In response to Operation Metro Surge, the Trump administration’s recent imposition of roughly 3,000 Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Minnesota, my hometown of Minneapolis has taken to the streets. Demonstrators have gathered to protest the authoritarian excess of the federal government’s cruel immigration policies, and to call for justice for Renee Good and Alex Pretti, who were both killed by federal officers during protests.

Though I am angry about ICE’s actions in Minnesota, I have found it encouraging to see my fellow Minnesotans come together and help each other. People from all walks of life have recognized that ICE’s defiance of court orders threatens the rule of law, that the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti were clearly wrong, and that the Trump administration, which labeled both Good and Pretti as terrorists, must be held accountable. This includes some Republicans: an Ipsos poll revealed that 30 percent of Republicans nationwide now feel that ICE policy under Trump has gone too far. Chris Madel, a defense lawyer and former Republican candidate for Minnesota governor, ended his campaign in protest of ICE’s actions in the state.

This is to say that ICE’s actions in Minnesota have not gone without notice, and I am grateful for that. However, I want to bring attention to one aspect of Operation Metro Surge that I feel has gone underacknowledged: the way that ICE and other federal agencies have relied on a steady erosion of our right to privacy in order to carry out their operations.

One example of this erosion is the implementation of license plate cameras, also known as automated license plate readers. A company called Flock Safety maintains what has been reported as tens of thousands of license plate cameras across the country. These cameras log information about every car that drives past them in a database, and local and state police can search these databases in order to try to find a particular car. Police are not limited to searching license plate cameras in their jurisdictions; departments who agree to share their data with other agencies nationwide also get access to the data of other departments who do this. Reportedly, about 75 percent of departments do this.

Contrary to some claims that have circulated social media, ICE does not have direct access to Flock’s databases. However, 404 Media reported last year that ICE has accessed “data from Flock’s cameras by making requests to local law enforcement.” Local and state law enforcement agencies have made more than 4,000 searches “at the behest of the federal government or as an ‘informal’ favor to federal law enforcement.” These searches have included data from local police departments who presumably didn’t know that ICE was able to access their data.

The extent to which Flock is enabling the warrantless surveillance of American communities is, of course, disturbing. But it’s even more disturbing that ICE is trying to circumnavigate what few safeguards do exist on the use of Flock’s data.  Some communities have, in response to reports that ICE has been able to access Flock cameras, ended their contracts with Flock. However, Flock is still widely used around the country, and it is not unreasonable to expect that the Trump administration will aim to increase their use of license plate cameras over the next few years.

Another example: facial recognition. According to The New York Times, ICE uses two different facial recognition programs in Minnesota, “not only to identify undocumented immigrants but also to track citizens who have protested ICE’s presence.” One of these programs was developed by Clearview AI, a company that allows its customers to search through a database of images it has scraped from social media. Clearview AI has been funded in the past by Peter Thiel, the co-founder of Palantir, a company that has recently contracted with the Department of Homeland Security to “find and track individuals for deportation.” ICE is reportedly trying to expand the types of surveillance technology and information available to them, apparently without regard to the constitutional requirement that the targets of searches should be limited to people whom the agency has a warrant to search.

I believe that mass surveillance technology — like Flock’s network of cameras and the facial recognition programs that ICE is using — should not be used for law enforcement in the U.S. At the very least, these technologies should not be used to the extent that they are being used right now. The Trump administration’s actions in Minnesota demonstrate why. These technologies have given law enforcement agencies the unprecedented ability to find and track the movements of anyone they want, for practically any reason. Law enforcement agencies are supposed to seek warrants if they want to surveil a suspect, but, according to the ACLU, they can make Flock searches “without a warrant, probable cause, or even reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing.” This is, arguably, unconstitutional. A federal judge recently ruled, in one case involving the city of Norfolk, VA, that their use of Flock was “compliant with the Constitution.” However, the decision is expected to be appealed.

 “The government cannot monitor someone’s daily movements without a warrant based on probable cause,” the lawyer for two residents of Norfolk argued. 

In Minnesota, ICE agents are using facial recognition technology on people they detain, citizens and noncitizens alike, as well as protesters.

While the Trump administration’s recent efforts to increase their use of mass surveillance is disturbing in its own right, it has been able to do so because of a gradual erosion of the legal and legislative safeguards which would have otherwise stopped them. If you oppose ICE’s actions in Minnesota, you should be concerned about digital surveillance. We should advocate for limitations on the use of these technologies in our communities, and we should support organizations (such as the ACLU and the Electronic Frontier Foundation) and political candidates who are willing to take a stance against mass surveillance.