if that made a difference to the recording ability) but is there any meaningful difference between, say, wearing the phone by putting it into one of those arm straps beloved of joggers versus always having it in your breast pocket? Except, of course, that the breast pocket is a much better location from which to capture video, right next to the official camera (and less likely to suffer from mysterious glitches).
-
Thursday 20th August 2026 07:52 GMT Steve Button
Re: Similar wearable devices capable of recording audio or video
"likely to suffer from mysterious glitches"
Are they though? Really? I keep seeing bodycam footage after they release it, and it doesn't seem to be "glitchy". Not been following that closely recently to be fair, I'm on the other side of the pond it's not quite the same over here.
-
Thursday 20th August 2026 12:09 GMT that one in the corner
Re: Similar wearable devices capable of recording audio or video
>>>likely to suffer from mysterious glitches
> Are they though? Really? I keep seeing bodycam footage after they release it, and it doesn't seem to be "glitchy".
Think about it a bit more carefully: if the camera has mysteriously glitched then there isn't any footage to be released!
-
-
Thursday 20th August 2026 09:29 GMT Bebu sa Ware
Re: kind of hard to shoot an innocent person while recording it on a mobile phone.
Not really you just clip the phone on to the barrel like a selfie stick.†
Actually today I saw an young woman wandering around the CBD with something like that making a video or live·streaming the street scene with a running commentary in Mandarin. I assume she was some sort of "influencer" given the very expensive fashion label of her attire.
† A quick duckduck found that these things, surprise surprise, exist in the US Universal Phone Holder for Gun/Bow — Picture.
Not shipped to AU (wonder why /s.)
-
Friday 21st August 2026 19:39 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: kind of hard to shoot an innocent person while recording it on a mobile phone.
Hmm, I would not want to expose my phone to the pulse acceleration it's likely to receive when you fire a shot. Yes, most of them have impact testing now, but that's not the same as sustained repeated whacks from recoil. I don't think that's a good idea without some quality dampening.
It's the same issue for TAC lights - a cheap one soon dies. The more recoil the sooner, if it's not tested for gun use you'll soon know.
Don't underestimate the whack gun-attached gear gets. If you want to have some idea, don't shoulder tightly when you fire :).
-
-
-
-
Thursday 20th August 2026 13:18 GMT Rich 11
Rank hypocrisy
“The use of Meta Glasses or similar devices could unintentionally capture, record or transmit sensitive information, potentially compromising privacy and legal protections,” Venturella said
ICE routinely arrests people attending immigration court hearings and denies detainees due process, yet this two-faced proto-fascist is more worried about the potential for compromising his agents' legal protections. FOAD.
-
Thursday 20th August 2026 16:15 GMT Azamino
Stop and think for a minute
Camera footage can help in many, many, situations. Not just in the sense of recording crimes but trying to get various authorities to do their jobs. If the various authorities that love to dictate how we live don't want you to use it then you probably should be considering its benefits.
For years I turned my bike cameras on three minutes before leaving home because a Met police officer said that he needed a minimum of three minutes prior footage before he could use such footage. That turned out to be nonsense. Much later, I learned that any footage of an abusive neighbour would have to start before any incident (to prove that it was not provoked) but that filming could be considered provocative in and of itself.
Quite simply a camera in an innocuous pair of glasses that you might wear anyway is a convenient option for anyone with a concern to record without inflaming the situation. The genie is out of the bottle, society will learn a new etiquette around where and when it can be used and life will go on.
-
Friday 21st August 2026 19:44 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Stop and think for a minute
If you're recording me without my consent you have already inflamed the situation because you will never be able to prove that Meta will erase the recording. Only that you may no longer have access to it.
When you show up wearing that in my vicinity you declare that your desire to feed a US company with data is far more important than my privacy, which then may force me to more aggressively assert my rights.
Maybe watch the movie Anon - that's based on a society that is recorded 100% of the time. I would not want to live that life.
-
-
This post has been deleted by its author
-
Monday 24th August 2026 04:23 GMT sindrelspec
They want them to prove their guilt?
"Because the last thing DHS needs is more proof of misconduct"
Does the author of this article think that the agents want to wear these to get incriminating evidence against themselves? It sounds like the opposite, they want to prove their innocence if they are accused of something.
Does ICE have bodycams? Their agents appear to want them.
