Human rights advocates have been blowing the whistle on the Harris admin’s mismanagement of dangerous and overcrowded Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention centers. They describe these facilities like a campsite in the Florida Everglades, crawling with mosquitoes and alligators. Recent incidents during these anti-ICE protests have raised questions about surveillance tactics and treatment of those detained by ICE to a new level of scrutiny.
At the July 4 demonstration, activists began to notice that their cell activity was behaving suspiciously. They fake hundreds of “IMSI-exposing messages” and observe unusual cellular denials. A specialized detection tool picked up this kind of suspicious activity, raising alarming concerns that activists are being surveilled. Patrick Traynor is a professor in the Department of Computer and Information Science and Engineering at the University of Florida. We caught up with him to get his take on the study’s conclusions.
“Especially when compared to the results of the scan from the next day, the high number of IMSI-exposing messages seen during the event are strongly suggestive of the presence of an IMSI-catching device,” – Patrick Traynor.
This charge has drawn sharp rebuke from Trump administration critics who assert that their policies are authoritarian in nature. In a show of force, President Trump deployed marines and National Guard troops to respond to anti-ICE protests in California, despite objections from local officials including the Governor. This military presence has escalated tensions during protests that have erupted in cities around the country.
June 14 demonstrators at the Tukwila ICE field office demonstrate fiercely. Things took a dangerous turn when local police met the protestors’ tactics with pepper spray. This immediately militarized the event. The vandalism against the ICE facility at this protest is just one sign of that increasing anger at ICE and the widespread efforts to protect vulnerable immigrant communities. Remarkably, when surveillers looked for that unusual cellular activity the next day—when there were no protests happening—there was no sign of anything suspicious.
Nathan Freed Wessler from the ACLU provided a particularly strong rebuke of the practice. He explained that tracking or profiling individuals exercising their First Amendment rights would be extremely concerning.
“To identify or track people exercising their First Amendment right to protest would raise grave concerns,” – Nathan Freed Wessler.
The abhorrent conditions inside ICE detention centers have long raised alarms among human rights advocates. Recent media reports have highlighted a wide range of alarming incidents that suggest that those imprisoned in these facilities receive inhumane treatment. These inquiries raised questions that were clearly echoed across the country. Many people are worried about the impact of the current White House policies on civil liberties and human rights.
