collinmcnulty a day ago

I am reminded of Eisenhower's Chance for Peace Speech: "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chance_for_Peace_speech

  • baiac a day ago

    Eisenhower launched Operation Wetback, so you can tell what he actually thought about this.

    • bcrosby95 a day ago

      Yeah, people aren't cartoon super heroes or super villains. People are messy. People are nuanced. You can't summarize them in a 1,000 word article much less a 10 word title.

    • defrost a day ago

      Hell of a name for an operation launched to appease a request by the Mexican Government to return labourers to Mexico.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Wetback

      If I'm reading that correctly the US wanted the labour, and the Mexican Government wanted the US to enforce stricter control:

        Pressure from Mexican agribusiness owners to return laborers from the United States to Mexico prompted increased action by the Mexican government.
      
        The labor problems caused crops to rot in Mexican fields because so many laborers had crossed into the U.S. Meanwhile, American agriculture, which was also transitioning to large-scale farms and agribusinesses, continued to recruit illegal Mexican laborers to fulfill its expanding labor requirements.
      
      It would seem that Eisenhower wanted cheap Mexican labour and the Dual US/Mexico programs that provided it - the enforcement to cap the numbers was a condition imposed by Mexico to keep the agricultural labour agreements in place.
daheza a day ago

I wonder what position Apple will take on this. You can't trace ICE agents (IceBlock app)

But will ICE be able to track immigrants using whatever Apps are created here?

Scary times we live in. Stay safe everyone.

  • Perceval 18 hours ago

    Apple allows other apps that allow people to notify and track crime, like the Neighborhood and Citizen apps.

    • morkalork 16 hours ago

      ICE also has some bespoke face recognition app already

periodjet a day ago

The story that is being spun and maintained by news entertainment outlets like Wired is quite impressive.

Even more impressive is how effective it is to pull small sleight-of-hand moves, like referring to these processes as “immigrant-tracking”, as if the federal government is somehow at war with immigrants. One really has to admire the raw narrative-building chutzpah of these outlets.

Y-bar a day ago

So, the Henneicke Column returns…

  • Terr_ a day ago

    TIL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henneicke_Column

    > a group of Dutch Nazi collaborators [...] in Amsterdam, during the Nazi Germany occupation of the Netherlands in World War II. [...] The bounty paid to Henneicke Column members for each captured Jew was 7.50 guilders (equivalent to about US $4.75).

    Adjusting for inflation that's ~$91, if any had a profit motive rather than an ideological one, perhaps they supplemented it by looting from victims...

  • cinntaile a day ago

    These people are deported out of the country and not slowly murdered in a concentration camp, which is a massive difference.

    • Larrikin a day ago

      There are people from and not from El Salvador that are being sent to a concentration camp there. We don't know what is happening to people being sent to other random countries.

      • actionfromafar a day ago

        What little we do know, is that it can't be good. Sudan...

    • halfmatthalfcat a day ago

      What do you think is happening to the people who are deported? Maybe not murdered explicitly but they're definitely not having the red carpet rolled out in whatever country they land in. The US is looking for any suitor country to take "illegals" and don't care what happens after, be it for bad or worse, rarely "better".

    • giraffe_lady a day ago

      The institution the henneicke column was under was the "center for jewish emigration" btw.

    • rfrey a day ago

      Outsourcing is the American Way.

    • Terr_ a day ago

      You mean... just like the Nazis did in 1939-1942?

      Their immoral-mass-murder really ramped up when they couldn't achieve their desired rate/expense of the immoral-mass-incarceration and immoral-mass-exiling they were already doing.

      Even if your statement was correct--it isn't, ask the victims in CECOT--it isn't reassuring or exculpatory: "Don't worry guys, we may have spent 11 months speed-running years of the Nazi trajectory, but don't worry, we're stopping at only this much of the cruelty. I promise, for realsies this time. Double pinky-swear."

      • cinntaile 14 hours ago

        By all means link to any proof that the people being detained are being murdered?

        • Terr_ 13 hours ago

          > lowly murdered in a concentration camp [...] link to any proof

          I explicitly mentioned the people renditioned to "CECOT", as well as two other respondents telling you about "El Salvador", stop playing dumb.

          • cinntaile 13 hours ago

            I'm not playing dumb, I'm asking for sources. It's not that hard to link to articles that support your claims, the burden of proof is on you.

            CECOT is a prison, are you saying regular people are being deported to a prison? If they are criminals that's a different story of course. I mean actual crimes to be clear, I don't count being illegal in the US.

            • Terr_ 12 hours ago

              I'm exasperated, because you felt confident "correcting" other people about US "deportations" in 2025, while being oddly unaware of months of major controversies and a complete departure from anything resembling "normal" immigration function.

              > CECOT is a prison, are you saying regular people are being deported to a prison?

              Yes! Yes! That is exactly what they did!

              1. The Trump administration claimed we were somehow in a state of invasion by a crime gang from Venezuela and that somehow that allowed him to use Alien Enemies Act of 1798. A law last-used for the notorious Japanese Internment Camps during World War 2. [0]

              2. The administration declared a bunch of Venezuelans as "gang members", with no charges nor trial, including several who at the time had legal status to be here, often based on nothing but "too many tattoos I don't recognize." [1]

              3. They renditioned those people to a different country (El Salvador) and directly into a prison "for terrorists" (CECOT) and paid the local dictator to do it. [2][3]

              4. They tried to move so fast that no judges could react, and still ended up violating court-orders to not transfer people into El Salvador, and then claimed they had no power or responsibility to fix it. (Even though they were paying US tax dollars to El Salvador to keep it going.)

              So yeah, kinda a big deal, and I trust this is more than enough for you to answer other questions with your own web-searches.

              __________

              [0] https://apnews.com/article/trump-alien-enemies-act-venezuela...

              [1] https://www.npr.org/2025/03/31/nx-s1-5345832/advocates-say-f...

              [2] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/what-to-know-about-the-el...

              [3] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...

              [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deportation_of_Kilmar_Abrego_G...

              [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_2025_American_deportatio...

              • cinntaile 9 hours ago

                > I'm exasperated, because you felt confident "correcting" other people about US "deportations" in 2025

                I still very confident about my original claim that this is not even close to people being sent to German concentration camps to be (slowly) murdered. You (or anyone else that responded to me) have provided zero proof of that happening.

                I do appreciate you taking the time to provide sources for your claims, thank you for that.

                I agree that better, more concrete proof is needed before deporting suspects to a prison. While a point system probably catches people that have managed to evade law enforcement and that should be in jail, there is also a bigger chance of regular people getting caught up.

                • Y-bar 7 hours ago

                  If the only difference is the lack of active murdering happening at the concentration camps, then that is hardly a defence against the claim that the current situation is similar to what my family faced 80 years ago. You do not need to carry water for those who seek to emulate past atrocities.

                  • cinntaile 5 hours ago

                    > The group arrested and delivered to the Nazi authorities 8,000–9,000 Jews. Most of them were deported to Westerbork concentration camp and later shipped to and murdered in Sobibor and other German extermination camps.

                    In my opinion that is a very big difference.

                    Most people that are deported don't end up in a prison either, they are returned to their home countries.

                    • Y-bar 5 hours ago

                      I see no rational way your opinion matches the reality on the ground. Can you provide any evidence that most of the people deported against their will and without due process and put into detention centres (nee concentration camps) considered the destination their home country.

    • more_corn a day ago

      Take a look at what happened to people deported and sent to prison in El Salvador without due process. (Torture, check, starvation check, held indefinitely without conviction of a crime, check) Pretty damned close to how Jews were treated in WW2. I guess short of the end part where they were gassed and their corpses shoveled into ovens.

an0malous a day ago

This will be flagged off the front page within 30 minutes

  • hypeatei a day ago

    Along with the "both sides!!" and the "we're just enforcing immigration law" commenters showing up.

  • an0malous a day ago

    29 minutes later and it is #37 with 86 points, off the front page

  • zzzeek a day ago

    i dont see why, hacker news is loaded with enthusiastic young entrepreneurs and I posted this thinking some brilliant protege of Peter Thiel would be inspired to "disrupt" the "surveilling and abducting people" industry with the promise of a $280M reward....

    • belorn 7 hours ago

      People will flag articles when they don't feel safe to participate in the discussion, especially if they hold views that appears to be dissenting. An open and thriving environment for discussion is one that welcomes people of different views and opinions.

      A strong indicator of an article that get flagged, and which also trigger the flame war detection on the site, is a bunch of comments that are either grayed out or flagged. The one will feed the other into a death spiral for the article.

givemeethekeys a day ago

There's even a bounty to report your neighbors.

  • jdlshore a day ago

    There is not. Please don’t share cynical fantasies here. If you want to make a comparison to Nazi Germany, just make the comparison.

    • givemeethekeys a day ago

      Oh, I didn't think about that.

      If a private firm can make money from catching bad guys, then why wouldn't the same private firm pay rewards to people who make their job easier?

      Many of the detention facilities where we keep illegal immigrants are privately run. Many of our politicians own shares in those private companies.

      Shareholders don't like it when their investments don't appreciate.

stackghost a day ago

Too often on this site you see the opinion "keep politics out of it" expressed.

But there are going to be software engineers working at these surveillance and tracking firms, probably some on this site.

Just like there are people here getting paid to work on Facebook or Instagram despite knowing deep down (even if they're in denial) that those products are profoundly harmful to society at large and young people in particular.

Technology is only becoming more intertwined with daily life, not less. When does the software industry develop scruples?

  • yummypaint a day ago

    Part of the problem is that software engineers aren't real engineers. Engineering disciplines formally recognize their responsibilities to the public, and are expected to refuse to build dangerous or harmful systems.

    The mechanical engineers who design cars and the civil engineers who design the roads and bridges they traverse are held to these standards, and hold themselves to these standards. The software engineers who write code that actually controls vehicles in practice have no such culture. Relevant professional organizations like the ACM should be leading the charge, but they aren't because their membership doesn't care.

    One solution is to license software engineers. What do people working in the industry think about that?

    • robocat 14 hours ago

      False comparison... There are also mechanical engineers that design trashy gewgaws. And electronic engineers designing giftcard chips.

      And creating regulations for the word "engineer" is just a bad idea. Instead the common solution is independent certification bodies (perhaps with some government clout for practices that endanger people).

      And regardless, you can only regulate individuals within your jurisdiction. Global commerce and services makes the idea of controlling the word engineer fruitless.

    • djohnston 21 hours ago

      Wat? Who is building cruise missiles? Who is building bombs? Not engineers?

      • stackghost 21 hours ago

        Within the aerospace engineering profession those jobs are highly controversial and the subject of perennial debate.

        • djohnston 6 hours ago

          I suppose my point was that it’s detached from reality to say that real engineers refuse to build “dangerous” systems.

          All of the most dangerous systems are built by engineers and outside the most progressive circles it’s quite obvious that these systems must exist amidst the anarchy of geopolitics.

  • RicoElectrico a day ago

    There was an article a few weeks ago on the HN front page (regarding artists) that today the concept of someone being a sellout doesn't exist anymore.

  • herbst 21 hours ago

    I think the issue is less the politics but "their politics" it's absolutely sickening what is going on in that country. On par with the most horrible countries of the world. Nobody wants to hear and read about North Korea all the day.

  • xdennis a day ago

    If you'd poll people on whether or not they like what social media is doing to society many would say no.

    There was a huge poll last year in the US and most people sided with Trump and his electoral program of enforcing immigration law.

    The two are not comparable.

  • surgical_fire a day ago

    I hate this stance.

    Demand scruples from the common man while the billionaire overlords who are actually the major beneficiaries are off the hook.

    • jdlshore a day ago

      We should demand scruples from everyone.

    • hn_acc1 a day ago

      The billionaire overlords have already proven they have no ethics - they got to be billionaire overlords, didn't they?

      Maybe there's still enough ethics left in the general SWE population to make a difference.

      • surgical_fire a day ago

        It will make no difference. You may refuse jobs and starve if you want. There are enough people to take the job anyway.

        • atmavatar 19 hours ago

          This is a standard cop-out that bears challenging every time it's used.

          By refusing the job, you narrow the number of people who can do the job, making it more expensive, both because there are fewer candidates to do the job and because it makes the hunt for employees take longer. It also gives cover for others who aren't confident to stand against the job by themselves when they see others refuse it.

          There's a non-zero chance that refusing such a job means it becomes too expensive to be feasible, especially if it requires expertise held by a limited set of individuals.

          • surgical_fire 7 hours ago

            > By refusing the job, you narrow the number of people who can do the job

            By refusing a job, I only narrow my employment opportunities.

            The bank won't take my goodwill as payment before they take the house for not paying the mortgage. This is essentially where the discussion ends.

            The world is cursed. I have to engage with systems that were not of my creation, and that will devour me if I am complacent. But we keep moving forward anyway.

            I would like these companies to not exist. For the billionaires that direct them to create immeasurable damage to society to pay for their misdeeds. I even vote for whichever party that promises to limit the reach of those companies.

            What I won't do is damage the lives of those that depend on me in an empty gesture of moral grandstanding.

        • jmye 16 hours ago

          Anyone talking a job at Meta knows the entire point of their job is to make young men angry, and young women depressed. And they do it anyway, because they expressly agree with those outcomes as long as it pays them an exorbitant salary. Blaming it all on Zuckerberg is bullshit designed to make “you” feel better about what a complicit, worthless asshole “you” are when there are countless jobs doing things that aren’t expressly and intentionally evil.

          There are no good people working at these companies.

          Being clear, the you in my comment is the generic you - not directed at you the individual I’m replying to.

          • surgical_fire 7 hours ago

            I agree with all you said, but the material conditions are still the same.

            The engine that grinds people is not of my own making, and I may wish it didn't exist. But the engine exists, and will grind me too.

            The engine is designed to force people into submission. The power imbalance is too strong against the common man.

    • RicoElectrico a day ago

      SWEs are everything but common people, they're a good paying profession still.

      • pxc a day ago

        Only semi-professional. There's no legal barrier to entry or licensing, no guild structure— no bar association, no medical board, no engineer licensing board, etc. It's privileged, high-wage work, but it's not a profession in the strict sense.

        Professions have some kind of organization that tries to impose standards of discipline and ethics.

      • surgical_fire a day ago

        Fun. I get to be painted as upper class, without any of the benefits.

    • layer8 a day ago

      Billionaires are a tiny minority. If only them had no scruples, they would have no chance at being overlords.

    • stackghost a day ago

      Billionaires are already above the law because common people are too scared/comfortable to eat the rich.

  • pstuart a day ago

    IMHO there are two kinds of politics:

      1. Partisan/tribal personality driven with a core of "us vs. them"
      2. Government policy and the application of same.
    
    The first has no business here, but I'd argue the second does in the context of "hacking civilization". Of course a lot of politics gets smeared about so you can't have one without the other (which is not an accident), but we should strive to find ways to talk about policies and their their merits and concerns.
munk-a a day ago

This an excellent example of a program that'll print money for fraudsters while also supporting a policy with arbitrary and cruel quotas.

Oh how far we've wandered from that old promise of "small government".

biff1 21 hours ago

I remember some similar threads. They seem to be utilitarian.

visioninmyblood a day ago

Wow that is crazy may be YC next funded company will be on this. But there are so many ethical considereations here. Tracking immigrant means they will track citizens as well. We need to see how these companies are moderated

  • tecleandor a day ago

    You mean, the ethical considerations are about tracking citizens only?

    • visioninmyblood a day ago

      No I mean I am an immigrant I am already tracked more than a citizen. We have accepted that fact. But the tracking is done with government portal. But asking third party sources to keep a tab on immigrant can go bad very quickly both for immigrants and citizens. I think it is worse for citizens.

      • herbst 21 hours ago

        I am an immigrant in a very rich and beautiful country (hint, not America) and they don't track me specifically or make my life more miserable. Consider what you do with your life and if this is what you actually want.

    • dontlaugh a day ago

      Same as IBM’s ethical considerations when selling to the Nazis. This isn’t new behaviour.

  • throwawaygmbno a day ago

    If we make it to another election, it will be good to track the people who take up this offer

tiahura a day ago

It seems like tracking down 10M+ people would cost more than $280M.

  • fanatic2pope a day ago

    > Contractors may now earn up to $281.25 million individually and are guaranteed an initial task order worth at least $7.5 million.

    The rates are per contractor.

  • actionfromafar a day ago

    "in favor of a no-cap program" combined with coming huge budget increases will adress that I'm sure.

    Hunting people for commission is back in vogue. Now flag this article, it's about the intersection of society and technology.

  • throwaway1389z a day ago

    This whole program is a variation of "The Process is the punishment". Regardless of what your opinion of immigration is, this is all just politicking and power-grabbing. Under that light, you will see that it is M$280 for fear mongering more than actual deportation efforts.

    • actionfromafar a day ago

      Not just! This will create a whole concentration camp construction industry downstream of the arrests.

      The logistics are just impossible unless you build massive camps.

      • throwaway1389z a day ago

        Not going to happen, even if purely for the economic reasons. Unless the Captain is willing to gamble the whole enterprise.

        • Terr_ 15 hours ago

          I think you've got it backwards: The current administration--and its 2016-2020 predecessor--have demonstrated they are exactly the type of "captain" that wrecks ships trying to play chicken with an incoming lighthouse.

          Republicans already passed a budget giving ICE a crazy amount of taxpayer dollars, a subset of that being $45 billion-with-a-B directly earmarked for the creation of new "detention centers". If "economic reasons" were gonna stop them, it would have already happened.

          https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...

          • actionfromafar 11 hours ago

            I wonder where this thinking comes from.

            "The current administration won't do X because that would hurt Y."

            Nevermind they have demonstrated over and over again they don't care what happens to Y.

            It it just cope? Is it overfitting being used to old school politicians who talk a big game but are afraid to destroy the whole country?

nine_zeros a day ago

America is a third world thug state where people are being targeted just because...they showed up on a computer system.

  • rkuska a day ago

    Your comment reminded me of "Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Blaise Bailey Finnegan III":

    > Like I said, America's a third world country as it is and... and we're just basically in a hopeless situation as it stands

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pP8XBJc2p_g

    I keep GY!BE playing on repeat for the past several months.