ICE Is Hiring Contractors To Track Negative Comments Online

ICE wants to hire contractors to monitor social media for threats. Those who criticize the agency could be pulled into the dragnet.

Amid anger and protest over the Trump administration’s plan to deport millions of immigrants, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement plans to monitor and locate “negative” social media discussion about the agency and its top officials, according to contract documents reviewed by The Intercept.

Citing an increase in threats to ICE agents and leadership, the agency is soliciting pitches from private companies to monitor threats across the internet — with a special focus on social media. People who simply criticize ICE online could pulled into the dragnet.

“In order to prevent adversaries from successfully targeting ICE Senior leaders, personnel and facilities, ICE requires real-time threat mitigation and monitoring services, vulnerability assessments, and proactive threat monitoring services,” the procurement document reads.

If this scanning uncovers anything the agency deems suspicious, ICE is asking its contractors to drill down into the background of social media users.

That includes:

“Previous social media activity which would indicate any additional threats to ICE; 2). Information which would indicate the individual(s) and/or the organization(s) making threats have a proclivity for violence; and 3). Information indicating a potential for carrying out a threat (such as postings depicting weapons, acts of violence, refences to acts of violence, to include empathy or affiliation with a group which has violent tendencies; references to violent acts; affections with violent acts; eluding [sic] to violent acts.”

It’s unclear how exactly any contractor might sniff out someone’s “proclivity for violence.” The ICE document states only that the contractor will use “social and behavioral sciences” and “psychological profiles” to accomplish its automated threat detection.