<\/p>\n
Activists in the<\/span> Pacific Northwest are building a database of license plates used by immigration authorities with the hope of keeping tabs on agents\u2019 movements.<\/p>\n The database<\/a>, put together by an autonomous group of volunteers, currently lists more than 600 plates matched to the make and model of the vehicle they were spotted on. Most of the sightings coming from vehicles involved in enforcement actions in and around Portland, Oregon.<\/p>\n In helping community members to identify unmarked vehicles used by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, organizers hope to give people information about the government\u2019s activities in their area, according to one activist involved in the effort.<\/p>\n \u201cIt helps reduce the unknown and reduce fear,\u201d the activist said, speaking on condition of anonymity to avoid retaliation from authorities. \u201cICE is doing whatever they can to be undetected, and so anything we can do to chip away at that obfuscation.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Rather than hosting the database on a centralized website, which they fear would be vulnerable to subpoenas and takedown orders, the group put their findings out through the InterPlanetary File System, or IPFS, a decentralized, peer-to-peer method of file distribution.<\/p>\n The database is built around community submissions of photos of ICE vehicles in action. Once the images come in, volunteers vet each picture to confirm that the plate and vehicle in question are being used by agents. The activist who spoke with The Intercept declined to go into detail about how the volunteers vet the information but said that every plate listed publicly in the database has appeared in at least two sightings.<\/p>\n \u201cThe reason we\u2019re confident in what we released is that we have probably twice as many plates as what was published, but we made a decision to only publish those plates that had at least two observations,\u201d the activist said. \u201cAnd while we\u2019re confident in the rest of the database, this was an extra measure to reduce confusion and inaccuracies. We want people to feel like they can trust what we\u2019re publishing, and we don\u2019t want to accidentally cause harm by releasing inaccurate information.\u201d<\/p>\n The effort comes amid a dramatic uptick in ICE activity<\/a> in Oregon. For most of the year, ICE officers had largely contented themselves making targeted arrests, such as picking people up at immigration check-ins or detaining people with existing deportation orders. In October, however, federal agents began taking more sweeping actions, according to Natalie Lerner, a board member with the Portland Immigration Rights Council.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re seeing a number of collateral arrests, where they\u2019re arresting anyone who can\u2019t prove that they have status,\u201d she said, referring to detentions that arise from contact with immigrants who are not the targets of raids<\/a>. \u201cAnd I think that\u2019s particularly scary and just super lawless.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s unimaginable how scary it is for folks,\u201d Lerner told The Intercept. \u201cSo many people are calling our hotline saying they\u2019re afraid to leave their homes, or they\u2019re afraid to go to work. They\u2019re not able to do the things they need to do to live their lives.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Lerner\u2019s organization \u2014 which has no connection to the volunteer database project \u2014 tallied nearly 800 detentions in the area since the start of October, which she said is likely an undercount. According to the activist involved in the database, ICE\u2019s ramping up of enforcement makes the project even more important.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s getting more and more blatant, and that\u2019s why it\u2019s so important that community safety efforts become more focused,\u201d the database volunteer told The Intercept. \u201cWe\u2019re working against this entity that has the most up-to-date technology and money and tools, and so we have to create our own tools.\u201d<\/p>\n The database in Portland is perhaps the most well-organized collection of license plates from vehicles used by immigration authorities, but similar efforts have popped up across the country.<\/p>\n Activist networks have sprung up in various cities organizing know-your-rights workshops, building rapid-response teams and neighborhood watch groups<\/a> to track the movement of agents, and distributing whistles to people in immigrant neighborhoods to swiftly notify the community of the presence of ICE agents.<\/p>\n Recent efforts to monitor and unmask ICE agents have caught the attention of top federal officials. In July, Department of Homeland Security chief Kristi Noem issued a warning to \u201ccriminals and Antifa groups\u201d seeking to unmask ICE agents and other members of federal law enforcement.<\/p>\n \u201cWe will prosecute those who dox ICE agents to the fullest extent of the law. These criminals are taking the side of vicious cartels and human traffickers,\u201d Noem said in a July 11<\/a> statement<\/a>.\u201cWe won\u2019t allow it in America.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n #License #Plates #Unmarked #ICE #Cars #Tracked #Public #Database<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Activists in the Pacific North… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8708,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[246],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8707"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8707\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}