Hacker News Reader

Comment by runako | Hacker News Reader

Exactly this. Let's spell it out:

Customs & Border Patrol. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Domestic travel does not involve immigration or customs. No international borders are crossed.

Giving CBP line-item access to the movements of Americans makes as much sense as giving the SEC access to healthcare records.

There is virtually no reason at all for these organizations to have any knowledge about the movements of people inside the US. They do not get to be super-police just because they want to be.

View on HN

This is the meat of the "unitary executive" legal theory. Under this theory, CBP is just a convenient name for a part of the executive branch. If any part of the executive branch has the right to (or even just isn't prohibited from using) a piece of data, then its just a matter of the president issuing the right orders so that CBP can too. The same would go for getting medical records over to the SEC. Even if he forgets to issue those orders, the Justice department (also part of the executive) obviously won't charge anyone with any kind of crime, and if they did he could pardon them or arrest the judges involved.

I happen to believe that this is all just a convoluted way to back into the fuhrerprinzip by way of originalism, but I have no power.

Either way, the US is not a liberal democracy any more. Laws do not apply to the powerful. Strength and power are the only things that matter. The Enlightment project is dead in Washington (and most statehouses) and the only question of consequence left is: What will replace it?

100%. Neatly incorporated in there is that Congress cannot make any laws to bind the executive in any way. I have a feeling that many people cheering this are going to regret it when the Executive changes hands.

If the executive branch changes hands, I would be willing to bet money that the Supreme Court will immediately do a 180 and declare all of these things as no longer powers of the executive branch.

All of the things that were perfectly OK for Trump to do will suddenly be off limits for a Democrat president.

It's also not at all clear that they intend to let the White House change hands again. One would assume that they have all the power they need to make that happen, and why wouldn't they?

I think if you're a citizen, then I agree with you. However if you're an alien (legal or not) I think they should be allowed to figure out where you are.

They absolutely should, but the onus is on them to figure out a way to do that within the confines of existing law. Existing law notably does not make ICE or CBP a super-agency that can do whatever it wants.

I think data brokers are legal. I think purchasing data is legal. So what is the problem?

We should just put ankle bracelets on each non-citizen when they enter. That way we can keep proper tabs on them.

Arguably, because a person of interest may cross the border into the country and then travel around domestically.

There has been no credible argument why this logic is acceptable for CBP and ICE but not FBI or DEA.

Why are the misdemeanor civil violators ICE chases so important that federal laws no longer apply, when until a year ago it was generally understood that agencies like DEA had guardrails even when trying to apprehend people on felony charges?

If this stands, there is no logically consistent rationale for DEA not being able to perform warrantless wiretaps of all communications, etc.

There’s a new sheriff in town in case you hadn’t noticed.

Their job is to enforce immigration laws inside the U.S. When illegal immigrants are travelling domestically, it involves ICE.

The crime starts when the border is crossed, it doesn't end once you are illegally in the country and travelling domestically.

One can use this logic to create an omnibus surveillance apparatus covering all aspects of communications, commerce, etc.

We do not give other law enforcement similar deference, even though it might help them in some fraction of cases. For example: SEC could prosecute more insider trading if it was able to wiretap all domestic communications.

And yet Americans are subject to TSA stupidity for all domestic flights. The actual lines of when the federal government does and does not have authority are very blurred, even though I would personally argue they shouldn't have any authority on anything unless expressly granted by the Constitution.

TSA was created after 9/11, and iirc all of the planes involved were domestic flights.

but domestic flights do track with Transportation Security

Reply on news.ycombinator.com