Why Shouldn’t the Government Use Facial Recognition in Pursuit of Malefactors?

Now we have a software engineer who has developed a device that can “see through” masks to the faces beneath, making it much more difficult for those Hamas-praisers on American college campuses to hide their identity. Fittingly, that engineer is an Israeli, Eliyahu Hawila. And the supporters of Hamas are worried. “Technology being used to identify, report student protesters for possible deportation,” Associated Press, April 14, 2025:

It’s unclear whether names from outside groups have reached top government officials. But concern about the pursuit of activists has risen since the March 8 arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University graduate student of Palestinian descent who helped lead demonstrations against Israel’s conduct of the war.

Yes, how terrible of the government to arrest Mahmoud Khalil. But remember: he did not only lead peaceful demonstrations. Khalil was the spokesman for the group of demonstrators who were so violent on the Columbia campus. He led the chants that called for Israel’s destruction and for attacks on Jews everywhere. He encouraged violence on campus, including physical harassment that included holding hostage Jewish students on their way to class, shutting down classes taught by Israeli sand Jewish professors, and taking over campus buildings, such as Hamilton Hall, which the pro-Hamas demonstrators proceeded to vandalize, causing thousands of dollars in damage. That is not protected free speech. If a video of Khalil engaging in his pro-Hamas speeches or encouraging student violence was made by pro-Israeli groups and provided to the Department of Homeland Security, what would. be wrong with that?

Immigration officers also detained a Tufts University student from Turkey outside Boston this week, and Trump and other officials have said that more arrests of international students are coming.

“Now they’re using tools of the state to actually go after people,” said a Columbia graduate student from South Asia who has been active in protests and spoke on condition of anonymity because of concerns about losing her visa. “We suddenly feel like we’re being forced to think about our survival.”…

What melodrama. You are not “being forced to think about your survival.” You are merely being made aware that student visas can be revoked, that those who are provided the great privilege of being able to study in our country should not abuse that privilege by engaging in behavior that includes harassing, physically abusing, screaming death threats interrupting the classes of Jewish students and professors, and seizing and vandalizing campus buildings. None of that constitutes “protected free speech.”

Why shouldn’t the government use facial recognition in pursuit of malefactors? And why shouldn’t private groups, if they can help with that task, do so? They are not “complicit” — a word suggesting they are up to no good — but, rather, they are “aiding” the government in its efforts.

A Columbia graduate student from the United Kingdom said that when he joined a pro-Palestinian encampment last year, he never considered whether it might affect his immigration status.

Now he’s rethinking an incident in October, when someone scattered fliers in a campus lounge celebrating the 2023 Hamas attack on Israel that sparked the war. A classmate who supports Israel accused him and others in the room of being responsible for the fliers and snapped their photos, according to the student, who said he had nothing to do with the material distributed.

“My main worry … is that he shared those photos and identified us and shared it with a larger group of people,” the student said.

But if you have done nothing wrong, why should you be worried? Could it be because, in fact, you have engaged in behavior that could reasonably be interpreted as support for the terrorist group Hamas? If you haven’t, then you have nothing to worry about.

If students on campus can be helpful to the Department of Homeland Security in identifying those whose behavior — encouraging or participating in violence against Jewish students and teachers, expressing support for the terror group Hamas, calling for the destruction of Israel, invading and vandalizing campus buildings — why shouldn’t they do so? In the same way, we would not criticize but applaud people who in 1942 were keeping tabs on members of the German-American Bund who were disseminating propaganda about the Nazi victories as a way to demoralize the American public, and reporting what they learned to the FBI.