When the federal government comes asking for your help, I think it's pretty normal for people to provide that help.
In a just world, if the government asks for something inappropriately, then the party at fault is the government. (In other words, Washington should sue ICE, not Motel 6.)
If we want companies to require a subpoena to share information with the federal government (and personally I do want that) then we should set that standard in law. And we should enforce it fairly, not based on the hot political topic of the day. (How much information does the CIA and FBI vacuum up from Washington telcos in a day in violation of this law, and why isn't anyone held to task? Maybe because they have better lawyers than Motel 6.)
Helping the federal government do its job and then getting sued by the state seems like mom getting mad at you for doing what dad asked you to.
Isn’t it your duty to protect the privacy of your data and your customers regardless of who is requesting data? I thought companies like Twitter and Google routinely rebuffed requests for information from government agencies and opposed restrictive rules, e.g. in China, and are praised for it. The concept of resisting government requests for information is well established.
If the police called and asked for my customer list, I’d check whether they had that authority and many other issues before turning it over. I think we had an article on here earlier about ‘second order thinking’ that would cover that... getting an invasive request from the government, and fulfilling it regardless of consequences because you want to ‘help’ or consider them to be like Mom and Dad is first order thinking.
I’m no expert, but it seems increasingly common to have state laws that oppose or are stricter than federal laws, and you do have to be aware of all laws for your jurisdiction down to the county and city. Especially in any voluntary action, you have to consider whether it violates other laws or duties, and if they weren’t legally compelled to do this t was voluntary.
> The concept of resisting government requests for information is well established.
Well established for whom? For many poor Americans, the thought of resisting a local PD seems impossible, let alone a federal agent who comes knocking. Try to imagine being on your night shift at a rural Motel 6 when a few strange individuals start waving badges, making requests, maybe threatening to escalate things if you don't play along. Maybe you would have the courage to stand up to them, but I think a lot of people would fall to the pressure and abide by the request. One big difference is privilege.
I believe ICE should be responsible for illegally attaining this information. They should also bear the cost of educating the Motel 6 workforce on their rights to resist requests from law enforcement agencies.
> I believe ICE should be responsible for illegally attaining this information. They should also bear the cost of educating the Motel 6 workforce on their rights to resist requests from law enforcement agencies.
Totally agree. A hotel worker would be a hero for refusing to comply with an illegal request, but it's not reasonable to expect them to know what's legal or not here.
Citizens should be able to assume that those who enforce the law also obey the law, and when that's found not to be true, the agencies should be in deep trouble. Without law abiding law officers, the whole system falls apart.
Well established for companies who safeguard vast amounts of consumer data such as google and twitter, as I said.
Right, ‘The hotel said at the time that the practice was implemented "at the local level without the knowledge of senior management."‘
Obviously, if you are working at a motel and law enforcement enters and start demanding things, you -contact your supervisors-. Not sure how ‘privilege’ is involved, other than having the education or training to understand this. It’s possible that the individuals involved at the motel were not coerced and participated enthusiastically.
Of course ICE should also be obligated to follow the law and not encourage others to break it. However, it’s up to Motel 6 to train their employees, protect customers’ privacy and enforce their own policies.
It’s hard to keep up with laws. ICE is very much a bully, just like TSA is. They can make your life miserable for a while until you get yourself a lawyer (which most people can’t afford, and can’t lose time).
It would be interesting to know how ICE obtained it. Did they, in fact, threaten or trick the motel staff or management? I would think that the staff is not personally in legal jeopardy from refusing to comply. I think most people would know that, too. Passing it on to higher-ups would surely be proper corporate protocol, and wouldn’t they be the ones to suffer legal jeopardy or harassment, not Joe Night Clerk?
“ICE agents, who are tasked with arresting people who are not legal residents for deportation, would be given a guest list from the hotel’s receptionist, along with a form to sign confirming the lists’ receipt. The roster included information such as guests’ driver’s license number, room number, date of birth and license plate number.”
The documents identified several technology companies as participants in the PRISM program, including Microsoft in 2007, Yahoo! in 2008, Google in 2009, Facebook in 2009, Paltalk in 2009, YouTube in 2010, AOL in 2011, Skype in 2011 and Apple in 2012.[22] The speaker's notes in the briefing document reviewed by The Washington Post indicated that "98 percent of PRISM production is based on Yahoo, Google, and Microsoft".[1]
The implication being that all those companies were cooperating and not being inadvertently tapped. This is not a given and from what I've seen the later seemed more likely, without discounting the existence of companies that do cooperate on an ongoing basis.
To avoid giving the wrong impression to folks, it is worth noting that ‘participating’ means they produced requested communications on an ongoing basis pursuant to orders from a judge.
Thank you for clarifying. To clarify further, this is the FISA (secret) court that Will is referring to that also ended up rubber stamping surveillance of a political campaign.
Apples and oranges. PRISM was not these companies giving Carte Blanche access to data, it was narrow to specific government warrants for specific individuals per later media reports, and nothing like the Motel 6 or AT&T issues. It sounds to me like PRISM = “I have a warrant for individual XYZ, please zip up all their account data and deliver it electronically somewhere for the FBI”
A separate program, MUSCULAR targeted dark fiber inter-data center links against companies which suggests that the tech companies were not handing out backdoors as they were accused of by Greenwald/Guardian reporting.
"Isn’t it your duty to protect the privacy of your data and your customers regardless of who is requesting data?"
The article says "after several locations gave information on thousands of guests to Immigration and Customs Enforcement without warrants"
Sounds like ICE got the info from the night manager or similar. I can see why a motel night manager might feel like they didn't have a choice in the matter. Motel 6 is still rightly on hook, but ICE knew better than to route the request to Motel 6 HDQ.
> I thought companies like Twitter and Google routinely rebuffed requests for information
Some, maybe. Definitely not all. Google reportedly has a system to let authorities access GMail. Similarly, Microsoft has been cooperating from pre-antitrust times, let alone now. And these are the richest companies in the world, with market caps in the hundreds of billions; they can afford to pay legions of top-level lawyers for decades-long litigation. Motel 6 in comparison is small beer; they were sold for less than 2$bn a few years ago.
Large internet companies have a system that manages the process for LEO access, but your implication that they offer a "here's your login creds, grab whatever data you want" system is incorrect.
Google probably receives more subpoenas per hour than most companies receive over their entire lifetime, so of course they have a portal for handling such requests and managing the process.
If the police called and asked me whether i'd seen [person fitting description] at my motel, i would answer honestly. If they had a name, i would check records. Want yesterdays cctv? No problems. I wouldn't care if they had a warrant, it is a totally reasonable set of things for them to ask for.
Complete customer lists are a data gathering exercise, not a query to investigate a 'lead'
There's a Washington state consumer protection law. Some Motel 6 locations in the state broke that law by handing over data to Federal officials without a warrant. The Federal officials broke no law in asking for the data without a warrant. It was the hotels which broke the law.
Maybe you could make an entrapment argument against the Federal officials. IANAL, so I don't know how that works. (I guess it's not entrapment because the Federal officials weren't trying to get Motel 6 to break the law for the purpose of going after Motel 6.)
And btw, since when has the law ever been enforced fairly, really?
The concept that all people should be aware of all laws from all levels of government, and that the government is not the responsible one is so pompous to me. To expect a low wage employee, who is probably not well educated to rebuff people with badges in the moment who have the power to threaten you and disrupt your whole life is rich.
Police try to get citizens to incriminate themselves all the time: “Do you know why I pulled you over?” Posing as a drug buyer. And so forth. At the end of the day, it falls upon citizens to know their rights and the law. Ignorance of the law is not a valid defense.
I’m not saying whether I agree or disagree, just stating my understanding of how it works.
And yes, the imbalance of power is ridiculous.
Aside, if the Motel 6 employees had asked the ICE agents: “is it legal for me to give this to you without a warrant?” and the ICE agents had answered in the affirmative, then Motel 6 may have had an entrapment defense[1], but I’m not certain and IANAL.
>When the federal government comes asking for your help, I think it's pretty normal for people to provide that help.
I can come to any bank, and politely ask them to help me out a bit by giving me some money. That's not an illegal (or wrong) thing to do.
Now if the bank does help me out by emptying out their customer's storage cells, someone's going into jail for that.
See, it's fine to help out. It's not OK to do so at someone else's expense. In this case, Motel 6 gave away something that's not theirs to give away, according to the law (namely: their customers' data).
Motel 6 did not break the law by helping out the feds. It broke the law by harming their customers (sharing their customer's data).
In the end, it's normal to ask for help. It's also pretty normal to politely decline to provide it.
Title nitpick: Motel 6 illegally gave away this information. They broke the state law, were sued for that, and lost $12M (and made further commitments on top of that). Why NPR chose to soften it to "improperly" is beyond me; the attorney general quoted in the article uses "illegally" in the same sentence.
They need a warrant by law in most cases but ICE seems to be requesting this data without much to back it up. The standard approach is to challenge it and keep records of the interaction.
> When the federal government comes asking for your help, I think it's pretty normal for people to provide that help.
There's all kinds of times when turning over information to the government, or certain agents of government, without a compulsory order is illegal, either under civil or criminal law or both. Sometimes it goes beyond that, and even prohibits such disclosure under otherwise compulsory orders.
I've worked with personal data of federally-funded substance abuse treatment program clients. Beyond (and actually, IIRC, predating) HIPAA protections that also apply, I could not, legally, disclose such information even to an law enforcement agent with a subpoena for the information, without a separate, accompanying federal court order authorizing disclosure of the protected client information. The implementing regulations (42 CFR Part 2) even take the unusual step of specifically calling out a number of nonexceptions to the general rule against disclosure outside of the specific parameters permitted: [42 CFR § 2.13(b)] ”The restrictions on disclosure and use in the regulations in this part apply whether or not the part 2 program or other lawful holder of the patient identifying information believes that the person seeking the information already has it, has other means of obtaining it, is a law enforcement agency or official or other government official, has obtained a subpoena, or asserts any other justification for a disclosure or use which is not permitted by the regulations in this part.”
If you work in an industry to which the law—state, federal, local, whatever—applies such protection to the data you hold, you are responsible to know that, abide by it, and not just roll over when someone vaguely waves a badge in your direction.
> If we want companies to require a subpoena to share information with the federal government (and personally I do want that) then we should set that standard in law.
The State of Washington did that. That's exactly what the case is about.
> (How much information does the CIA and FBI vacuum up from Washington telcos in a day in violation of this law, and why isn't anyone held to task?
Probably none, mostly because the law at issue doesn't apply to telcos.
> So who from the federal government is charged for their part of the crime?
What crime? The charges were for a civil violation of state consumer protection law, which restricted the behavior of the motel, not ICE.
Even if ICE officials, in the federally-lawful conduct of their duties could be subject to state law, I don't see any indication that they did anything that would have broken the law at issue, which prohibits the disclosure, not the request.
>Even if ICE officials, in the federally-lawful conduct of their duties could be subject to state law, I don't see any indication that they did anything that would have broken the law at issue, which prohibits the disclosure, not the request.
i wonder whether the agents may be breaking any law if say the night manager informed them that he couldn't legally disclose the information, yet the agents would still pressure him into giving it up. Wouldn't the agents thus become participants of a conspiracy to violate that law [IANAL]?
I believe it’s somewhat defensible to task only one side here with protecting the data. They have that data all the time, and it’s therefore more practical for them to explore the legality of such requests. They are also the party entrusted with that data by the customer, and therefore have a fiduciary duty. It also aligns with the idea of those profiting from data to accept liability for its protection.
There’s probably also a federal/state law angle here that I’m unqualified to opine on.
Also: this is civil law, and therefore nobody was or will be charged (just a pet peeve).
This is where the laws need to be tightened -- people tend to not know what their rights or obligations are, and have to rely on expensive professionals to advise them (and it can still go wrong). When a government agent makes a request, often it can come across as a demand, with the implication that your are required by law to comply (they can even lie to you to get you to comply).
Now in the case of a large business, I would expect that they have the resources to figure out when to comply or when to ask for a warrant. But individuals have a harder time -- imagine getting sued by your employer for complying with a TSA agent's demand that you open your laptop for them to search through, then you get sued or fired because of that. It should always be illegal for a government official to imply that you are required to do something, if that isn't the case (and make it clear that there is no penalty, such as not being to board your plane, for not complying).
This is a huge motel chain. They operate in a state which defines laws as to how you are allowed to handle your customer's information. Ignorance is not an excuse. I don't see how the individual citizen argument apples here and it's all hypotheticals anyway.
The article doesn't go into detail about how this information was obtained. Did they request it from the official company counsel? Or did they intimidate some night manager who doesn't know the law well enough to protest?
That really depends on the data, doesn’t it? Say they used oogle Maps to get to your place of business. Fruit of the poisonous tree? What if they broke the license terms on some proprietary navigation software?
It’s also relevant that ICE mostly deals in civil law, not criminal. While illegal entry is also a crime, deportation is a civil enforcement action. The fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine doesn’t quite apply. There might be something similar though, and I’d love someone more knowledgeable to chime in.
> Not illegal, sure, but the lack of warrant may (should) mean the information is inadmissible in court
No, getting evidence voluntarily from any party (or even involuntarily and illegally from a third party!) doesn't trigger the exclusionary rule. No rights triggering the rule are violated in the voluntary case, and if the government violated A’s rights but then use the evidence only against B, the rule doesn't apply either.
And, of course, this is ICE, and the exclusionary rule only applies in criminal cases, not in deportation (civil removal) cases, so the question is largely moot, anyway, even if they were doing this for evidence rather than just to locate targets.
Law enforcement can ask to search in cases where they don't have a warrant or other legal reasons to insist on a search. If you say "yes", the results are admissible. People mess this up all the time when cops pull them over or knock on the door.
If the information was the type covered by an expectation of privacy, then the lack of a warrant likely would make it inadmissible...until ICE asks the judge for a warrant, for a date range covered by the specific enforcement action at issue, and comes back to court with the now lawfully-obtained information.
> If the information was the type covered by an expectation of privacy, then the lack of a warrant likely would make it inadmissible
In a criminal trial, of the person who had the legal expectation of privacy, which in most cases is the person with possession of the documents, etc., not the subject of the documents, where those are different.
But, in any cases, not in most civil proceedings, and explicitly not in civil removal (deportation) proceedings, which is what ICE is mostly concerned with here, so the Constitution is essentially irrelevant as there is no practical remedy available for violations (which is one reason states have adopted rules against information sharing with immigration officials.)
In this case it would be immigration court, which is a civil proceeding where the standard of guilt is merely a preponderance of evidence and the defendant has no right to a lawyer if they can’t afford one. I doubt admissibility will actually come up much.
Why does the fact that someone is staying in Motel 6 need to be admitted as evidence in court? People aren't being deported for the crime of booking a room at Motel 6.
Specifically, the State alleges that Motel 6 violated the CPA, RCW 19.86.020 and RCW 49.60.030(3), and the WLAD, RCW 49.60.030(1)(b) and RCW 49.60.215(1), by:
a. Disclosing private guest registry information to ICE agents, in violation of the public policy of the State of Washington, including the Washington State Constitution and Motel 6's own privacy policy;
b. Disclosing private guest registry information to ICE agents with the knowledge that ICE was requesting the guest registry information for the purpose of discovering and investigating guests on the basis of national origin, including guests with Latino-sounding names.
Seriously, I would think too. Although I agree that maybe Motel 6 broke a law and should be held responsible for that, I'm also pretty sure that ICE fully knows and abuses of their position to extort information illegally out of people knowing no better. Imagine being a clerk or a manager at Motel 6, probably paid around minimum wage, potentially not very aware of state laws and having an ICE agent storm in and ask about a guest. What do you do?
Government agencies should be held accountable to the same degree if not higher than private companies. They literally work for us (gvt), they have to be accountable to us the people!
As a front desk person, refer to the laminated playbook card that explains to the LEO exactly what Motel 6's policy is. The card refers the front desk agent to request a warrant for any protected information. If LEO insists, call corporate legal, and comply if threatened with arrest. Make sure interaction is captured on security cameras.
Don't be facile. Of course anyone working the front desk at Motel 6 is going to be trained on what to do from now on.
The natural result of this is then everyones rights would constantly be violated. Police would ask and every company would roll over and give out any info that is requested. And when we talk about personal information getting out, the damage is sort of done once it happens. And your only recourse is to then sue the government or get your state AG to possibly do it for you?
If you want to operate a business that takes personal information, it is your responsibility to protect it. Nobody is forcing anyone to start a business but there are inherent risks.
> When the federal government comes asking for your help, I think it's pretty normal for people to provide that help.
Well, maybe they should not, if that help involves violation of other's right to privacy. If your ISP would "help" federal government to watch your communications without a court order, you might be justifiably upset.
Yes, telecoms are guilty in such behavior too, and largely are never punished. That doesn't mean it's ok.
> In other words, Washington should sue ICE, not Motel 6.
ICE has the right to ask. M6 should have answered "sure, gladly, as soon as we see that warrant".
When the federal government comes asking for your help, I think it's pretty normal for people to provide that help.
It depends on whether you are in a demographic that believes law enforcement is just or corrupt.
I’ve told my sons if they ever get questioned by the police to not say a word until I get there. Even if they don’t have anything to hide.
I’ve told them how to react when they get stopped by the police and always keep their emotions under control. I’ve told them never to expect fair treatment. All of my paranoia is backed by statistics.
I would much rather educate the population on their rights and teach people to be skeptical of all requests from strangers, even when those strangers have a badge or a uniform. A world where “a government agent requested it so I complied” is a sufficient excuse for misbehaving seems ripe for abuse.
Why would ICE run "latino-sounding" names through and not just all names through whatever ICE database they're cross-referencing? Did they get a 10,000 page print out instead of a spreadsheet file? (why not Scan + OCR + cross reference with database - would be way faster)
Just seems like ICE employees are only targeting latinos... intentionally. And that's the most bothering part of this to me. We're cool with Swedes overstaying their welcome...
Well anyone who has dealt with ICE, Border Patrol this does not even remotely surprise me. I had a French-American friend who went to France without his daughter's American passport. When he returned back the Agent did not even ask to see the little girls passport.
Had this guy been Latino he would be called a child smuggler.
Strange stuff happens when exiting France when you're not white too. I was in line at the exit control, and the black family ahead of me had issues because they couldn't provide the passport they entered the country with (they came for renewal of their French passport, the Prefecture had it, they were exiting on their Canadian passport). I was completely baffled at the policeman harassing freaking Canadian citizens exiting the country.
The passport control officers were probably upset/suspicious because they couldn't establish when the family entered the country (or schengen zone), and thus couldn't confirm that they hadn't overstayed.
From the officer's perspective, here's this Canadian with no entry stamp in their passport. One would assume that the usual procedure for expats to renew their passport is to do it through the embassy or consulate in their country of residence.
but the mods will tell you that it is "noisy" at the beginning and that you can't glean anything from it
they'll also tell you that you can't talk about voting (an interpretation of their site guidelines, when convenient), so you can't complain about it or even talk about it as that will also attract downvotes
and they'll also simultaneously believe that it is accurate for downvoted people to be rate-limited for hours on end, preventing them from even responding to a thread that could change how people view their original downvoted message, until any message that doesn't currently have consensus is censored completely and the "noise maker" is shadowbanned
there aren't that many mods here. would be nice if this was a little more holistic
except there's no need to make shit up, the CBP conveniently also publishes statistics regarding the total number of apprehensions every year, broken down by month. unlike you, who presumably got the information from Trump on Twitter, I will post my source: https://www.cbp.gov/sites/default/files/assets/documents/201...
the total number of apprehensions every year for the past 12 fiscal years has been less than 1 million per year. and no, you cannot assume that the number of people of people that didn't get apprehended is some arbitrarily selected multiple of that number, because one, reputable sources estimate that the number of actual individuals entering the country is on the same order of magnitude as the number of apprehensions (because many people are apprehended more than once), and two, because that's completely moronic.
Sigh. So where's your source that apprehensions ~= illegal entries? Intuitively it makes sense to me that more people get in than are caught, but I don't have data. Nor do I see how you can accurately count the number of people you didn't catch...
that's exactly what I said. Approx 70k per month comes out to approx 840k per year. THATS ONLY THE ONES WHO GOT ARRESTED. You can assume less than half got away without being arrested and you get a number that passes a million.
First of all, could you please directly link to the source.
Second even if this number is accurate, it is misleading and I will attempt to put it in perspective.
People are coming to us border to claim asylum. They are unable to do that because border agents are understaffed (it's been like that since 2015 during Obama administration) and can only accept so many applications.
What percentage of attempted crossings result in an apprehension? My impression of ICE/border patrol is that they're an ineffectual agency[s] who're wasting my tax dollars. Basically a glorified jobs program for mouth breathers who can't hack it as real cops, not unlike the TSA. Is that not the case? Are they actually good at their job?
just because the conditions are appalling doesn't make doing illegal things okay. you don't see me break into my rich neighbors property and move into his garden cottage just because my house is in appalling condition.
if they 'stole a loaf' and left the house it would be ok but they are moving in to the kitchen to have constant access to the loafs, thats what makes it a problem. once they make it across the border, they still have to maintain decades of illegal lifestyle. the legal framework doesnt let them achieve a normal life where their hard work will afford them a decent life. the struggles and difficulties continue for them and keep pushing them into illegalities. just letting them in illegally doesnt solve a problem. it starts a long chain of other problems that sometimes ends up with them being deported 20 years later.
At legal crossings, no different than flying into the US. Which, for that matter, is how the vast majority of known terrorists have gotten into the United States -- 100% of the 9/11 terrorists flew into the US.
When there is some sort of equivalency drawn between the Southern and Northern border it is usually founded on absolute nonsense. The Northern border likely sees more smuggling of both people and contraband (e.g. guns) North than the reverse.
It's in the damn name. Immigration enforcement. We have a legal immigration process in this country, many try to come here illegally. Without a border, you have no country.
Whatever the policy on the books is, we have a pretty clearly different actual policy resulting from the way ICE chooses to enforce the law: brown people who want to live here are treated strictly and with hostility and white people who want to live here are treated on the whole with more leniency.
You still have a border, just like the 50 US states have internal borders with each other. Why haven't they ceased to exist as discrete entities?
Permeable borders abound in nature. Trying to obstruct the natural behavior of migration is as foolish as trying to halt the tides and arguably causes worse economic distortions than it solves.
The legal immigration process has been slowed to a crawl by the current administration[1]. Any claims that they simply wish for people to follow the legal process are entirely misleading, to the point of being reality-muddling propaganda. The administration is making the legal process harder, impossible in some cases[2], and is advocating for the shutdown of many legal avenues, even those that the president's family themselves have used to attain status here[3].
>>Just seems like ICE employees are only targeting latinos... intentionally. And that's the most bothering part of this to me. We're cool with Swedes overstaying their welcome...
Different teams deal with visa overstaying. In that area, most of illegal immigrants are almost certainly latinos. I guess that if a group of 14 Nigerian males showed up at Motel 6, they'd call ICE too.
Seems reasonable to look more heavily on Latinos. Not that I agree with it but if your jobs success is determined by metrics, then you're gonna go for the lowest fruit. We're not that concerned with illegals from halfway around the world were concerned with the southern border, hence us building a wall just ok the south.
Again I don't agree but it's not hard to see why an agent would make that particular decision if they did.
The article is misleading and there's no indication there was any intent to target Latinos, rather, as a result of the handover, Latinos ended up being targeted i.e. if Latinos are more likely on ICE's target list (entirely plausible) than this is going to happen after cross referencing. Edit: re-reading now and it indicates ICE was highlighting Latino names specifically.
> "According to our interviews with employees at Motel 6," he told NPR's Scott Simon, "ICE agents would circle the names that looked Latino-sounding and ran those names through a database and then would detain individuals based on those random checks."
> We're cool with Swedes overstaying their welcome...
I think it has less to do with "being cool with Swedes", and more to do with the fact that illegal immigrants are -- statistically speaking -- overwhelming Hispanic, and anyone identifying illegals will have better results among Hispanics.
I don't think anyone is more cool with a Swede conducting a terrorist attack than an Arab. Rather, any tenancy to profile Arabs as terrorists comes from the fact that most terrorists are Arabic.
---
This is not to justify the practice of racial profiling. I merely assert that the motivations for racial profiling stems more from actual statistics and cost-benefit analysis than intrinsic irrational racism as I think you suggest.
>I merely assert that the motivations for racial profiling stems more from actual statistics and cost-benefit analysis than intrinsic irrational racism as I think you suggest.
That doesn't make racial profiling any more ethical or correct. The evidence is so overwhelming that intrinsic irrational racism is part of the reason why it is done. That evidence includes direct rhetoric of the current administration.
It is done because an overwhelming majority of those entering the country illegal are hispanic. There isn't much more to it than that. It's not racism just because they happen to be the race doing it. If it were any other race it would be treated the exact same way.
If I could convince you that the largest block of visa overstays are from Canada, and that a good chunk of them are from European countries, would you reconsider whether targeting Hispanic people is racist?
Are most of these Canadian visa holed up in the various Motel 6s in the Washington area? I imagine the ICE fished in this area, because it was a good spot to catch fish. In general, I don't think much of the government, but I am sure they have metrics. The local ICE satrap isn't going to keep sending people to Motel 6 if they aren't catching any fish.
It's amazing the mental acrobatics that people go through to try to find an after-the-fact justification for targeted racist policy.
The administration is run by white supremacists. They overtly and covertly signal their support for neo-nazis, and have campaigned on their overt bias against hispanic immigrants.
Where is Occam's Razor in this case? Why is this simple explanation invalidated by a more complex one?
Why was this particular policy started under Obama? Interested to hear your mental acrobatics.
Let me apply Occam's Razor, a lot of government employees are lazy, so going to the Motel 6 makes sense. Get the names, run some queries, arrest some people, hit my target number, the boss is happy. We have been doing this since 2015, why fix it, if it isn't broken.
Why do you assume Obama was or could have been any better?
The same people held power in 2015: Graham, McConnell, Sessions. The same media institutions toed the line. McCain got the whole nationalist jingoism ball rolling with Sarah Palin on his ticket.
I hold to account whoever has power now. I don't play the "whataboutism" game, because it is unwinnable. There was always someone in the past that has done worse.
No, you are not. You are blaming Trump for a policy that was started when Obama was President. This isn't a "whataboutism" situation. When called on it, you tried to blame Republican Senators, even though they were in the minority when this policy was started.
I'm blaming Trump for continuing and amplifying the policy's negative effects. Hundreds of families have been separated by border enforcement without any records[1]. Children are being taken from their mothers and fathers and forcibly adopted via agencies run by white evangelical churches[2]. You're trying to deflect from the actual, unprecedented harm being caused now to people on the border by pointing at history.
Even the fact underlying your basic premise is wrong: Republicans had the majority in both houses of congress in January 3, 2015[3], gaining the Senate after having held the House since January 3, 2011. They continued to hold both in majority until the past midterm elections seated a Democratic house majority this January.
You are correct, the Republicans were in charge of the Senate in 2015 when this policy was in effect. I acknowledge my mistake.
This is something that you are unwilling to do. This post is on a particular policy started during the Obama administration. You blamed it on Trump. When called on it, you change the subject and accuse me of deflection.
>It's amazing the mental acrobatics that people go >through to try to find an after-the-fact justification >for targeted racist policy.
So if I understand your mindset correctly, blaming Trump is your way of creating an after-the-justification for Obama's targeted racist policy.
For the record, I don't find your mental acrobatics amazing, just lazy. It seems like it all flows from "Orange Man Bad".
You're trying to get me to say Obama was bad? Yeah, he was. Locking up the unaccompanied Central American kids and incentivizing Mexico to deter migration behind the scenes while putting on a sympathetic face was bad.
That doesn't change the fact that "Orange Man" is in charge now, and is exacerbating the bad policy, AND is encouraging people to hate on top of it. His people are ripping kids out of their parent’s arms. He’s rallying white supremacists, calling entire ethnicities rapists and entire countries shitholes.
You’re looking for excuses to pin the pinheaded totalitarian’s decisions on someone else. It’s always someone else’s fault in MAGAland.
I blamed the Motel 6 policy on the local ICE satrap. No you said, that is amazing mental acrobatics, it is Orange Man's fault. I point out the policy started out under Obama. You change the subject to the Border and accuse me of trying to pin Obama's policy on Obama. I never mentioned the Border, that was you changing the subject.
Wouldn't it been easier to just admit you didn't read the article carefully and you didn't notice the dates?
Maybe in your land admitting a mistake isn't allowed, perhaps there is this fear that it diminishes the Badness of Orange Man.
> "Motel 6's actions tore families apart and violated the privacy rights of tens of thousands of Washingtonians,"
What? I'm pretty sure ICE's actions were what tore those families apart. Why aren't they being punished for illegally requesting the data without a warrant? Maybe the Motel 6 employees who wrongfully gave the data felt pressured, given that ICE is a government agency just like the DOJ?
> Why aren't they being punished for illegally requesting the data without a warrant?
It's generally not illegal for ICE (or government more generally) to request information without a warrant (not having a warrant or other compulsory basis just means people are not legally compelled to acquiesce to the request), and the state consumer protection law at issue neither purports to, nor could it Constitutionally, apply to federal law enforcement agencies.
> the state consumer protection law at issue neither purports to, nor could it Constitutionally, apply to federal law enforcement agencies.
That baffles me. When a federal agent is in a state, they should be bound to the laws of that state. And additionally, it should be illegal for any government agent, federal, state, or local, to ask someone to do something illegal. How could that constitutionally be otherwise?
How was it illegal for ICE to request the data? It certainly wasn't ethical, but what is right and what is legal are not the same thing. Hell it sounds like the only law broken according to the article was a Washington State consumer protection law. Hence the settlement is against Motel 6 and not against ICE.
Part of the trouble is ICE's "requests" are not always purported as requests.
See recent attempt in New York by ICE agent that he had a legally enforceable warrant and that his goal of detaining a vehicle occupant was not simply a request. [1]
The ICE officer in this case even quotes a statute that implied the driver might face penalties for not complying with the officer's demands.
Given this behavior, I wonder what the Washington state ICE agents' conversations with the motel employees were like.
This is not the only concerning incident with ICE in Washington state, recently ICE officers boarded a Greyhound bus and demanded a Portland-based comedian and grantee of legal US asylum come off the bus and forced him to show papers. [2]
This one struck home for me because I had seen one of this comedian's performances (an act which includes discussion of race and nationalism issues) not far from where I live a week prior.
The pattern of behavior from ICE is deeply upsetting.
If ICE had compelled Motel 6 to hand over the lists, that would be a very different thing and we would be having a very different conversation.
But that's not what happened, and let's not pretend like that is what happened.
ICE asked nicely, expecting to be turned down by Motel 6 like most other hotel chains did. But Motel 6 went along with the request without any sort of coercion and in fact in violation of local consumer protection laws prohibiting such data release absent a countervailing legal requirement (such as a subpoena) requiring them to turn over such information.
How does a government agent ask you to break the law nicely? ICE could ask me anything as nicely as they want and I'd still feel compelled. They are in an immense position of power over Motel 6 here.
Motel 6 trained its new employees to follow the practice described above to provide 24 guest lists to ICE agents upon request, without requiring the agents to show any reasonable 25 suspicion, probable cause, or search warrant for the guest registry information.
Do we know how ICE asked for these records? Because, from everything else I've ever seen about law enforcement making such requests, there's nothing nice about it, and there's everything coercive about it.
And it's a scary kind of coercion because they do have the force of the state backing them up, in a way that plays on our built-in desire to please authority, built-in desire to not rock the boat, and built-in fear of consequences of the crushing weight of the state pummeling down on us.
People generally regard law enforcement with a mix of fear and antipathy, because we know that, despite the checks and balances that exist, they can ruin lives and face no consequence for doing so.
So when ICE comes and asks, however nicely they may actually phrase it (though I don't expect they said "please" and "thank you,"), they're also coming at these hoteliers with a very big stick.
It's just shitty that the hoteliers did, in fact, cave and hand over this data.
If ICE had used any coecion at all to get the guest lists, Motel 6 wouldn't be in trouble with the state of Washington. Motel 6 is in trouble because they violated the law voluntarily.
ICE deals with businesses differently than they deal with individuals. You're all imagining scenarios which did not happen.
This isn't like it was just people caving to law enforcement in the moment, it was codified Motel 6 policy:
> 4.3 ICE's usual practice was to come to Motel 6's reception desk and request the guest list from the receptionist. The receptionist would print out the guest list and give it to the ICE agent, along with a "law enforcement acknowledgment form" for the agent to sign, acknowledging receipt of the guest list. The ICE agent would review the guest list and identify individuals of interest to ICE.
This could just mean that it was the management that was pressured and not the receptionists.
I just don't see any other reason why they might willingly endanger their business and customers for absolutely no benefit to themselves, besides governmental pressure.
Please do some more research before you keep throwing out hypothetical complaints about something that didn't happen.
Motel 6 didn't just go along with ICE's request, per the complaint, Motel6 actually trained their employees to turn over such information even before ICE came calling.
The reason? Motel 6 is owned by the Blackstone Group. Most of the directors and executives of the Blackstone Group are die-hard Trump supporters and have espoused hard-line views on immigration. The benefit to themselves was supporting their president's policies.
> The benefit to themselves was supporting their president's policies.
Interesting, well if that was the motive then I certainly can't have any sympathy for Motel 6 here. But I still believe that it is unfair for ICE to go without penalty, whether or not the law addresses this situation.
> per the complaint, Motel6 actually trained their employees to turn over such information even before ICE came calling.
It's not clear to me from the complaint that Motel 6 trained their employees as such prior to any communication from ICE. Your explanation regarding their republican alignment does make sense, but I'm not sure this specific point is accurate.
> Please do some more research before you keep throwing out hypothetical complaints about something that didn't happen.
This is a forum for discussion. It's not Snopes. I just want to share my layperson's opinions and also hear your (and others) expert feedback about them. By the way, I appreciate you taking the time to respond to my comments.
We know that Motel 6 didn't claim their staff were misled into a belief that they were legally compelled, which—even if it wasn't a legal defense, for PR reasons—you'd expect them to do if it was true.
Oasisbob shared the civil complaint. It states quite clearly that there was no coercion on ICE's part...moreover that it was Motel 6 that actually directed its employees to just turn over the information.
On a related note...the owner of the Motel 6 chain is a die-hard supporter of President Trump and has very conservative views of immigration, which supports the theory that Motel 6 was in the wrong here and ICE was merely taking advantage of their corporate generosity.
Which is why when someone claims a law compels you to do something, your default position should be to demand to speak to an attorney, invoke your right to remain silent, and refuse to interact further.
(This means complying if they try to arrest you)
As defense attorneys say: you can't beat the ride, but you can beat the rap.
Honestly it feels like it should be illegal. If a cop or a cop-simulacrum walks up to me and says "You're going to jail unless you give me this" I'm probably going to give them that. I don't want to go to jail and I know they'll cook something up about resisting arrest if I don't play along.
Is it possible for states to make laws saying that cop-likes can't lie about things? And then for the state to sue the federal government if they violated that?
Because the truth is that requiring a warrant won't do the trick. If the cop-like says he doesn't need a warrant I'm going to listen to him. I should always comply in the moment or "we'll do things the hard way". Then afterwards maybe I can sue.
No, it couldn't affect ICE since the federal government has sovereign immunity and all federal officials enjoy qualified immunity in the course of conducting federal business.
Perhaps it's not illegal by the letter of the law, but it certainly seems like a major injustice to me. Could it be considered entrapment if Motel 6 was pressured into giving ICE the information?
> Could it be considered entrapment if Motel 6 was pressured into giving ICE the information?
No, because ICE agents are not agents of the State of Washington, and the prosecution was by the State for violations of State law. ICE agents are, in terms of entrapment, no different than ISIS agents would be in this case.
EDIT: Also no, because entrapment is a criminal defense, and this was a civil consumer protection case.
"ICE agents are, in terms of entrapment, no different than ISIS agents would be in this case."
ICE agents have some degree of lawful authority legally vested in them at some level of American governance, so it stands to reason that individuals can make the claim they felt 'required by some law' to do as that agency apparently behoved of them.
Especially if ICE were making statements along the lines of 'you're legally required to do this or that', then there's an issue here.
> Especially if ICE were making statements along the lines of 'you're legally required to do this or that', then there's an issue here.
If they were—which no account of this case I’ve seen has suggested—there is certainly an ethical issue, but not an issue that should negate Motel 6’s liability under the state law at issue here. In fact, if it's employees were not aware of the prohibition on turning the material over without a warrant, and this were susceptible to social engineering indicating that they should do so, that would seem squarely to be Motel 6’s responsibility.
Something a lot of people dont understand: US state governments aren’t part of the US federal government, in any capacity — they’re independent states in a union.
That’s why it’s strange here: ICE are agents of the federal government, who aren’t subject to state laws in the performance of their duty — Washington can’t stop ICE from doing their job, so instead they punish people who cooperate.
An analogy might be that mom and dad are fighting, and now punishing the kids who listen to the other parent.
So someone can act unethically, reap the benefits of it, be caught red-handed, and suffer no consequences.
Sounds like a loophole in the justice system to me. More to the point, now that we've seen it happen once what has been done to prevent it from happening again?
> So someone can act unethically, reap the benefits of it, be caught red-handed, and suffer no consequences.
> Sounds like a loophole in the justice system to me.
No, it's the fundamental distinction between what is illegal and what is unethical, which is a bit more than a “loophole”.
It may be that it should be illegal for ICE to ask for certain information outside of the circumstances where it has a warrant, and this may be in that category. Or perhaps ICE should be legally prohibited from asking without a warrant when there is, as here, a state law prohibition on the person they ask giving them the information.
The parent is not claiming that it's illegal, just that it ought to be. I was the one who was suggesting (wrongly, apparently) that it might be illegal.
If only that were so. There’s no law requiring ICE to target Hispanics, hassle people speaking Spanish in public, or hold US citizens for months. In fact, the law says they can’t. This doesn’t seem to stop them.
This is not the first time law enforcement has gone for motel records, nor even local cops being friendly with the night attendant. Motel 6 should be (or should have been) telling their employees that they aren't required to hand out any information without a court order or warrant.
> What? I'm pretty sure ICE's actions were what tore those families apart. Why aren't they being punished for illegally requesting the data without a warrant?
Motel 6 violated Washington law by giving information away without a warrant. ICE can ask nicely for data from anyone, but you only have to comply if they have a warrant or subpoena.
If you believe that illegal aliens are coming to the US for the express purpose of civil disobedience (I think that is a fair summary of what Rosa Parks was doing), please show evidence of this.
"Illegal alien" is a precise legal term which is used to accurately define a legal status. It's like saying that "convicted murderer" is dehumanizing...
Your comment seems to be saying that this is the case here. Otherwise, why invoke Rosa Parks if there is no connection.
I am sure I can find a long list of murderers and rapists that ICE has deported from the country, does opposing ICE mean supporting murderers and rapists?
Selling you minute by minute geolocation from your phone: Acceptable. Credit card companies and retail companies selling your purchasing history: Acceptable. States selling license data and even your license photo: Acceptable. Municipalities selling property tax information to anyone: Acceptable. Unicorn companies monitoring your every move and everything you do on the internet: Acceptable.
Motel 6 employees giving registration information to law enforcement for free: NOT OK.
Only as a data point for comparison, here in Italy (due to a Law originally established in the '70's for counter-terrorism purposes) when you check in (in a hotel, B&B and similar[0]) you need a valid document and you are registered (name, surname, date and place of birth, current address and type and number of document) and this info is sent (nowadays electronically) to the Police within 24 hours.
[0] a recent extension to the Law now requires the same also for the "short rentals" which then include also all AirBnb and similar
I can't believe the number of people who are defending Motel 6 here. Anyone who works for a mid-large sized company in certain departments will know that government agencies and police departments are always asking for stuff. It is not illegal for them to do so. The correct answer to 99% of these requests is "this is confidential/proprietary information" or "come back with a warrant". There is zero excuse to do anything illegal because someone official-sounding asked you to do it.
It is the norm in many industries to cooperate with any law enforcement request received. In some, doing so is the only way to avoid being named a defendant in your customer's unlawful actions (or being hit with fines for violating an endless list of regulations that are violated by everyone in your industry and effectively impossible to not violate).
So you may be seeing some amount of guilty consciences here...
I'm really surprised at the amount of people defending the actions of ICE and Motel 6 in this instance. ICE has clearly demonstrated tactics that are anti-immigrant (legal or otherwise).
How quick some are to forget the importance of immigration in the startup community!
You can support immigration in the startup community but not support illegal immigration. Of course ICE is going to target illegal immigrants; it’s part of their mandate. This doesn’t excuse ICE exceeding their authority, which requires a patch via legislation.
China, India, Canada, and Mexico (countries with large populations and those that border the US) would all give me the boot if I tried to illegally immigrate there (and rightfully so). Sovereignty and the rule of law are important.
I can see a day where every guest of every hotel in every country is photographed and submitted to the government for things like warrants and visa status. It could happen seamlessly at check in rather than randomly pulling records in bulk after the fact.
Something similar happens in China already. Any place you stay as a visitor (whether a hotel or a guest house) your passport is scanned and submitted to the police. If you don't check in within 24 hours, they may come looking for you.
That was my reading of it, but on second thought it’s almost perfectly ambiguous.
There’s a certain glibness about it that fits better with the malevolent interpretation. Plus hoping for a fine to serve as an example seems just too obvious to merit writing it down?
It’s almost a work of art. Or maybe a Rorschach test. Will the internet interpret your statements in the best or worst possible light?
> Motel 6 also has signed a legally binding commitment to no longer share guest information without a warrant at any of its locations nationwide
That’s convenient. They’ve made other agreements with police departments to provide guest information at particular locations. This sounds like a way to prevent being subject to such shenanigans.
Putting aside the fact that companies can definitely challenge these requests... What tech stack is ICE storing and managing all of this data with that companies keep handing over to them?
$12M plus roughly a few hundred since I will never ever stay in a Motel 6 or invest in anything Blackstone Group ever again. Even if they leave every freaking light on.
This settlement seems grossly inappropriate. It seems very likely that this practice, which lead to deportations, caused far more than $12 million in damages.
There is a greater mathematical correlation between Latino surnames and illegal aliens who are staying in Motel 6's than there is between say, Japanese surnames and illegal aliens staying in Motel 6's. Do you deny this?
When the federal government comes asking for your help, I think it's pretty normal for people to provide that help.
In a just world, if the government asks for something inappropriately, then the party at fault is the government. (In other words, Washington should sue ICE, not Motel 6.)
If we want companies to require a subpoena to share information with the federal government (and personally I do want that) then we should set that standard in law. And we should enforce it fairly, not based on the hot political topic of the day. (How much information does the CIA and FBI vacuum up from Washington telcos in a day in violation of this law, and why isn't anyone held to task? Maybe because they have better lawyers than Motel 6.)
Helping the federal government do its job and then getting sued by the state seems like mom getting mad at you for doing what dad asked you to.