Oh, Sweetie, The Government's Been Nosing Around!

The Main Gossip, Bless Their Hearts!

Well, I never! You won't believe what I heard over my morning tea, sweetie. It seems the Trump administration, bless their cotton socks, has gone and given our Immigration and Customs Enforcement folks, or ICE as they call 'em, sweeping new powers to snoop! And not just on immigrants, mind you, but on all of us!

Can you imagine? They're spending a whopping £300 million of our hard-earned money—or more!—on all sorts of gadgets and gizmos. We're talking about facial recognition, tracking what you say on those social media things, and even peeking at your license plates! It's like something out of a futuristic picture show, not real life! Heavens to Betsy!

Grandma's Sarcastic Commentary (And A Bit of a Huff!)

Oh, they say it's all for "investigations," don't they? "Just for assaults on law enforcement," they whisper. Like we were born yesterday! Back in my day, if you wanted to know something, you went and asked your neighbor, maybe shared a pie! Now they're buying fancy computers to track every little thing you do. I tell you, modern technology is just too much, sweetie. Makes my head spin!

And this Clearview AI, scraping up billions of pictures from the internet? Well, I never! Who gave them permission for that? It’s enough to make a gal want to go back to rotary phones and sending letters by carrier pigeon!

Now, Here's What Actually Happened (The Nitty-Gritty, Honey)

Listen closely, darling, because this is where it gets a bit sticky. It seems some old laws, like the Privacy Act of 1974, which was supposed to keep our government from making a big ol' file on everyone, have been, shall we say, "circumvented". That's a fancy word for "they went around it," isn't it?

ICE has now signed agreements with the Social Security Administration, the IRS (oh, those tax folks!), and even the Department of Health and Human Services. So, all that information you gave for your Medicare or Social Security? They can just ask for it now! The IRS even handed over a million records in just four months! And get this, they even reversed a policy that said they wouldn't use your health information against you. Well, isn't that just peachy!

And if you think that's bad, they're even talking about using these gadgets to watch folks who criticize them. Imagine! Just for filming an officer, they might call it a "threat"! One fellow, Matthew Guariglia, bless his sensible heart, said it's like "political policing of protesters and dissidents."

Why Grandma Just Can't Even Today!

Honestly, sweetie, it's enough to make you want to lie down with a cold compress. Not only are they building this massive surveillance system, but they've gone and gotten rid of all the watchdogs too! President Trump, Lord help us, fired all sorts of inspectors and folks who were supposed to keep an eye on these programs. It’s like letting the fox guard the henhouse, isn't it?

One lady, Sharon Bradford Franklin, who used to chair the board that watched over surveillance, said it's "very troubling" when they build all these spying tools and then get rid of the oversight. She's right, you know. Once these systems are built, they don't just disappear. They stick around, and who knows what future governments will do with them? It makes a grandmother worry, it truly does. Where's my pie? I need a good piece of pie after all this talk!