Immigration agents are wearing personal pairs of Meta AI smart glasses to surveil communities, alarming protesters and civil liberties experts who fear the footage will fuel a crackdown on those opposed to President Donald Trump’s nationwide deportation campaign.
Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have increasingly used government-provided body cameras and facial recognition technologyduring deployments nationwide over the last year as they arrested nearly 400,000 immigrants and violently clashed with protesters.
DHS agents in six states have been seen in the smart glasses since Trump took office, an investigation by The Independent found. In some cases, agents have used the glasses — which have voice-controlled AI for analyzing what the wearer is seeing — to record and photograph members of the public. The glasses are also connected to the internet and can livestream video.
So...META can be supoenaed for footage during lawsuits. Neat!
The second fun part is META will also be able to track all downloads, shares, watches, etc. of the footage too!
Frankly, I'm all for it. It would be way more reliable than body cams, including tracking transfer and usage. It probably can also track location in real time meaning it could network out all ICE movement basically live, depending on how invasive it is. And all of it would be available during discovery. Neat!
Fair enough. I despise the way they are running these prisons/camps/centers. They are being treated worse than most violent criminals should be treated while statistically posing almost no danger to our society. Most undocumented immigrants do not commit any sort of violent crime, especially the kids.
The question: "How are they getting away with it?" assumes the action is illegal.
There is NO laws prohibiting this:
Taking pictures and videos in public is a First Amendment right and is legal whether it is done by a member of the public or a law enforcement officer. There is no expectation of privacy in a public setting.
Law enforcement at local, state, and federal levels already leverage surveillance cameras and body cam footage to identify suspects and watch out for crime.
And if it is prohibited to for law enforcement to record, the question will inevitably arise: "What happens if a felony or assault or murder is committed in front of an officer, and he or she has no video evidence for investigators?" That's not something those opposed to surveillance in public can easily answer when the Constitution and laws and case precedent are already set as they currently stand.
Video surveillance is a tool, and it can be used for both good and bad. Which is currently causing a conundrum, much as how body cameras on local police caused debate amongst activists as well:
"A push to put body cameras on all ICE agents has Democrats running headlong into a new problem: fear that the technology will provide another avenue for mass surveillance of protesters.
"Congressional Democratic leaders have made universal use of body cameras one of their prime demands for imposing accountability on Immigration and Customs Enforcement, especially after federal agents fatally shot two American citizens in Minneapolis. But after an outcry from privacy advocates that surveillance tools will allow ICE agents to identify and track protesters, Democrats are also calling for restrictions on how the body cameras can be used."
What a crazy headline. These guys are getting away with literal kidnapping, rape and murder. I don't think them getting away with wearing meta glasses is over the top considering
part of these protests is being arrested. that's literally what civil disobedience is.
they're breaking the law to get arrested to bring attention to a subject they think unjust.
i support police wearing cameras, more accountability for everyone is better, everyone should be held accountable for their actions, protestors and police alike
This article is specifically about ICE agents wearing cameras - not protesters. These are personal devices and open surveillance of this nature is not part of the protocol.
jxj24 | a day ago
You can do whatever you want when there are NO CONSEQUENCES.
labenset | 23 hours ago
"How are they getting away with it?"... They are getting away with literal murder, how are some AI glasses a surprise?
someBrad | 9 hours ago
How are they getting away with it? More like, who can stop them?
[OP] theindependentonline | a day ago
Immigration agents are wearing personal pairs of Meta AI smart glasses to surveil communities, alarming protesters and civil liberties experts who fear the footage will fuel a crackdown on those opposed to President Donald Trump’s nationwide deportation campaign.
Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have increasingly used government-provided body cameras and facial recognition technologyduring deployments nationwide over the last year as they arrested nearly 400,000 immigrants and violently clashed with protesters.
DHS agents in six states have been seen in the smart glasses since Trump took office, an investigation by The Independent found. In some cases, agents have used the glasses — which have voice-controlled AI for analyzing what the wearer is seeing — to record and photograph members of the public. The glasses are also connected to the internet and can livestream video.
mvw2 | a day ago
So...META can be supoenaed for footage during lawsuits. Neat!
The second fun part is META will also be able to track all downloads, shares, watches, etc. of the footage too!
Frankly, I'm all for it. It would be way more reliable than body cams, including tracking transfer and usage. It probably can also track location in real time meaning it could network out all ICE movement basically live, depending on how invasive it is. And all of it would be available during discovery. Neat!
Emotional_Database53 | 18 hours ago
It could also be paired with Meta’s advertising data for these agents, giving a whole bunch of interesting information on their internet habits
8ecca8ee | 18 hours ago
Well since they are morons at least there is some hope that footage from inside detention centers will surface if they are wearing these
Cowboywizzard | 7 hours ago
Let’s start calling those what they are: concentration camps
Higher_Primate | 3 hours ago
Prisons have always been concentration camps but Americans need to realize that concentration camp == death camp
Cowboywizzard | 47 minutes ago
Fair enough. I despise the way they are running these prisons/camps/centers. They are being treated worse than most violent criminals should be treated while statistically posing almost no danger to our society. Most undocumented immigrants do not commit any sort of violent crime, especially the kids.
hillsfar | 11 hours ago
The question: "How are they getting away with it?" assumes the action is illegal.
There is NO laws prohibiting this:
Taking pictures and videos in public is a First Amendment right and is legal whether it is done by a member of the public or a law enforcement officer. There is no expectation of privacy in a public setting.
Law enforcement at local, state, and federal levels already leverage surveillance cameras and body cam footage to identify suspects and watch out for crime.
And if it is prohibited to for law enforcement to record, the question will inevitably arise: "What happens if a felony or assault or murder is committed in front of an officer, and he or she has no video evidence for investigators?" That's not something those opposed to surveillance in public can easily answer when the Constitution and laws and case precedent are already set as they currently stand.
Video surveillance is a tool, and it can be used for both good and bad. Which is currently causing a conundrum, much as how body cameras on local police caused debate amongst activists as well:
"A push to put body cameras on all ICE agents has Democrats running headlong into a new problem: fear that the technology will provide another avenue for mass surveillance of protesters.
"Congressional Democratic leaders have made universal use of body cameras one of their prime demands for imposing accountability on Immigration and Customs Enforcement, especially after federal agents fatally shot two American citizens in Minneapolis. But after an outcry from privacy advocates that surveillance tools will allow ICE agents to identify and track protesters, Democrats are also calling for restrictions on how the body cameras can be used."
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/02/07/democrats-fear-body-cameras-could-be-ices-new-mass-surveillance-tool-00769363
ZenSven7 | a day ago
Who’s going to stop them, the fascists on the right or the cowards on the left?
manimal28 | 20 hours ago
I guess that leaves only you, the enlightened centrist, to solve this issue. So what are YOU doing to stop them?
Technician_009 | 19 hours ago
Wear mirrored glasses so it will bounce back at them? 🤣
trashmule | an hour ago
the cowards in the center*
folks on the left have been getting arrested and killed protesting this shit for years, don't erase us
Enough-Screen-1881 | 8 hours ago
Meta trying to break into Palantir's wheelhouse, interesting.
carrot_mcfaddon | 20 hours ago
[ Removed by Reddit ]
Cognitive_Spoon | 7 hours ago
Snow Crash timeline.
bsylent | 7 hours ago
What a crazy headline. These guys are getting away with literal kidnapping, rape and murder. I don't think them getting away with wearing meta glasses is over the top considering
LocoMod | 3 hours ago
I’ll just leave this here:
https://github.com/yjeanrenaud/yj_nearbyglasses
QWERTBERTQWERT | 22 hours ago
part of these protests is being arrested. that's literally what civil disobedience is.
they're breaking the law to get arrested to bring attention to a subject they think unjust.
i support police wearing cameras, more accountability for everyone is better, everyone should be held accountable for their actions, protestors and police alike
HoodieGalore | 20 hours ago
This article is specifically about ICE agents wearing cameras - not protesters. These are personal devices and open surveillance of this nature is not part of the protocol.
Fuck ICE.
QWERTBERTQWERT | 19 hours ago
they should both be wearing cameras, i have no problem with more accountability