Public vs. Private
How the 2001 Patriot Act inverted our constitutional rights
“Photograph: Genaro Molina/Getty Images”
First, an update to yesterday’s post on legalization vs. deportation:
David J. Bier, Feb. 3, 2026: “Cato study: Immigrants reduced deficits by $14.5 trillion since 1994. … Every year since 1994—when data collection began—immigrants have paid more in taxes than they received in benefits from the federal, state, and local governments. The fiscal benefits have continued to rise, reaching their highest level ever in 2023. … For years, nativists in Congress and the administration have wrongly claimed that immigrants are behind the growth in debt and that the US immigration system allowed foreigners to take advantage of Americans’ generosity. Our data completely repudiates this view. Immigrants are subsidizing the US government.” [Emphasis mine.]
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OUR MAIN STORY TODAY - WATCHING ICE, WATCHING YOU:
Elaine Scarry, Feb. 1, 2004: “The [2001] Patriot Act inverts the constitutional requirement that people’s lives be private and the work of government officials be public; it instead crafts a set of conditions in which our inner lives become transparent and the workings of the government become opaque. Either one of these outcomes would imperil democracy; together they not only injure the country but also cut off the avenues of repair. … The double requirement—that people’s lives be private and government actions be public—is turned inside out by the Patriot Act. The inner lives of people are made involuntarily transparent by provisions that increase the ability of federal officers of the executive branch to enter and search a person’s house (section 213), to survey private medical records, business records, library records, and educational records (sections 203, 215, 218, 219, 358, 507, 508), and to monitor telephone, e-mail, and Internet use (section 216). Simultaneously, the Patriot Act obscures executive-branch actions, hiding those actions from the population and from the legislative and judicial branches, and doing so before, during, and after the executive actions are carried out.”
Gary Leff, Jan. 30, 2026: “ICE is using a smartphone app called “Mobile Fortify” to scan faces and capture contactless fingerprints, instantly pulling back names and biographical data — and court filings say the same encounters are being followed by revocations of Global Entry and TSA PreCheck. That turns “trusted traveler” into chilling of speech. DHS runs both the surveillance and the program, and being “under investigation” can be enough to lose your status even if protesting itself cannot legally be a disqualifier. The Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement is expanding use of identificationand tracking – not just immigration targets but also on U.S. citizens who are documenting, protesting, and observing enforcement operations. And participating in these events is getting Global Entry yanked. … While more people are being kicked out of Global Entry than ever before, 39% of people who appeal the revocation win. Plus, DHS decisions on Global Entry are subject to judicial review, at least in the ninth circuit.”
New York Times, Jan. 31, 2026, gift link: “On the morning of Jan. 10, Nicole Cleland was in her car trailing an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent through Richfield, Minn., her hometown. Suddenly, the agent turned into a series of one-way streets and stopped, getting out of his white Dodge Ram, said Ms. Cleland, who volunteers with a local watchdog group that observes the activity of immigration officers. The agent then walked over to Ms. Cleland’s car and surprised her by addressing her as Nicole. “He said he had facial recognition and that his body camera was on,” said Ms. Cleland, 56, who had not met the agent before. Ms. Cleland was one of at least seven American citizens told by ICE agents this month that they were being recorded with facial recognition technology in and around Minneapolis, according to local activists and videos posted to social media, which were verified by The New York Times. … Ms. Cleland, the Richfield resident, said that three days after the encounter with the ICE agent, she received an email from the Department of Homeland Security saying her Global Entry and Transportation Security Administration travel privileges had been revoked. No explanation was provided. … Ms. Cleland signed a declaration joining a lawsuit against the Homeland Security Department in U.S. District Court in Minnesota. The lawsuit challenges ICE’s treatment of observers. In her declaration, Ms. Cleland asked why her traveler status had been revoked.
“I am a totally average American, and I cannot abide by what is happening right now,” she said.”
Tressie McMillan Cottom, Feb. 3, 2026, gift link: “You don’t need to understand how digital tracking works or have a degree in constitutional law to grasp what is happening to your privacy. You need only know this: Whatever is happening with your data, it is important enough to the most egregiously lawless administration in American history that it be collected and consolidated. It is important enough that a federal cowboy kept one hand on his phone even as his other hand reached for his gun. A militarized federal police force that acts out of loyalty on the whim of a political leader who relishes retribution and adulation is the tip of an iceberg. You don’t build a nuclear bomb for peace any more than you build a national surveillance apparatus just to manage a border wall. This kind of weaponry could effectively nullify our Fourth Amendment right to protection from unreasonable search and seizure. It also could more easily enable the government to trample on your free speech. And, it could do all of this without meaningful transparency or oversight.”
Wired, Jan. 31, 2026: “How to Film ICE - Filming federal agents in public is legal, but avoiding a dangerous—even deadly—confrontation isn’t guaranteed. Here’s how to record ICE and CBP agents as safely as possible and have an impact.”
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IN OTHER NEWS - I THOUGHT WE HAD ERADICATED MEASELS, BUT I WAS WRONG:
CDC: “Measles was officially eliminated from the United States in 2000, meaning there is no measles spreading within the country and new cases are only found when someone contracts measles abroad and returns to the country. Achieving measles elimination status in the United States was a historic public health achievement.”
But wait…
Evan Blake, Feb. 3, 2026: “A measles outbreak is now ripping through the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in South Texas, where the Trump administration confines hundreds of immigrant families and children under conditions of deliberate brutality and medical neglect. The outbreak, confirmed January 31 by the Texas Department of State Health Services, is a social crime committed by a fascistic regime that treats human beings as disposable and public health as an obstacle to profit. In a letter dated February 1 and addressed to Texas health officials, Dr. Lee C. Rogers, Chief of Podiatry at UT Health San Antonio, called for an “immediate, unified public health command-and-control” to stop the outbreak, warning that “congregate detention creates near-universal exposure risk” and that the outbreak “has the potential to quickly overwhelm local health resources.” Rogers stressed that “any large-scale dispersal of exposed persons without a coordinated public health plan would materially increase the risk of multi-jurisdictional transmission.” He concluded, “Viruses are not political. They do not care about one’s immigration status. Measles will spread if we allow uncertainty and delay to substitute for reasoned public health action.”
That’s all for now. THANK YOU! to all subscribers, new, free and paid.
Comments encouraged.
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