Make tea and have a seat, because this is a bit of a story.
After the era of J. Edgar Hoover, FBI engaged in a lot of internal soul-searching and wanted to actually live up to its name as an investigation department, rather than what it had been under Hoover, which was a paramilitary force in the service of the current administration, (see FBI’s interest in far-left activists like Dr. King and Malcom X and the Black Panthers) it changed its focus in the 80s to organized crime and serial killers (though they were very few in number, and hot cases when at large) Reagan used the DEA for stings against political enemies, but political activists were able to act more openly as elections and campaign money was deregulated.
In 2001 the 9/11 attacks happened, rapidly followed by the PATRIOT Act which was passed, largely sight unseen, which put FBI under the Department of Homeland Security. Soon after that ICE was formed intended to be a paramilitary department that served the interests of the new regime current administration, and it’s been that the whole time.
And this is how ICE appeared in New Zealand for the raid of the Kim Dotcom estate on < checks wikipedia > January 20, 2012 (the same day as the Wikipedia blackout in protest of the SOPA act, incidentally). Also there were representatives from the MPAA and RIAA since the arrest of Dotcom was argued to be based on media piracy infractions (that Dotcom was getting a slew of hip hop artists to ditch the labels and use the new MEGAupload music distro service had nothing to do with it we swear). These days, the raid was credited to the New Zealand police, but in the January and February reporting of the incident in 2012, it was US Immigrant and Customs Enforcement (on loan to big media). As Dotcom noted, they could have just arrested him in his workplace parking lot. His work routine was consistent. Someone wanted a show,
ICE appears in a number of other weird places, including busting a number of repair shops in Florida that were fixing Apple products without licensing to do so. This would forshadow the wave of right-to-repair legislation and litigation that is still moving through the states (with John Deere and Apple making strange bedfellows).
On their website ICE does customs work within the US while the CBP is supposed to operate along the US borders, but really ICE goes where it pleases, and arrests who they like, and it was this way right up to the George Floyd protests in 2020 when Trump used them as his private police force to interdict where the local departments were not doing (in Trump’s opinion) a sufficient(ly brutal) job. And this is how the ICE office in Portland Oregon became a focal point where every dispersed crowd of demonstrators resulted in double the numbers the next day (and lines of moms and dads). That’s how Abolish ICE became a rallying cry during the protests. I wonder why we stopped chanting.
So ICE was developed much the way the German SS was, as a paramilitary service loyal to Dear Leader rather than loyal to the office of the Chancellery / Presidency, because when you’re a despot trying to put down democratic features, you need a force that’s loyal to you and not the law.
Make tea and have a seat, because this is a bit of a story.
After the era of J. Edgar Hoover, FBI engaged in a lot of internal soul-searching and wanted to actually live up to its name as an investigation department, rather than what it had been under Hoover, which was a paramilitary force in the service of the current administration, (see FBI’s interest in far-left activists like Dr. King and Malcom X and the Black Panthers) it changed its focus in the 80s to organized crime and serial killers (though they were very few in number, and hot cases when at large) Reagan used the DEA for stings against political enemies, but political activists were able to act more openly as elections and campaign money was deregulated.
In 2001 the 9/11 attacks happened, rapidly followed by the PATRIOT Act which was passed, largely sight unseen, which put FBI under the Department of Homeland Security. Soon after that ICE was formed intended to be a paramilitary department that served the interests of the
new regimecurrent administration, and it’s been that the whole time.And this is how ICE appeared in New Zealand for the raid of the Kim Dotcom estate on < checks wikipedia > January 20, 2012 (the same day as the Wikipedia blackout in protest of the SOPA act, incidentally). Also there were representatives from the MPAA and RIAA since the arrest of Dotcom was argued to be based on media piracy infractions (that Dotcom was getting a slew of hip hop artists to ditch the labels and use the new MEGAupload music distro service had nothing to do with it we swear). These days, the raid was credited to the New Zealand police, but in the January and February reporting of the incident in 2012, it was US Immigrant and Customs Enforcement (on loan to big media). As Dotcom noted, they could have just arrested him in his workplace parking lot. His work routine was consistent. Someone wanted a show,
ICE appears in a number of other weird places, including busting a number of repair shops in Florida that were fixing Apple products without licensing to do so. This would forshadow the wave of right-to-repair legislation and litigation that is still moving through the states (with John Deere and Apple making strange bedfellows).
On their website ICE does customs work within the US while the CBP is supposed to operate along the US borders, but really ICE goes where it pleases, and arrests who they like, and it was this way right up to the George Floyd protests in 2020 when Trump used them as his private police force to interdict where the local departments were not doing (in Trump’s opinion) a sufficient(ly brutal) job. And this is how the ICE office in Portland Oregon became a focal point where every dispersed crowd of demonstrators resulted in double the numbers the next day (and lines of moms and dads). That’s how Abolish ICE became a rallying cry during the protests. I wonder why we stopped chanting.
So ICE was developed much the way the German SS was, as a paramilitary service loyal to Dear Leader rather than loyal to the office of the Chancellery / Presidency, because when you’re a despot trying to put down democratic features, you need a force that’s loyal to you and not the law.
This should really be its own post. Great job.