They do feel pretty free to do that, and they also heavily signal that if you’re of a darker complexion, even if they barge in unannounced, that they’re going to fill your house full of holes but if you’re white, even if you knew what was going on, they’ll detain you alive. It happens all the time, and in “unarmed” societies that aren’t massively shit people don’t need to worry about it anyway.

“Greatest country on earth” but everyone needs to be constantly afraid of their neighbours and government.

Despite all the downvotes, I think it's a reasonable enough question. It happens to have a very reasonable answer though.

First of all, your concern is largely addressed, since immigration control can still access law enforcement databases if they have a warrant.

As for why this law exists at all, well it's actually to the benefit of law enforcement: the idea is that immigrant communities are more likely to cooperate with law enforcement if they aren't scared that they will be the target of immigration control. This is all the more practical now, when ICE has degraded into a largely lawless and authoritarian organization, since you can imagine most immigrants wouldn't want to say a word to any police officer unless they at least have the protections of the 2017 TRUST act in place.

Now, what I'm a bit confused about is why you are so up-in-arms about the existence of this law instead of the violation of this law. Surely if you are so law-abiding as you make out to be in your comments, you should be shouting for legal action against the police officers involved in breaking the law.

They're arresting legal citizens too, chud.

I see what you're saying. You're not talking about "making sense" in an ethical or social well-being sense, you mean it's literally confusing why the technology wouldn't be used for all kinds of crimes, given that it already exists - irrespective of whether the technology should be used. Is that right? I think you're getting downvoted because it kinda sounds like you're saying this is all a good idea when you say it "makes sense". Unfortunate English ambiguities. But you're saying, like, sure it's dystopian and creepy and wrong, but why wouldn't the creepy dystopia use the tech for all cases then rather than just some? That's a good question. I think because there is legitimately some understanding of the dangers of using these powerful tools willy-nilly. While people aren't perfect angels, they also aren't perfect devils either. Another factor is that there is some pressure to appear not to be overly heavy-handed with these tools - as we see in those chats, they knew it made them look bad for this to get out.

And the final most pessimistic factor is that this Flock company almost certainly charges per seat, so giving direct usernames and logins to every officer or even every department is probably absurdly expensive. Companies (in this case the police) will often try to limit their license seats to as few people as possible and then just funnel as much different people's work through that one person's license as they can.

But you’re saying, like, sure it’s dystopian and creepy and wrong, but why wouldn’t the creepy dystopia use the tech for all cases then rather than just some?

I'm also saying it's not really any more creepy or dystopian than say ..... speed cameras. They're there to catch people that break the law. If these cameras are already used to catch people breaking some laws, the logic of "well they should only be allowed to catch people who break these specific laws, but not these other laws" doesn't make any sense.

If you know the license plate of a car of a wanted murderer, and the FLOCK camera system recognises that number plate, why on earth would anyone be against the FLOCK camera system arbitrarily not being allowed to be used to catch that murderer? Like what is the reasoning behind that train of thought?

For being illegal immigrants? No they're not lol.

when ICE has degraded into a largely lawless and authoritarian organization

I think you're mistaking actually enforcing the law as being "lawless and authoritarian".

Now, what I’m a bit confused about is why you are so up-in-arms about the existence of this law instead of the violation of this law.

I'm not so "up in arms" about anything, just questioning why the authorities are handicapped on what they can use one of their systems for. Sure, the violation of the law is bad - but the law itself seems ridiculous. The only people it benefits are literally criminals.

If law enforcement had access to all of your social media, e-mails and live video feeds from inside your house then they would be able to catch criminals more effectively.

This isn't the same because law enforcement don't have access to all of your social media already. This is more like if they did but were only allowed to arrest you for you posting a video of you murdering someone, but not for you posting a video of you raping someone.

Protection against unreasonable search is written into the constitution, after all

Your car registration being checked to see who it is registered to and if you have any outstanding warrants etc is not an "unreasonable search".

Do you think a person should be seperated from thier families

This argument is such a stupid one that is purely made to pull at people's heart strings. If someone commits murder should they not be sent to jail because doing so would "separate them from their family"?

People in the country illegally should be removed from the country. Full stop. They're just deported back to their country of citizenship, unless they're one of the gang members in which case they are going to prison.

What youve written at the end is not what’s happening.

It is though.