Instagram user fights DHS for the right to post ICE sightings anonymously

DHS is weirdly using import/export rules to expand its authority to identify online critics.

See full article...

 

[Bernardo Verda]

Oof. I don't have the stamina to finish all the repeats in that exercise.

That's completely understandable.

 

[Sajuuk]

That's why their armor kit now generally carries the label POLICE as well as ICE.

They know it's a lie -- because according to the law they aren't police; they don't have police powers, and are explicitly far more restricted in what they are allowed to do -- but they are eager to confuse the issue and claim authority that the law doesn't actually give them.

If you have a group of people running around with guns and performing police actions, and the state is explicitly supporting those actions, well, those are police now.

 

[chaos215bar2]

If you have a group of people running around with guns and performing police actions, and the state is explicitly supporting those actions, well, those are police now.

I suppose we could call ICE "illegal police", but they certainly don't have the backing of any law for a whole lot of what they're doing.

 

[Sajuuk]

I suppose we could call ICE "illegal police", but they certainly don't have the backing of any law for a whole lot of what they're doing.

They have the backing of the only law that matters: the sanction and willingness to do more violence than their opposition.

 

[nwexplorer]

While I'm anonymous and online, I'd like to point out that two recent articles on Slate referred to Good's death as a murder. I understand that this goes against longstanding journalistic practice of not using that word until after a conviction. But we all know what happened to her, and I support their bravery in stating the obvious.

While I agree with the sentiment, he cannot be charged with murder under the legal definition. He certainly can be prosecuted for voluntary manslaughter. Conviction can put him away for the rest of his natural life or at least until he too old to matter.

 

[nwexplorer]

Why is “weirdly” the adjective here? When will journalists stop being limp-wristed cowards and start calling fascism by its name?

Also, while I’m on a rant: stop using “falsehoods” and just say “lies.”

I would add calling disinformation, misinformation.

 

[MedicalGeek]

(I also don't know where the average US serviceperson sits in terms of political affiliation. I am naively assuming most of them are reasonable.)

Oh you sweet summer child.

 

[MedicalGeek]

Two versions of the same story. First, one you know:



and a less known one from a Thomas Friedman column in the New York Times:

FYI Niemoller supported Hitler until he didn’t.
https://www.thenation.com/article/culture/fist-they-came-martin-niemoller/tnamp/

 

[graylshaped]

If you have a group of people running around with guns and performing police actions, and the state is explicitly supporting those actions, well, those are police now.

Absent legitimate jurisdiction, at this point all their activities can be considered as AT BEST under the color of authority.

 

[MedicalGeek]

But thus far, the Republicans have been kissing Trump's jackboots.

They’re afraid. Stochastic terrorism can touch them and their loved ones after all.

 

[JMTronicHobbyist]

The land of the Free!™

Offer not valid in within 100 miles of any international border.

Don't forget that includes international airports... And anywhere else the thugs think is included

 

[Bernardo Verda]

They’re afraid. Stochastic terrorism can touch them and their loved ones after all.

We expect our elected leaders to be braver than ordinary citizens, not less.

 

[Komarov]

We expect our elected leaders to be braver than ordinary citizens, not less.

They're supposed to be representatives, not leadsrs.

Except for Rump, who is certainly the bravest* man alive. Eating all those big macs would make my hair turn gray. Those bits that still have some colour. Which is most of them. I digress...


* Or maybe reckless. I'm told the difference is one of degree and correlates with the number of connections between neurons.

 

[Tamerlin]

So... in round numbers, only one person, Pamela Hemphill, just the one person out of over 1,500 participants in the Jan 6th assault had both enough brains, principle, and moral courage to reject Trump's mass pardon for the anti-democratic assault on Capitol Hill that Trump instigated. (That's less than a 1/10th of one percent.)

Convicted US Capitol rioter turns down Trump pardon​

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvged988377o

Why a Jan. 6 defendant rejected Trump's pardon​

https://www.npr.org/2025/01/23/nx-s...-6-rioter-doesnt-want-president-trumps-pardon

Former Trump supporter Pamela Hemphill refuses and returns her Jan. 6 pardon​

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pamela-hemphill-trump-supporter-refuses-jan-6-pardon/



Meanwhile, at least thirty pardonees have been charged and/or convicted for new serious crimes since the Jan 6th violence, or even since the insurrectionist pardon.

According to a recent House Judiciary Committee report, these charges include sexual assault, child sexual assault, production and possession of child pornography, rape, conspiracy to commit murder of FBI agents, kidnapping, aggravated robbery, reckless homicide, driving under the influence causing death, illegal possession of firearms, domestic violence by strangulation, burglary, vandalism, grand theft, stalking, violation of protective orders, threatening public officials and drug trafficking.

List of Pardoned Jan. 6 Rioters Who Have Faced New Criminal Charges​

https://www.newsweek.com/list-of-pardoned-jan-6-rioters-who-have-faced-new-criminal-charges-11318677


Drawing conclusions is left as an exercise for the reader.

It just goes to show that being soft on crime encourages more crime.

The level of stupidity required to believe that appeasing an insurrectionist was a good idea is truly american.

 

[Tamerlin]

The way it is going, I expect to be bankrupt by the end on the month...

Then it's a race to bankruptcy. Who will get there first, the ACLU or the US federal government?

 

[chaos215bar2]

They have the backing of the only law that matters: the sanction and willingness to do more violence than their opposition.

For now.

The forces that would ultimately go against ICE, short of immediate intervention from the executive, aren't the kind that show up in the streets and start making a show.

I might be wrong, but honestly, the more I hear, the more the current ICE antics look like they could be a desperate last gasp.

Trump is losing support. He has been throughout his term, but especially now. Due to the Epstein files. Due to his threats to US monetary policy and the Fed. And due to the precise antics now in play as a distraction.

I would not be surprised if all this winds up being the rope that ultimately hangs Trump, figuratively speaking of course. Although, again, I might be wrong.

 

[Komarov]

For now.

The forces that would ultimately go against ICE, short of immediate intervention from
the executive, aren't the kind that show up in the streets and start making a show.

I might be wrong, but honestly, the more I hear, the more the current ICE antics look like they could be a desperate last gasp.

Trump is losing support. He has been throughout his term, but especially now. Due to the Epstein files. Due to his threats to US monetary policy and the Fed. And due to the precise antics now in play as a distraction.

I would not be surprised if all this winds up being the rope that ultimately hangs Trump, figuratively speaking of course. Although, again, I might be wrong.

You'd better hope you are. What's happening now is disgusting, but at least Rump is easily distracted and he'll probably turn to the next shiny thing soon. I bet he frustrates his handlers to tears.

But if he croaks or is 25^th Amendmentised ... Dunce as president would be a disaster that would make Rump look like the sad money-grubbing clown he actually is. Dunce is a single-minded, persistent, actively evil piece of human excrement who doesn't give a rat's ass about his ratings. He would be the Stalin to Rump's Lenin.*


* I apologise, Vladimir Ilyich, this comparison is merely a rethoric device. You were an intelectual and every other kind of giant compared to DJt'R.

 

[Shiunbird]

Mainly because the US military lacks the authority to arrest people on US soil. What you want is for the local sheriff to arrest the fuckers and maybe for the governor to call out the National Guard to back up the sheriff.

I see your point. But no one is playing by the books anymore. One can claim that "defending the Constitution" has precedence over following the Posse Comitatus Act.

Or whatever... it is just chaos at this point.

It just would be very nice to see.

 

[Shiunbird]

So you've got a huge group trying to escape low income, low education regions where evangelical religion and conservative ideals tend to prevail and another large group who live and breathe conservative ideals.

Joining the military has been, historically and all over the world, a sure way of escaping the low income trap and achieve a position of more social prestige. It is the case in my family and in my home country, too.

I studied for 7 years at a military school in my home country (but decided then not to go to an academy to become a career officer) but, funnily enough, me and most of my friends shifted a lot left after witnessing how everything works there. It was a fantastic education, though. And, being funded by the Ministry of Defence, the school is not subject to the budgetary shortcomings of the national education system.

The sad side effect is that you get a ton of people joining because it is their only chance to grow in life, rather than being fit for the job. It is a hard one. One of my grandfathers is a retired general and he has always dreamt of being a soldier so he both grew out of poverty and the other one was a colonel in the Air Force, and flew during the WWII. Being a pilot was his thing, so that worked out too.

But both shared horror stories of incredibly corrupt peers or others with thirst for power that are unfit to serve and even worst to lead. And yet, you get good friends, you study hard, and you end up getting there. At least in my country, the system is not well designed to filter out assholes.

 

[fryhole]

DHS claims that Meta must comply with the subpoena because the government needs to investigate a “serious” threat “to the safety of its agents and the performance of their duties.”

Not sure what the big deal is here, Zuck was brown-nosing Trump pretty thoroughly back in Jan 2025, so it should be easy for the admin to reach out to Trump's booty masseur for data access. /s

 

[EnPeaSea]

The irony here is that any real law enforcement officer will tell you that "I feared for my life" is not sufficient justification for drawing a firearm, let alone firing it, and absofuckinlutely not firing first. In any remotely sane jurisdiction, that goon would now be detained, suspended pending discharge and looking at 10 years for murder and a bunch of other charges.

FFS even soldiers get rules of engagement stuffed into them until they're oozing out of their ears, and they're specifically not trained for law enforcement or dealing with civilians.

Sturmabteilung. Literally. Or ВЧК, it's hard to tell the difference from all the way over here.

SecWAR, Major Kegsbreath, has issued new directive that rules of engagement are woke, therefore stricken from military indoctrination. Also, no orders from himself or God-Emperor Trump could ever be illegal and merely suggesting that they ever could be is treason.

 

[EnPeaSea]

Oh you sweet summer child.

Hey! I retired from the Air Force more liberal than I entered... however, I don't feel like I moved far to the left, but rather the Republican party goose-stepped further right and I met the Democratic Party along the way as they shuffled past in interest of seeming "reasonable".

 

[Jon Smythe]

...and to think I had the gall to refer to The Angry Pumpkin as Reichsführer before the 2024 election...

 

[landrmc]

This is really troubling, especially given videos of further encounters since Renee Good's murder.

At what point are they designated a "secret police"?

As soon as they mask up and strap on?

 

[countbalo]

God damnit! I'm now physically ill from seeing this. Our nextdoor neighbor and good friend's mother was sent to a concentration camp, along with all the women in her small Czechoslovakian town under that abhorrent Nazi policy. All the men and boys were murdered by the Nazis. Why? Because a Nazi officer was assassinated in the town. I can't even begin to adequately express the outrage I have towards that vile thing standing behind the podium in that image.

Edit: I just saw Wheels' post and also wasn't able to find any references for that quote other than within the last few days. I confess to allowing my amygdala to take over from the higher regions of my brain. However, given that the Nazis regularly exercised collective punishment, and that they did destroy Lidice as collective punishment, the village home of my friend's mother, causing trauma which my friend still feels to this day, I stand by what I said about Noem. Those words on the podium are a threat of collective punishment; it doesn't matter if a Nazi actually said them in the past, because Noem and DHS are threatening to do today what Nazis did in the past. They are Nazis.

Maybe not Nazi but...

https://leadstories.com/hoax-alert/...-a-dhs-press-conference-in-new-york-city.html

"Another theory was posted on Threads on Jan. 12, 2026, suggesting the phrase was originally a Spanish slogan (pictured below). The post, featuring a slightly different Spanish phrasing than Google Translate offered, reads:"

Historical Parallel: Critics pointed out that the phrase closely mirrors fascist rhetoric. Specifically, it has been linked to a slogan from the Spanish Civil War used by Francisco Franco's supporters: "Uno de los nuestros, todos de los vuestros" ("One of ours, all of yours"), which was used to justify collective reprisals--the practice of punishing an entire community for the actions of a single individual.
Nazi Association: While the Spanish Falange used the most direct equivalent, the concept aligns with the Nazi practice of Sippenhaft (kin liability) and general collective punishment used by the Third Reich to enforce total obedience.

so not so far removed.

 

[Komarov]

...and to think I had the gall to refer to The Angry Pumpkin as Reichsführer before the 2024 election...

It's was incorrect then and is now. If we're drawing parallels, Rump correlates to der Führer, with Dunce as his deputy having, amazingly, the same charm and competence as Göring. Reichsführerin SS would be Kristi Noem with Todd Lyons as Stabschef des Sturmabteilungs. These assignments are faulty in that the SA was never part of the SS and was wiped out by the latter in 2026 I mean 1934.

 

[cf0]

Those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it. Understatement of the friggin' century.

I fear that many who study history hope to repeat it. They think they'll succeed where others failed.

 

[Komarov]

I fear that many who study history hope to repeat it. They think they'll succeed where others failed.

And therefore did not study it carefully enough. Missing the point of the lessons of history is implied.

 

[EnPeaSea]

...and to think I had the gall to refer to The Angry Pumpkin as Reichsführer before the 2024 election...

In an interview with Reuters on 15 Jan 2026...

The president expressed frustration that his Republican Party could lose control of the U.S. House of Representatives or the Senate in this year’s midterm elections, citing historical trends that have seen the party in power lose seats in the second year of a presidency.
“It's some deep psychological thing, but when you win the presidency, you don't win the midterms,” Trump said. He boasted that he had accomplished so much that “when you think of it, we shouldn't even have an election.”

 

[miniskunkz]

Freedom of speech never included the right to threaten people doing their jobs enforcing the law. Your rights end where someone else's begins. If you get in the way of law enforcement, trap uninvolved citizens, or cause property damage you are not the good guys.

Sadly too many lack an understanding of how big an issue unrestricted immigration is. People complain about not feeling safe and how they cannot afford things, housing, or their taxes but fail to understand the impact immigration has on the economy. We have trespassers arrested/removed from our property and that includes entry to our country without permission. Immigration is necessary, but applicants must be vetted for the good of all and numbers limited to what the infrastructure/economy can support. American citizenship is a privilege not a right.

 

[EnPeaSea]

If you get in the way of law enforcement, trap uninvolved citizens, or cause property damage you are not the good guys.

Correct, ICE is not the good guys.

Sadly too many lack an understanding of how big an issue unrestricted immigration is.

Which has not happened in the US.

People complain about not feeling safe and how they cannot afford things, housing, or their taxes but fail to understand the impact immigration has on the economy.

Correct, but probably not in the way you intended.

We have trespassers arrested/removed from our property and that includes entry to our country without permission.

Trespassing and undocumented entry are civil offenses, not a felony. Most of whom ICE are apprehending are in the process of correcting their offense as they leave their immigration hearings (where they are getting vetted and have permission to stay), not "worst of the worst" drug-runners and gang members. ICE traps uninvolved citizens that they decided are "illegal" based only on skin color and accent (tell me how one person with one vehicle traps several agents and their vehicles... especially when you can see other vehicles going around). ICE causes property damage trying to apprehend whom they have decided are "illegal". When they refuse to identify themselves and their warrant, they are breaking the law.

American citizenship is a privilege not a right.

I quite literally is a right for anyone born within the border!

 

[Wheels Of Confusion]

If you get in the way of law enforcement

What if law enforcement surrounds your car after you drop your kid off at school, and when you try to vacate they shoot you in the face?
Last time I checked, "get in the way of law enforcement" isn't a capital offense even if convicted.

trap uninvolved citizens

https://reason.com/2026/01/12/the-i...nee-good-disregarded-traffic-stop-guidelines/

During a contentious interview with CNN's Jake Tapper on Sunday, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem reiterated her claim that Renee Good, the woman who was fatally shot by an immigration agent in Minneapolis last Wednesday, was engaged in "domestic terrorism" because "she weaponized her vehicle to conduct an act of violence against a law enforcement officer and the public." Noem added that Jonathan Ross, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer who killed Good, "acted on his training and defended himself and his life and his fellow colleagues" when he fired at the Honda Pilot she was driving.
Judging from bystander video of the incident, those claims are dubious. That evidence does not definitively resolve the question of whether the shooting was legally justified. But it does suggest that Good, who was monitoring ICE activities in Minneapolis and attracted attention because she was blocking a lane of traffic on Portland Avenue, was trying to leave the scene rather than trying to run Ross down. It also indicates that Ross' tactics deviated from Justice Department guidelines and from police training regarding traffic stops.
On Friday, Vice President J.D. Vance posted Ross' own cell phone video of the encounter, saying it confirmed that "his life was endangered and he fired in self defense." But that video is inconsistent with Noem's account in some ways, and it raises questions about Ross' behavior prior to the shooting.
Although Noem said Good "blocked the road for a long time," Ross' footage and the other videos show cars driving past Good, using the lane that was still open. And although Noem said Good was "yelling at" the ICE officers, she is smiling in Ross' video and does not raise her voice. "That's fine, dude," she calmly tells Ross as he approaches her car, holding up his cell phone. "I'm not mad at you." Ross moves to the rear of the car, recording the license plate.
"That's OK," says Good's wife, who has stepped out of the car and is recording the scene with her own cell phone camera. "We don't change our plates every morning, just so you know. It'll be the same plate when you come talk to us later. That's fine."
Although Good's wife also seems calm, her attitude is more confrontational. "You want to come at us?" she says. "I say go get yourself some lunch, big boy." At this point, another ICE agent tells Good to "get out of the fucking car." Other videos show that agent grabbing the handle of the front driver's side door and reaching into the car. Meanwhile, Ross walks around the car to the front. Other footage shows him positioned near the left front bumper. "Drive, baby, drive," Good's wife says.
The car backs up a bit, then moves forward, the front wheels turned to the right—away from the ICE agents. "Whoa," Ross exclaims before firing three shots at the car, one through the lower left corner of the windshield and two more through the front driver's side window. The SUV continues moving down the street before crashing into a car parked on the left side. "Fucking bitch," someone says. When Tapper asked Noem if that was Ross speaking, she said "it could be."
Ross' conduct prior to the shooting raises a couple of questions. First, why did he record the scene with his cell phone, keeping one of his hands occupied during a potentially dangerous encounter with someone Noem describes as a domestic terrorist? Second, why did Ross position himself in front of the car, which by Noem's account exposed him to the threat that justified firing his weapon?
"If you're an agent," security consultant Jonathan Wackrow told CNN, "you should not be encumbered by anything in your hands. That's what body-worn cameras are for. But they're not wearing body-worn cameras."
Law enforcement officers are trained not to stand in front of a car during a traffic stop, precisely because of the danger that Noem emphasizes. "Officers should not stand in front of the suspect vehicle," says the Metropolitan Police Academy, which trains Washington, D.C., cops. The preferred position, aimed at minimizing the risk to officers, is on the driver's side or the passenger's side at or behind the "B pillar" separating the front and rear seats.
"Stepping in front of, standing behind or attempting to grab a vehicle to stop it will always be a losing, possibly fatal proposition," warns former Minnesota police officer Duane Wolfe in a recent Police1 article. "You can dramatically cut down on your chance of being run over by doing everything in your power to avoid standing directly in front [of] or behind a vehicle."
If an officer nevertheless finds himself in the path of a moving vehicle, the Justice Department says, he may fire his weapon only if there is "no other objectively reasonable means of defense," such as "moving out of the path of the vehicle." Video shows that Ross did in fact quickly move away from the front of Good's car.
At that point, according to Noem, Ross had already been struck. "He was injured," she told Tapper. "He went to the hospital. He was treated."
The bystander videos do not clearly show whether the car made contact with Ross, although they do show him walking around after the shooting, which suggests that whatever injury he may have suffered was not very serious.

or cause property damage you are not the good guys.

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/sup...ily-victimized-police-raid/story?id=120881932

A police SWAT team bursts into a home with little warning, only to quickly realize that it's the wrong address and the occupants inside are innocent victims of the officers' mistake.
The scenario has played out in American communities for years -- sometimes resulting from bad intelligence, others from inadvertent officer errors -- often leaving property damaged and families traumatized.
Legal immunity for cops can mean little restitution.
The plaintiffs -- Trina Martin, her teenage son Gabe, and ex-partner Toi Cliatt -- have spent seven years seeking to sue the FBI for damages after agents mistakenly raided their Atlanta home in 2017.
"I thought someone was breaking in, and it was so chaotic that I thought they had a mission, and the mission was to kill us," said Martin in an interview with ABC News Live.
Toi Cliatt, who scrambled out of bed at the sound of flash-bang grenades exploding in his living room, described seeking shelter in a closet before the agents detained him.
"They threw me down on the floor and they were interrogating me, and they were asking me questions. And I guess the answers that I was responding to them with didn't add up," Cliatt said. "And that's when I realized that they were in the wrong place."
"The lead officer came back and he gave us a business card and he apologized and then he left," said Martin.
The couple said their home sustained $5,000 of damage from burned carpet, broken doors and fractured railings. The emotional trauma is harder to quantify. "It's countless," Cliatt said.
[...]
The FBI denied the family's claims for restitution. The Trump administration, which is defending the agency at the Supreme Court, argues sovereign immunity shields the government from damages claims.
"Cops are human and they make mistakes. And a lot of times the mistakes that are being made are because there's not enough due diligence, there's not enough research going into it," said Anthony Riccio, former First Deputy Superintendent of Chicago Police Department. "The result of it can be devastating for the family impacted."
Most law enforcement agencies don't keep track of wrong house raids or publicly report data, legal experts say. Civil Rights advocates estimate hundreds of cases of wrong-house raids nationwide each year; most victims are not compensated for the physical or emotional harm that often results.
"We have a right to be safe in our homes, and when officers are acting bad -- for lack of a better word -- then individuals have the right to hold them accountable," said Anjanette Young, a Chicago social worker whose apartment was mistakenly raided by police in 2019.
[...]
An Austin, Texas, police SWAT team responding to a gunfight, blew up the front door of Glen and Mindy Shields' home in 2023 causing thousands of dollars in property damage. The suspect lived across the street. The city denied any wrongdoing and -- as is often the case -- claimed immunity.
When cops showed up outside Amy Hadley's home in South Bend, Indiana, in 2022, her teenage son emerged with his hands up as some officers began to openly question whether the suspect lived there. They raided the home anyway. Police later said they had indications the suspect had posted to Facebook from inside.
"Police not only have things like qualified immunity to protect them, but in a case where the police work for the federal government, they have entire doctrines that effectively act like federal immunity," said Jaicomo.
Trina, Toi and Gabe now hope the Supreme Court will help them pierce that shield.
Congress carved out an exception for federal law enforcement immunity from civil liability suits in 1974 for victims of "assault, battery, false imprisonment, false arrest, or abuse of process" by an officer.
The government denies the exception applies to the Martin case.

 

[JohnDeL]

Freedom of speech never included the right to threaten people doing their jobs enforcing the law.

Actually, it kind of does. You are allowed to call ICE goons, gestapo, nazis, jerks, jackasses, fat fucks, bozos, tiny dicked wannabes - and they have no legal choice but to shut up and take it.

About the only thing you can't do is directly call for violence against them. You can say "People who hide behind their badges in order to rape, murder, and steal should be shot" and you're fine. But you can't say "Ross deserves to be shot" (even though the evidence strongly demonstrates that he is a murderer).

What is really amazing is that under Biden and Obama, just as many were being deported but there wasn't this constant drumbeat of abuse and incompetence.

 

[Komarov]

I knew there was a reason why my memory has been kicking me in the ribs lately. There's already a movie about this!

It's Danish and there's an expedition to Greenland.