Most people don’t really think about what happens after they book a flight and safely land at their destination. You probably just think about whether you could’ve gotten better service if you’d flown Economy Plus. Turns out, the airlines care much more than you thought they did—how you flew, where, and even how you paid. All of this is collected and, in some cases, sold to government agencies like U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
The LA protests are still ongoing, largely in response to ICE’s aggressive methods and Trump’s characteristic overreach. There have been violations of journalists’ First Amendment rights, a legally questionable deployment of the National Guard, and now a curfew across the LA area. All of this, reportedly, to hound fewer than 200 immigrants in the city. Understandably, public interest in how ICE even obtains its information has surged.
