Comment by orthogonal_cube
10 hours ago
I know some of the individuals in this leak. There are people whose responsibilities are far removed from ICE’s activities. One department – who I will not name to avoid drawing attention to – focuses on investigating imports to ensure importers are not trying to get around tariffs as well as prevent foreign countries from “dumping.” (Intentionally flooding a market with underpriced products to bankrupt domestic suppliers and later raise prices.) Their work also helps to uncover the use of child labor by domestic companies who outsource production, like Nike and Underarmor.
I’m not against employee names and contact info being made public. That’s no different than someone’s business card being passed around. What I worry about is that all DHS employees get lumped together indifferently by disgruntled individuals and harassed using the information made available.
People who are (rightfully) angry by ICE’s activities in recent deportations, wrongful detaining of US citizens, and misuse of force are going to begin harassing these employees indiscriminately. I’ll admit that I don’t care if they do it to anyone listed as employed under ICE, but some departments elsewhere in CBP have actual positive purposes. Customs agents who scan incoming goods for invasive species, for example, help prevent the destruction of domestic plants.
I guess we just have to see how this info is used and what the effects will be.
I get where you're coming from, but I find it pretty difficult to sympathize with privacy issues faced by the innocent employees of an agency that routinely violates my privacy rights to get the same info.
I don’t blame you. Anything strictly ICE-related gets a “sad trombone” reaction from me. And that extends to certain portions of CBP as well.
I appreciate you reflecting on it, but please try to continue reflecting -- saying you get a "sad trombone" reaction is incredibly frustrating to read. You're making light humor around very horrific things as if it's some comedy. These are our friends and families being taken away from us.
Once sat in a coffee shop in downtown Chicago and overheard two ICE attorneys chatting about why they joined ICE. The gist of it was that they were both very, very aware of the appearances of their work. But they both agreed that it was worth it for their careers to work there for long enough to build a reputation and then move on.
They know that they're working for an evil org and they don't care because it gives them nourishment. If my friends were doing that, I'd have an intervention with them. I hope you do too.
For ICE I certainly would. I don’t know anybody at HSI but I’d be torn given the recent revelations of spying on left-leaning citizen groups. If you’re relying on violating citizen’s rights to accomplish your job then you really need to rethink your position.
Nah. I don't care if you're a sysadmin for ICE. You're supporting the apparatus. You get no sympathy.
Seriously. It's like the back office SS workers "just doing paperwork" on the people they slaughter. Congrats, you're just as bad as those pulling the trigger.
Taxpayers have a right to scrutinize how their tax dollars are getting spent. When the government acts like it doesn’t derive its power from the citizens, people will revolt. It’s what DOGE was all about, the resistance.
I think if I worked in the back offices of modern ICE, I'd quit vs "Just doing my job". Not a great excuse.
I don’t disagree there are people doing good things, but they’re doing them for bad people. Doing good things for an evil dictator doesn’t remove that they were done for an evil dictator.
Also, practically and sadly, they’re precisely the people you’d lean on when you want change because they’re more likely to funnel that pressure upwards in the form of quitting or demanding raises. The ICE folks are “true believers” and I suspect their faculties are immune to the power of logic.