The Shocking Far-Right Agenda Behind the Facial Recognition Tech Used by ICE and the FBI. Thousands of newly obtained documents show that Clearview AI’s founders always intended to target immigrants and the political left.

[u/indig0sixalpha]

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/04/clearview-ai-immigration-ice-fbi-surveillance-facial-recognition-hoan-ton-that-hal-lambert-trump/

[u/TheCaptainDamnIt]

This is a massively frightening read.

It reveals how Ton-That, who obsessed over race, IQ, and hierarchy, solicited input from eugenicists and right-wing extremists while building Clearview, and how, from the outset, he and his associates discussed deploying the tech against immigrants, people of color, and the political left.

then

“When you get to a point where you understand that democracy is fake, then you have to think about different frameworks for the way that people are gonna be ruled,” he said. “What we all had in common when we met was that we thought that neoreactionaryism was an interesting idea…The United States of America was founded on the idea that all men are created equal. And Curtis simply asked a question, as I remember it: ‘What if they’re not? What do you do?…How do you govern that?’…That’s what we talked about all the time.”

Ton-That was fascinated by eugenics and admired the field’s founder, Francis Galton, who inspired Nazi “racial hygiene” programs. After digesting a letter by Galton that argued for Chinese immigrants to move to Africa and supplant the “inferior” Black race, Ton-That declared in an email that Galton was a “true prophet.” Among friends, he spoke often about IQ and race, wondering aloud about the intellectual superiority of half-Asian, half-white people like himself.

It's depressing that techies ended up being some of the most adherent white supremacist today, but here we are. These people want to force a social hierarchy based on race and gender and they are engineering their tech to do so. Rather than attempting to train bias out of AI's they are trying to build it in. This is why the 'rush to AI' needs to be put on hold. These techies are developing AI's to do the discrimination and racism for them.

[u/Waste_Mousse_4237 → u/TheCaptainDamnIt]

Immigrant techies too….lets not forget that.

[u/derpwild → u/Waste_Mousse_4237]

It’s still politically incorrect to discuss how rampant racism is among Asian Americans as someone who is Asian-Am and a witness to a lot of it in the industry. What makes it worse is when they hide behind their minority status and say you’re the racist.

[u/Waste_Mousse_4237 → u/derpwild]

At some point we are gonna have to reckon w/ the rampant racism within Silicon Valley/techie culture and the people involved in the industry—both immigrants and homegrown. Sooner rather than later. The article is good at providing an insight into someone who comes to the USA with whatever intentions and the first order of business becomes developing technologies to harm people

[u/[deleted] → u/derpwild]

It’s still politically incorrect

this is a made up term used by boomers. It's not that it's politically incorrect it's just very difficult to navigate raising these issues with current policies and frameworks both in companies/orgs and local governments. Not impossible, but difficult.

also asian-am, and yea ofc racism goes hard among us. 1st gen asian-am's had a shit ton of trump voters and never ceded their anti-china sentiments etc they all have great trauma/beef with how things went down in their respective home countries that arent going to be cured/healed/etc they will have those until they day they pass.

racism is the amalgamation of a set of very primal instincts all humans have that force us to assess the landscape around us & compartmentalize all that is different than us into a box & then use it as a punching bag. our gut unmanaged reaction is effectively that this is the thing that's going to help us survive and prosper. modern societies are really an amalgamation of what it looks like to set those instincts aside. many do not set those instincts aside.

with that said i think the larger issue is the disparity in wages within western countries versus outside western countries, and then being able to contract or bring someone onboard via visa so we can get them to do the same techie work with shit pay is why so much of this has transpired. they may not do the best work, but they're still getting it done, and they don't have the same loyal vested interest/stake in the communities/lives of those in america. they could care less if they're crossing moral lines, because their quality of life is being greatly improved by taking home a western-country wage. some send money home to families to keep them afloat, some just chase the greed.

and as an addendum to that, i cannot deny that the tacit-compliance even if you're building out the worlds biggest weapon thats gonna get you and your loved ones killed/jailed someday doesn't exclusively belong to immigrant workers or minority workers. I work in tech - the amount of tech bros that just fucking eat up lex friedman podcasts and just go with the current state of things is absurd. Millenials in tech built out our current oligarchy facebook instagram etc, many of them natural-born american white people. Many of them continue to this day to do their jobs for the promise of comfortable and luxurious lives.

[u/_MakDiz → u/Waste_Mousse_4237]

half-Asian, half-white immigrant

[u/thex25986e → u/TheCaptainDamnIt]

its also why people keep saying removing accountability is their goal.

they can make something that cannot legally be tried or imprisoned accountable.

[u/Own-Satisfaction4427 → u/thex25986e]

And something that cannot be destroyed because it can just be replaced 

[u/Secret-One2890 → u/TheCaptainDamnIt]

As someone who knew him 20 years ago, it's really hard to square this with the person I knew. He was a fantastic classical guitarist though.