US immigration agents will have access to one of the world’s most sophisticated hacking tools after a decision by the Trump administration to move ahead with a contract with Paragon Solutions, a company founded in Israel which makes spyware that can be used to hack into any mobile phone – including encrypted applications.
The Department of Homeland Security first entered into a contract with Paragon, now owned by a US firm, in late 2024, under the Biden administration. But the $2m contract was put on hold pending a compliance review to make sure it adhered to an executive order that restricts the US government’s use of spyware, Wired reported at the time.
That pause has now been lifted, according to public procurement documents, which list US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) as the contracting agency.
Only good Ice agent is a dead one.
They don’t need to die. They can go back to guarding parking lots.
That’s a bit like blaming the gun instead of the shooter, no?
The fuck? How?
“Just following orders” isn’t a valid excuse. We know this from history.
I never said it was.
My point is that killing the soldier doesn’t change the orders, they’ll just find another soldier. If one soldier isn’t willing to follow orders, they’ll find another that is.
You were kind of making the same defense though…
The implication was that we shouldn’t blame the soldiers because they weren’t the ones who made the decision.
That’s not how this works.
No, the implication is that targeting ICE agents doesn’t solve the problem. I’m not saying that ICE agents should be immune from the law, I’m saying that the root of the problem is the orders. If some ICE agents refuse to follow orders, they’ll be replaced by those who will follow them, just like a murder will replace a gun if it doesn’t function properly.
The focus should be on the source of the problems, which is a mix of the law and the leadership. We should certainly hold ICE agents accountable for any laws they break, but targeting them w/ violence shouldn’t be the focus.
If they fear actual consequences, then less people will be willing to join.
They are literal extrajudicial fascist brownshirts that want my friends and neighbors dead. These are actual people under those masks, and they need to understand that their actions have consequences. I’m not saying people should go out and kill them, but I’m saying that they need to fear that.
You can focus on both my dude.
No, recruitment will just focus on hiring people that are okay with those circumstances, which means people with less empathy and quicker to use force. I’m not implying we should ignore illegal actions by ICE agents (we should absolutely hold them legally accountable), I’m just saying that it’s not likely to solve the problem w/o changes to the law and/or the leadership, especially given how the courts tend to give law enforcement officers a pass.
As people target ICE agents more and more w/ violence, the more violence they’ll use in response. Violence begets violence, and that’s not going to solve the problem.
What we need are lawsuits challenging the legality of their actions, and ideally criminal charges against the leadership making illegal orders. We need to pressure our representatives to change the law. We need to protest peacefully and get positive media coverage so our voices cannot be ignored. Violence isn’t going to solve it.
This is a bad take. The violence is here already dude.
Yeah, don’t blame the brownshirts kicking teeth in, blame the government that hires them /s
They volunteered for this, they can sleep in the pit for it in the end.
Sure, I get the “just following orders” criticism, my point is that killing ICE agents wouldn’t solve anything. I imagine many of them joined long before the crackdown started and are there to arrest actually bad people (i.e. cartel members) and don’t like the direction the current admin is going. There are also plenty of people who support this nonsense too.
Regardless, attacking the people following orders doesn’t change the orders, we should be attacking the top.
I understand your point, but these people know what they’re signing up for and why they’re putting in the uniform every day. We shouldn’t pretend these people are in anyway innocent or not culpable for their crimes. Regardless of orders, these are people who are willingly causing pain, suffering and death to innocents.
Fuck them. Fuck their bosses. None of them get any credit or sympathy. I don’t care if they started when ice was formed, they know what their orders are and are still there, what they signed up for is entirely immaterial. Also, ice was shit from the start, so even less sympathy from me.
Making people hesitant to throw in with the brownshirts for fear of social reprisal is a perfectly valid strategy for attacking the top. Make less people want to participate in their crimes makes it harder for them to do crimes.
No, it just means the reasonable people will leave and it’ll attract the types who actually agree with it. There will always be more people to take those jobs.
The real solution is changing the leadership and laws.
That’s a much smaller pool of people than those who may willingly go along with it but object otherwise.
Stop giving thugs a pass for being thugs, just because their bosses are shit. You can attack both, this isn’t some kind of mutually exclusive action.
My point is that killing ICE agents won’t make things better and will probably make things worse.
I’m not advocating for murder, I just look forward to the American Nuremberg trials and hope we get a modern day John C Woods.