The domestic surveillance apparatus on which a dictatorship will depend is being built before our eyes.
ICE is planning a $100 million spy network to map your connections.
Newly uncovered federal procurement documents show that Immigration and Customs Enforcement wants to hire 142 intelligence analysts stationed at more than two dozen locations across the country.
Under the proposed contract, which has not yet been awarded, their job would include gathering and analyzing sensitive government information and mapping relationships among individuals, organizations, locations, and activities.
That could mean identifying family members, friends, associates, and other people connected to someone ICE might be investigating, including American citizens who are not themselves suspected of immigration violations.
Some analysts could require Top Secret security clearances. Their findings would help ICE plan enforcement operations.
ICE says the program, called ERO ONE, would improve immigration enforcement and protect its officers from threats.
The American Civil Liberties Union warns that the proposal looks like the creation of an internal spying agency.
The domestic surveillance apparatus on which a dictatorship will depend is being built before our eyes.
