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《卫报》看到的文件显示,美国移民和海关执法局 (Ice) 向包括谷歌、推特和 Meta 在内的科技巨头发出了至少 500 份行政传票,要求用户提供敏感的个人信息。
这种做法突出了 Ice 试图在没有首先显示可能原因的情况下获取的大量信息。 行政传票通常未经法院认证,这意味着在法律上不要求公司遵守或回应,除非法官强制他们这样做。 文件显示,在某些情况下,这些公司会交出用户信息,但尚不清楚这些公司在多大程度上遵守了规定。
它进一步凸显了 Ice 对移民的监视范围有多大。
“当 Ice 从谷歌或 Instagram 获取订阅者数据时,他们可以将这些信息与他们从其他公司获得的数亿美国居民的数十亿其他数据点结合起来,”Just Futures 的数据和技术研究员 Hannah Lucal 说。法律,获得文件的组织之一。
“虽然听起来可能是良性的或像一种法律工具,但行政传票实际上正在启用非常侵入性的 Ice 监视,不仅是该机构针对的人,而且可能是任何可能在这些技术平台上与该人交流的人,”Lucal说。
这些文件详细列出了 2018 年至 2021 年间的请求,显示大多数请求与该机构的移民执法工作有关。 少数案件与人口走私有关,其中一起是谋杀案调查的一部分。
在绝大多数情况下,Ice 要求公司交出账户信息,例如个人的 IP 地址和付款详情。
文件显示,在少数情况下,该机构走得更远。 在一个例子中,Ice 要求谷歌提供 Migrant Media 背后的帐户详细信息,这是一个专注于并共享有关移民问题资源的 YouTube 频道。 在传票中,一名 ICE 官员表示,该机构正在寻找姓名、地址、屏幕名称、付款和账单面信息“以及与 YouTube 页面相关的任何和所有 IP 地址”,作为正在进行的“相关调查或询问”的一部分执行美国移民法”。 传票没有提供任何关于调查性质的额外细节。 在另一个案例中,Ice 要求 Facebook 提供与一个账户相关的任何位置信息。 还有一次,Ice 要求 Facebook 提供与一个用户帐户相关的“所有公共内容照片、视频、墙贴、订阅者信息和回复”。 文件显示,Ice 还要求 Facebook 提供与账户相关的地理位置信息。
谷歌表示,它有一个“旨在保护人们隐私的严格程序”,包括在涉及 Ice 行政传票时。 公司发言人 Christa Muldoon 在一份声明中说:“我们会仔细审查请求的法律有效性和宪法问题,例如过于宽泛。” “当有人对他们的帐户提出请求时,我们会通知用户,并且在抵制对用户数据的不当要求方面有着长期的记录,甚至完全反对某些要求。”
据发言人艾琳·麦克派克 (Erin McPike) 称,Meta 表示,它会根据法律及其服务条款回应并仔细审查数据请求。 截至发稿时,推特和 Ice 未发表评论。
Lucal 表示,非法庭命令的请求只是 Ice 庞大的监视系统中的一个工具,该机构用来监视移民。
Ice 还从数据经纪人那里购买用户信息,作为绕过庇护政策的机制,这些政策限制当地执法机构与 Ice 合作。 它还花费数十亿美元与一家私人监狱公司签订合同,使用脚踝监视器和面部识别应用程序追踪美国的移民。 Ice 的上级机构国土安全部也与帮助分析和收集社交媒体平台信息的公司签订合同。
目前尚不清楚科技公司多久向 Ice 提供信息以回应行政传票。 从历史上看,Ice 向科技公司发出此类请求的频率一直很低。
Just Futures Law 和波士顿大学在起诉 Ice 未回应其公共记录请求后获得了这些文件。 “我们不知道是否 [these documents] 代表 Ice 在此期间向这些公司提交的每份行政传票,但我们确实知道 Ice 总体上有一个一贯的做法,即使用行政传票作为一种工具来寻求从大量公司获取个人信息,”Lucal 说。
The companies’ transparency reports, which detail the number of government requests for user data they receive, show that they respond to the vast majority of law enforcement requests for user information with some level of data. Google, for instance, handed over data in response to 85% of more than 55,000 requests they received in the first half of 2022. “It’s in their best interest to maintain good relationships with government agencies,” Lucal said.
But tech firms don’t break out how many of the tens of thousands of requests they field and respond to every six months are Ice administrative subpoenas.
The documents show tech companies responded, in some cases, with some level of data. In one case, Google handed Ice details of a user’s message and call history in response to an administrative subpoena. In another case, Twitter handed over the name and other personal details of a user in response to a request for all the account information behind a specific Twitter handle.
“In some ways part of what this reveals is the lack of transparency about what is actually happening,” said Sarah Sherman-Stokes, the associate director & clinical associate professor of Immigrants’ Rights and Human Trafficking Program at Boston University School of Law. “We know that at least 500 administrative subpoenas were issued but we don’t have great information about what happened after that.”
Some of the administrative subpoenas, the documents show, came with gag requests, or requests not to disclose to the account owner that their user information was being shared with Ice. In at least one case, the administrative subpoena came with an indefinite gag request, which means that it’s possible a person whose information was handed over to Ice through a request like this would never be notified.
In the exceptional case a person is notified before a tech company hands over their data to Ice, they’re given very little opportunity to fight it off. When possible, a tech firm will notify the user that their information is being requested and in some cases give them as little as seven days to hire a lawyer and file a request to quash the subpoena. In the case of administrative subpoenas, Sherman-Stokes points out, the company could instead just decline to respond.
“It’s confirmation of something that we suspected, but should be troubling to us which is that big tech is increasingly complicit with Ice’s expanding surveillance, detention and deportation regime,” Sherman-Stokes said. “Despite these subpoenas not being legally binding, big tech seems very ready and willing to open their doors to disclose our personal and really highly sensitive information.”
The revelations also come as there are renewed efforts by lawmakers and activists to secure data privacy protections in the aftermath of the reversal of Roe v Wade. But many of those efforts are narrowly focused on reproductive and health data and do little to protect those seeking abortions or the many marginalized groups who have been historically targeted by law enforcement through requests for their user information.
“Communities who are most targeted and criminalized, including Black and brown and immigrant communities are basically exempted from privacy protections because so many of these conversations focus on data privacy as something that you “deserve” based on what you’re doing and who you are – not based on this idea that our data is ours,” Lucal said. “We should have a say over who gets access to [our data] 以及它是如何使用的以及它是否被货币化。”
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