Remember how it was only about a week ago that the Democrats were losing their minds over the DHS part of the funding bill?
One of the things they wanted was to have bodycams on ICE agents. It was the only one of the ideas that made any sense and wasn't ridiculous. So the DHS immediately went along with it.
Listen to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) saying how important those bodycams are, while attacking Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
.@SenSchumer calls for body cameras on federal agents 'shrined into law.' https://t.co/7PDQBXOYE5 pic.twitter.com/hxY5B8gPoP
— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) February 3, 2026
But once the DHS said they were going to immediately start using them, then that's when suddenly the Democrats realized there was a problem. That was too much transparency, according to Politico.
A push to put body cameras on all ICE agents has Democrats running headlong into a new problem: fear that the technology will provide another avenue for mass surveillance of protesters.
Congressional Democratic leaders have made universal use of body cameras one of their prime demands for imposing accountability on Immigration and Customs Enforcement, especially after federal agents fatally shot two American citizens in Minneapolis. But after an outcry from privacy advocates that surveillance tools will allow ICE agents to identify and track protesters, Democrats are also calling for restrictions on how the body cameras can be used.
Lawmakers and legal observers have accused ICE of leveraging a variety of cameras to surveil protesters, feeding pictures into license plate readers and facial recognition systems. Democrats now worry that the body cameras they’re demanding could be used for similar purposes.
Well, you were just demanding them, now you're complaining that it's "mass surveillance."
Translation? The body cams aren't going to help their narrative of the "mostly peaceful protesters." They're going to show just how much these folks have been harassing and attacking ICE and other federal agents.
NEW: Congress has until the end of Friday to reach a deal on DHS funding, and Republicans are calling some Dem demands non-starters. Now, some Dems are worried that ICE bodycams would be used to surveil anti-ICE protesters, and they want restrictions on how the cams can be used. pic.twitter.com/KnF4TnDd20
— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) February 9, 2026
It's because we have the ICE agent's video in the Renee Good case that we can see from his point of view what he had to deal with. Even with that, the Left is still trying to spin it. If we hadn't had that, though, they would have had much more ability to shape the narrative how they wanted.
Yes, Democrats, the cameras are going to result in more arrests of folks on the Left because it's going to capture what they do, and video should be used to help identify them for arrest. If they're just protesting, they have nothing to worry about; it will show that too. It's funny, it sounds like Democrats are trying to argue that it should only be used for what they think it should be used for, not for real transparency that will show what happened, warts and all. They don't want it to be used to investigate these people.
But Democrats don't really want transparency.
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