I feel like those of us in the technology sector have a obligation to assist in the counter balance to the police state that is rapidly building up. After all the executives of our companies have clearly chosen their side (Musk, Thiel, Ellison, Cook, Zuckerberg).
One idea is creating a site to track incidents, collect testimony, video evidence of events as they happen. If we can't be physically there to confront them at least we can share evidence and put it in front of as many eyeballs as we can. It wouldn't be a pleasant project, being a sin eater has its own costs. It would at least be something though.
Does anyone else have projects or ideas that can be contributed to?
I see this as a downstream issue of a greater issue needing to be solved.
Many American's risk homelessness and violence outside of the corporate world. The control over money used for housing and healthcare lies entirely within the hands of corporate intrests driven by these executives.
Until a viable alternative can be discovered for addressing housing and healthcare issues, no reasonable resistance amongst tech workers can be organized.
Many within the tech world, would love to build and produce technology that competes with the corporate interests you described, but lack secure housing or healthcare to do so.
Please note, that this does not require a 'solution' to the problem, but rather an alternative.
Consider joining your local Code For America chapter or contributing to whatever local group handles mutual aid. Civic coding and mutual aid will be vital in the near future.
There are plenty of opportunities but many rely on what are effectively "zero days" (some actually are) that aren't suitable for posting on a public forum.
Rather, go find leftist groups and get vetted to participate with them. You'll find like minded people, including other people working on technical countermeasures.
The groups are messy and sometimes incoherent (leftist infighting is a meme) but as of late they've become much more focused on a being pragmatic so nobody is going to make you quote marx or anything.
Donate to mutual aid organizations that provide legal advice and support. The Trump admin is breaking a ton of laws but they aren't breaking all of them. The legal system is more important now than ever. Making sure that people know what they can do to interfere with ICE is important. Funding legal teams for people detained by ICE is important.
Donate to mutual aid organizations that provide financial support. Somebody who is afraid to go to work because ICE might be there still needs to pay rent. An organization that funnels money to these people protects people.
Agitate for dems that give a shit. The way this ends is if dems win in 2026 and 2028 and actually take steps to punish the people who have committed these crimes and to dismantle the systems that enabled this in the first place. If instead we get the dems doing what Labor is doing and trying to be a just-slightly-less-evil nativist organization then we are fucking doomed. Documentation of these crimes will be important for making the libs unable to just say "well let's all move on" like they did in 2021.
Its pretty clear that ICE is being used as a means of forming an industry similar to that of the Military Industrial complex, but focused on law-enforcement and domestic action.
What alarms me here is that once a certain level of investment and industry is built, it will necessitate a means of self-sustaining itself and will attempt to find this through political investment.
I fully expect a domestic version of the "perpetual foreign wars" concept to appear within my lifetime where we go from one domestic emergency requiring huge policing resources to another, ensuring the industry gets funding.
It's actually about white supremacy and turning the US into a Christofascist ethnostate but y'all aren't ready to take that conversation seriously. The militarization of domestic policing and surveillance is just a means to an end.
Most of these people will keep showing up to their cushy jobs at Google and FB while the data they spent decades harvesting is used to oppress their neighbors.
I see the Christofascism as more a flavor of the month than a serious unifying ideology.
Religion has always been a tool used by those in power to gain favorability with people at scale. But history tells us it is easily manipulated and twisted to serve the needs of the powerful. (Crusades, Colonialism, Slavery, Conservatism)
Whatever Christofascism is today, will be boiled down to its fundamental components the moment it no longer serves the powerful so that it can be remade into whatever they need it to be. Think of it more as the rotting of one religion giving way to the fertile ground of new relgion.
This is really the only answer. ICE is a Trojan Horse. It's like "protect the children." It's just a justifiable means to get what they really want which is more control. America is desperately trying to turn into China in more ways than one.
I cannot comment on whether America is becoming a police state or not because i am a greencard holder subject to cancellation of the greencard at any time at the whims of the current administration.
Oh? Really? Has this madness been happening in the other 23 of the 24 years since its passage? At this scale? Were there a lot of masked men disappearing people in broad daylight?
I'd have figured that if you were looking at historic examples of the US being a police state, the Jim Crow South would have been a better one, or if you were a homosexual, really, any time prior to the 90s.
Asking as a foreigner who wants to travel to Cali to visit the Computer History Museum sometimes in the future: What is the plan for ICE? Is it going to get more manpower and $$$ to expand its responsibility?
Half the country violently doesn't want you here, and you should oblige them by taking your money and attention elsewhere. There are plenty of more deserving locations.
Depends on the color of your skin, I guess. Also, border agents have the right to search your phone and have been known to refuse entry to people speaking ill of Trump on socials.
On the face of it, it looks similar to israeli border guards and cops in the West Bank.
Paramilitary, high tech equipment, close to zero accountability. It's not far off that the people they're snatching don't have any legal means to fight it either, similar to how palestinians are held in 'administrative detention' and only have access to extremely corrupt military courts.
I suspect that negotiation is not going to get either states or popular movements very far against this threat.
Readit News
I do like how Illinois has setup a commission to track accountability. https://ilac.illinois.gov/
I feel like those of us in the technology sector have a obligation to assist in the counter balance to the police state that is rapidly building up. After all the executives of our companies have clearly chosen their side (Musk, Thiel, Ellison, Cook, Zuckerberg).
One idea is creating a site to track incidents, collect testimony, video evidence of events as they happen. If we can't be physically there to confront them at least we can share evidence and put it in front of as many eyeballs as we can. It wouldn't be a pleasant project, being a sin eater has its own costs. It would at least be something though.
Does anyone else have projects or ideas that can be contributed to?
Many American's risk homelessness and violence outside of the corporate world. The control over money used for housing and healthcare lies entirely within the hands of corporate intrests driven by these executives. Until a viable alternative can be discovered for addressing housing and healthcare issues, no reasonable resistance amongst tech workers can be organized.
Many within the tech world, would love to build and produce technology that competes with the corporate interests you described, but lack secure housing or healthcare to do so.
Please note, that this does not require a 'solution' to the problem, but rather an alternative.
Rather, go find leftist groups and get vetted to participate with them. You'll find like minded people, including other people working on technical countermeasures.
The groups are messy and sometimes incoherent (leftist infighting is a meme) but as of late they've become much more focused on a being pragmatic so nobody is going to make you quote marx or anything.
Donate to mutual aid organizations that provide legal advice and support. The Trump admin is breaking a ton of laws but they aren't breaking all of them. The legal system is more important now than ever. Making sure that people know what they can do to interfere with ICE is important. Funding legal teams for people detained by ICE is important.
Donate to mutual aid organizations that provide financial support. Somebody who is afraid to go to work because ICE might be there still needs to pay rent. An organization that funnels money to these people protects people.
Agitate for dems that give a shit. The way this ends is if dems win in 2026 and 2028 and actually take steps to punish the people who have committed these crimes and to dismantle the systems that enabled this in the first place. If instead we get the dems doing what Labor is doing and trying to be a just-slightly-less-evil nativist organization then we are fucking doomed. Documentation of these crimes will be important for making the libs unable to just say "well let's all move on" like they did in 2021.
https://www.realtimefascism.com/ice-sight (appears to be inactive as of this comment)
https://wiki.icelist.is/
https://deportationdata.org/
https://themarkup.org/tools/2025/04/16/law-enforcement-ice-c...
Dead Comment
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What alarms me here is that once a certain level of investment and industry is built, it will necessitate a means of self-sustaining itself and will attempt to find this through political investment. I fully expect a domestic version of the "perpetual foreign wars" concept to appear within my lifetime where we go from one domestic emergency requiring huge policing resources to another, ensuring the industry gets funding.
Diehards specifically recruited for their commitment to the cause.
They will be the ones making jokes while digging mass graves.
Deleted Comment
Whatever Christofascism is today, will be boiled down to its fundamental components the moment it no longer serves the powerful so that it can be remade into whatever they need it to be. Think of it more as the rotting of one religion giving way to the fertile ground of new relgion.
Dead Comment
Except without the long term thinking and investment.
I'd have figured that if you were looking at historic examples of the US being a police state, the Jim Crow South would have been a better one, or if you were a homosexual, really, any time prior to the 90s.
Dead Comment
Pretty easy to switch from targeting “immigrants” to “dissidents“
Go to a country that deserves your tourism, US is not worth visiting.
Be sure to create your ESTA a few workdays before though, as long as you have it you will have a great time.
Dead Comment
Paramilitary, high tech equipment, close to zero accountability. It's not far off that the people they're snatching don't have any legal means to fight it either, similar to how palestinians are held in 'administrative detention' and only have access to extremely corrupt military courts.
I suspect that negotiation is not going to get either states or popular movements very far against this threat.