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Trump's Police State: Border Patrol may be tracking drivers with secret cameras
Border Patrol may be tracking drivers with secret cameras - The WeekU.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.
Drivers may... 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.
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.”
Drivers may... 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.
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.”
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