This week, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to cancel the visas of college students who protest in support of Palestine, opening the path to their deportation. A small company called Stellar Defense & Cyber Intelligence is ready to help by deploying AI technology to identify anonymous, masked pro-Palestinian protestors, through a campaign it refers to as “Operation Wrath of Zion.”
Stellar is the maker of NesherAI, a bespoke facial-recognition tool which it claims is capable of deanonymizing pro-Palestinian protestors. The name “Nesher” is Hebrew for “eagle,” the symbol for both NesherAI and the Terror Watch Agency, the brand under which it operates. Their slogan on social media is, “The Eagle listens, The Eagle watches, The Eagle knows.”
In December, The Times of Israel reported that Betar had worked with pro-Israel U.S. lawmakers including Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and John Fetterman (D-PA) on plans to round up “suspects” in anticipation of Donald Trump’s return to the White House. Ross Glick, the executive director of Betar US, told the paper the purpose of Betar’s use of facial recognition was to “give the Trump team a head start.” While Glick stressed that Betar supports free speech, he added that “if a foreign student is here on a visa, they don’t have the same rights as others to protest or promote anti-Zionist narratives.”
On Wednesday, Betar did just as Glick said. “Join us at the jihad rally as we assist @ICEgov in deportation efforts,” the U.S. branch of Betar posted on the social media platform X. Hawila’s Terror Watch Agency reposted Betar’s statement.
A small company called Stellar Defense & Cyber Intelligence is ready to help by deploying AI technology to identify anonymous, masked pro-Palestinian protestors
And now you know why privacy was important and Big Tech was a threat to democracy. Those of us who know history saw the danger coming, have been warning people right and left and been called crackpots for a quarter century.
And now that democracy is living its final days in America, it’s happening.
And now it’s too late.
Welcome to the dystopian future you complacently let yourself get trapped into.
“Join us at the jihad rally as we assist @ICEgov in deportation efforts,”
They really don’t even see the problem do they.
Surely they are still protected by the first amendment. Not that Trump cares.
“Fair Use” in media and on the internet is not a legal protection, it is a defense in court. Most cases never go to court over fair use, because the billion/trillion dollar company targeting you can afford to wait you out.
Our whole legal framework has degraded to this level, I fear. They would have to defend it I think court for it to matter - and what are the chances a college aged kid can afford to.
There are rights groups that used to be a help in these matters, but if everyone everywhere is under attack, they certainly don’t have the resources to deal with everything.
And so it begins…
