Border Patrol's Secret Surveillance: Tracking Drivers Nationwide

Nationwide Driver Surveillance Program

• 🕵️ Border Patrol is quietly tracking millions of American drivers across the country using a surveillance program.
• 📍 The agency flags and detains individuals whose travel patterns are deemed suspicious, regardless of their location.

How the Surveillance Works

• 📸 A network of cameras captures and records license plate information.
• 🤖 An algorithm analyzes vehicle data, flagging suspicious patterns based on origin, destination, and route.
• 🚨 Federal agents can then notify local law enforcement to pull over flagged vehicles.
• ⚠️ These cameras are often disguised within highway safety equipment, making the surveillance covert.

Program History and Scope

• 🗓️ This surveillance program has been in operation by DHS for at least since 2017.
• 🤝 Border Patrol collaborates with local law enforcement in states like Arizona and Texas, and even in cities like Detroit and Chicago.
• 🚫 The strategy is not new, with police in Cochise County, Arizona, using it to catch smugglers by tracking rental cars that head north shortly after arriving.

Criticisms and Concerns

• ⚖️ Critics argue that Border Patrol is violating constitutional rights by monitoring drivers and making arbitrary judgments.
• 🤫 The agency has reportedly worked hard to keep the program's deployment and locations hush-hush, suggesting an intent to hide its operations.
• ❓ NewsNation has reached out to CBP for comment but is awaiting a response, with the element of surprise being a key part of the program's effectiveness.