WASHINGTON — Before leaving town for the August recess, Senate Commerce Committee Chair Ted Cruz was forced to pull a measure aimed at limiting federal government use of facial recognition data captured at airports by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).
But the Texas Republican says he’s got no problem with federal agents deploying more invasive facial recognition technology against immigrants.
“ICE, quite reasonably, is using every tool available,” Cruz told Raw Story.
The Trump administration is deploying facial recognition apps on agents’ phones, testing wrist-worn GPS monitors, collecting migrants’ DNA, and buying eye-scanners.
“It's horrible,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) told Raw Story.
Ocasio-Cortez and other Democrats are aghast that their GOP counterparts are willing to cede so much power to the Trump administration. They’re also bracing for the federal government to deploy these new technologies against American citizens in the near future.
‘It’s great’
Self-described GOP privacy hawks on Capitol Hill are up in arms over the TSA deploying facial recognition tools without their constituents' knowledge.
Cruz is vowing to bring the facial recognition measure aimed at the broader traveling public — forcing TSA transparency with travelers, while limiting how the government stores biometric data — before his committee when Congress returns this fall.
But according to Cruz, that’s different from what the Department of Homeland Security and its ICE — Immigration and Customs Enforcement — agents are doing in migrant communities.
“ICE, quite reasonably, is using every tool available to try to apprehend dangerous criminals and potential terrorists before they murder or otherwise harm American citizens,” Cruz told Raw Story.
“ICE is confronting an acute public safety and national security challenge. After four years of Democrats’ open borders, we have millions of illegal immigrants, criminals, murderers, gang members and potential terrorists who come into this country.”
In Trump’s GOP, Cruz is far from an outlier.
“It’s great,” Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) told Raw Story, on the other side of Capitol Hill.
“To me it’s just really important that we make every effort to deport, in my view, anyone illegally in the United States.”
Raw Story asked: “Do you worry we might see technology creep, that we’ll use it on migrants but then it will start being deployed on everyday citizens?”
“No,” Wilson said.
“Why not?”
“What ICE is doing is just so important to the future security of the United States,” Wilson said.
“The countervailing argument is that they’re arresting the wrong people. This is a way to prove that you’re going after people who are actually illegal aliens. And so, to me, you can’t have the argument both ways.
“So I will be consistent and unequivocally support any and every technology to identify illegal aliens and remove them from the United States.”
‘Not their first attempt’
Democrats are questioning just how “consistent” their GOP counterparts are.
To many on the left, the fear goes beyond ICE and extends to how the federal government treats citizens’ data.
“It's horrible from any agency perspective whatsoever,” Ocasio-Cortez told Raw Story.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) attends a House Oversight hearing. REUTERS/Kent Nishimura
“ICE, of course, is one of the most concerning, not just because it's an immigration thing, but because they have some of the least guardrails. They privately contract with Amazon, Microsoft, and so I think that from a privacy perspective for all of us, this is highly concerning. Highly concerning.”
Such concerns stem, in part, from how the government now surveils social media, tracks cell phone GPS data, utilizes public camera footage and more.
"I was surprised over the years having to realize how much of technology is developed first with the purpose of military uses and intelligence uses, and then it goes from there,” a veteran member of the House Intelligence Committee told Raw Story, speaking anonymously in order to discuss sensitive matters.
“And then even the companies that develop for consumer purposes or commercial purposes first, they start to draw towards getting contracts with the government and the military and the intel services.
"The military and intelligence sectors draw on the companies that have succeeded in the commercial sector. It's amazing to watch, like just to see it. I don't think most Americans realize the deep connection.”
The deep connection isn’t lost on members of Congress who represent migrant communities.
“This is not their first attempt” to use surveillance technology in immigration enforcement, Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) told Raw Story.
“And from what I understand, they've been collecting DNA without any public knowledge.”
“How worrisome is that?” Raw Story pressed.
“It absolutely should be worrisome,” Tlaib said, “and I think it's important for people to understand our immigrant neighbors: these are human beings. They're not experiments for the tech world and all these folks that want to profit off of the federal government.
“They're not experiments and they're our loved ones, but also they always start with immigrants and then it will be us.”
“You think [use of such technology is] guaranteed to creep?” Raw Story pressed.
“It will be. Guaranteed,” Tlaib said. “They always start with those that are incarcerated, those that are in systems that are in custody of the government and we can't allow human rights violations for immigrants.
“It will trickle down to many other people so I think it's really important to understand it's all profit driven and it's really shameful.”
‘People in masks with guns’
The new surveillance state is coming as ICE agents from coast to coast are being recorded wearing masks on raids — an irony far from lost on critics.
"It's very ironic and hypocritical that the government is using facial recognition technology on Americans and at the same time insists that its agents not show their faces," Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX) told Raw Story.
"It's very un-American, and it feels like we're watching something happening in another country from the 1970s where, you know, you turn on the TV … and on the evening news they would have something going on in Nicaragua or somewhere around the world, and you have these people in masks with the guns, right? That's what it looks like."
