Add thelocalreport.in As A Trusted Source
America border Patrol The Associated Press has found that millions of American drivers are being monitored across the country under a secret program to identify and detain people whose travel patterns it considers suspicious.
are here takeaway From an AP investigation:
What did the AP investigation find?
The Border Patrol’s predictive intelligence program resulted in people being stopped, searched, and in some cases arrested. A network of cameras scans and records vehicle license plate information, and an algorithm flags vehicles that are considered suspicious based on where they came from, where they are going, and what route they have taken. Federal agents can then tip off local law enforcement.
Suddenly, drivers find themselves stopped – often cited for reasons like speeding, no turn signal or even a hanging air freshener blocking the view. They are then aggressively interrogated and searched, with no idea that the roads they have traveled have put them on the radar of law enforcement.
The AP investigation, the first to reveal details of how the program is operating on America’s streets, is based on interviews with eight former government officials with direct knowledge of the program, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media, along with dozens of federal, state and local officials, lawyers and privacy experts. The AP also reviewed thousands of pages of court and government documents, state grant and law enforcement data and arrest reports.
What does the government say?
The Border Patrol’s parent agency, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, said they use license plate readers to help identify threats and disrupt criminal networks and are governed by “a stringent, multi-layered policy framework, as well as federal law and constitutional protections, to ensure that the technology is implemented responsibly and for clearly defined security purposes.”
“For national security reasons, we do not provide details of specific operational applications,” the agency said. While the U.S. Border Patrol operates primarily within 100 miles of the border, it is legally allowed to “operate anywhere in the United States,” the agency said.
What is the history of the program?
Once limited to policing the nation’s borders, the Border Patrol’s surveillance system has expanded into the country’s interior and monitors the daily actions of ordinary Americans and connections to anomalies rather than targeting only wanted suspects. Launched about a decade ago to fight illegal cross-border activities and the smuggling of both drugs and people, it has expanded over the past five years.
The Border Patrol has hidden details of its license plate reader program for years, according to two people familiar with the program, and is trying to keep any mention of the program out of court documents and police reports. Readers are often hidden in traffic safety devices such as drums and barrels on highways.
The Border Patrol has defined its own criteria for which drivers’ behavior must be considered suspicious or linked to drug or human trafficking, barring people from driving on backcountry roads, staying in a rental car, or making short trips into the border area. The agency’s network of cameras now extends to the southern border. texas, Arizona and also monitors drivers traveling in California, and near the US-Canada border.
The Border Patrol has recently become even more powerful through collaboration with other agencies, acquiring information from license plate readers operated by the Drug Enforcement Administration, private companies, and local law enforcement programs funded through federal grants across the country. Documents show that Texas law enforcement agencies have asked the Border Patrol to use facial recognition to identify drivers.
This proactive role beyond borders is part of a quiet transformation of its parent agency, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, into something more akin to a domestic intelligence operation. As part of the Trump administration’s increased immigration enforcement efforts, CBP is now set to receive more than $2.7 billion to build border surveillance systems such as the license plate reader program by incorporating artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies.
What do the critics say?
While collecting license plates from cars on public roads has generally been upheld by courts, some legal scholars view the growth of large digital surveillance networks like the Border Patrol as raising constitutional questions.
the courts Andrew Ferguson, a law professor at George Washington University, said we have begun to recognize that “mass surveillance technology that is capturing everyone all the time and everywhere” may be unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment.
Nicole Ozer, executive director of the Center for Constitutional Democracy at UC Law San Francisco, expressed concern when told of the AP’s findings.
“They’re collecting huge amounts of information about who people are, where they go, what they do and who they know,” he said. “These surveillance systems do not make communities safer.”
,
Tau reported from Washington, Laredo, San Antonio, Kingsville and Victoria, Texas. Burke reported from San Francisco. AP writer Aaron Kessler in Washington, Jim Vertuno in San Antonio, AP video producer Serginho Ro Osblad in Bisbee, Arizona, and AP photographers Ross D. Franklin in Phoenix and David Goldman in Houston contributed reporting. Former AP writer Ismail M. Belkoura in Washington also contributed.
,
Contact AP’s global investigative team at Investigative@ap.org or https://www.ap.org/tips/.