Border Patrol may be tracking drivers with secret cameras

U.S. Border Patrol may have more eyes on Americans than most people realize, especially on the nation’s roadways. The agency has been using a series of hidden cameras, equipped with license plate readers, to track vehicles, according to a recent investigation. While this program was initially designed for crimes related to border crossings, it seems to have taken on a much broader role in recent years.

Flagging ‘suspicious’ driving patterns

The program uses a “network of cameras” that “scans and records vehicle license plate information,” according to an investigation by The Associated Press. An algorithm built into the cameras reportedly “flags vehicles deemed suspicious based on where they came from, where they were going and which route they took.” Federal agents may then share this information with local law enforcement.

Drivers may then find themselves pulled over for “reasons cited such as speeding, failure to signal, the wrong window tint or even a dangling air freshener blocking the view,” with “no inkling that the roads they drove put them on law enforcement’s radar,” said the AP. The cameras capturing these license plates may be hidden in everyday objects along the road, such as traffic cones and electrical boxes.

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These cameras have been “deployed far beyond the agency's traditional 100-mile jurisdiction, including in major cities and metropolitan areas such as Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, San Antonio and Houston,” said Newsweek. While Border Patrol generally keeps to within the 100-mile radius, they are “legally permitted ‘to operate anywhere in the United States,’” said U.S. Customs and Border Protection in a statement.

‘Broader, quieter shift’

This program was reportedly started nearly a decade ago as part of an effort to counter crime on the U.S. border. But it has since undergone a “broader, quieter shift” into a more wide-scale program, and is now “something more akin to a domestic intelligence operation,” said NewsNation. Border Patrol will reportedly get more than $2.7 billion from the Trump administration to “build out border surveillance systems like the license plate reader network,” many of which incorporate artificial intelligence. Border Patrol has also allegedly gone to great lengths to keep details of the program under wraps, and has been “hiding any references to the program in court documents and police reports,” said The Hill.

These new revelations about the technology are also coming as the White House “continues its crackdown on illegal immigration across several Democratic-led cities, including Los Angeles, Chicago and, most recently, Charlotte, North Carolina,” said The Hill. The program is as “massive and invasive as it seems,” immigration attorney Robert Armstrong told NewsNation. The “actions that the CBP has been taking to hide this program speak for themselves, right? They’ve worked really hard to keep the program, the way it’s deployed, where it’s deployed, etc., very hush-hush.”

The government has admitted, without providing details, that this program is ongoing. Border Patrol’s “mission is complex and relies on a layered mix of personnel, technology, and infrastructure to detect illicit activity while supporting lawful trade and travel,” Customs and Border Protection said in a statement. The agency is “governed by a stringent, multi-layered policy framework, as well as federal law and constitutional protections, to ensure the technology is applied responsibly.”