Border Patrol quietly monitoring U.S. drivers for ones it thinks have suspicious travel patterns, AP says

CBS News ^ | 20 Nov, 2025

[Tired of Taxes]

"the Border Patrol's surveillance system stretches into the country's interior and monitors ordinary Americans' daily actions and connections for anomalies"

It does sound dystopian. Plus, police departments also monitor some areas with cameras and drones.

Next, law enforcement will start using AI with the surveillance, if they haven't already.

[Bratch]

Well, Well: US Govt Linking [Unknown Provider] Tracking Software to License Plate Readers and Facial Recognition

November 20, 2025 | Sundance 

The Associated Press is shocked, shocked, to discover that Customs and Border Protection has expanded their surveillance network beyond the “100 miles inland from every border” as authorized in the Patriot Act.

Worse yet is their stunned research showing license plate readers (APLR’s) are being connected to various other public and private sector mechanisms to identify travel patterns of U.S. citizens and collate them to facial recognition software applications.

Both the AP and CBS begin reporting on this domestic surveillance system as something quite new, it’s not.  We have previously outlined the construct as it was assembled HERE and HERE and HERE.

This is the part of the performance where past and present DC officials, including many that you personally support (Nunes), say the risk is now too great to worry about the 4th Amendment.  With borders unsecured by Obama and Biden, there is now no way to mitigate the risk from criminal aliens against the concern with privacy and the 4th Amendment.

In the bigger picture, this is why DC justifies extending FISA-702 reauthorization now.  The argument says, ‘If we do not support and create the surveillance state, we cannot capture and remove all the criminal aliens.’

WASHINGTON DC – The U.S. Border Patrol is monitoring millions of American drivers nationwide in a secretive program to identify and detain people whose travel patterns it deems suspicious, The Associated Press has found.

The Border Patrol’s predictive intelligence program has resulted in people being stopped, searched and in some cases arrested.

[…] The Border Patrol has recently grown even more powerful through collaborations with other agencies, drawing information from license plate readers nationwide run by the Drug Enforcement Administration, private companies and, increasingly, local law enforcement programs funded through federal grants. Texas law enforcement agencies have asked the Border Patrol to use facial recognition to identify drivers, documents show.

This active role beyond the borders is part of the quiet transformation of its parent agency, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, into something more akin to a domestic intelligence operation. Under the Trump administration’s heightened immigration enforcement efforts, CBP is now poised to get more than $2.7 billion to build out border surveillance systems such as the license plate reader program by layering in artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies. (read more)

The entire article is actually good; it’s just frustrating and annoying to see media pretending they didn’t know about this stuff until Trump.

CTH has been writing about this surveillance issue for well over a decade.  The introduction of Palantir facial recognition, to the overall database of social media information and private identity information, now makes it very easy for the government to simply point a camera at your face and get every scintilla of information about us.

Almost all of the privacy advocates have given up trying to resist the outcome. However, I am not one of them.  All it will take is a small mistake in the AI development programming, and people will see quickly just how dangerous this is.

[kaktuskid]

I would scrutinize those vehicles that have decals/stickers for Mexican States (Chihuahua, Durango, Sonora, etc)

[delchiante]

LOL

[ChuckHam]

Things are getting better at the border but I’m sure there are still plenty of CBP on the cartel payrolls that need to be terminated and prosecuted.

Rome wasn’t built in a day, but it sure burned down fast. Time will tell.

[NorthMountain]

"governed by a stringent, multi-layered policy framework, as well as federal law and constitutional protections, to ensure the technology is applied responsibly and for clearly defined security purposes."

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAhahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!

Bullschiff.

[NorthMountain]

If they did their job at the border there shouldn’t be any need for this kind of surveillance.

If they did their job at the border, they wouldn't have an excuse to engage in this sort of surveillance.

[NorthMountain]

the risk is now too great to worry about the fundamental law of the land.

Tyrants love (to create) crises and emergencies.

[Red6]

It’s all gone to far.

All of it.

The left wants to shove a giant LGBTQIA dildo up your rear while you get mandated vaccines, forced to attend diversity training, get told you have to hire a marginally qualified black female and pay 50% taxes so they can buy more votes with some “free* hand out program for illegals or what else.

The left has their make belief science of climate change, make belief vaccine science, make belief gay genes which all just back up their idiology.

—All in the name of social justice, equality, saving the planet...

The right wants to shove a GPS tracker up your rear, take naked pictures of you at the airport, have Middle East like road blocks, throw people in prison without trial, be able to do missile strikes on US citizens abroad without a trial, be able to listen to every phone call, read every text and email without a warrant...

The right allows their make belief science of the dangers of marjuana, or their science in the dangers or pornography to support their idiology.

—All in the name of national security and to save the children.

Both sides IMHO are equally bad.

I just want to be left alone and be free.

What ever happened to ideas like “freedom and liberty,” privacy, freedom of speech, freedom of movement, property rights, freedom of religion, my right to defend myself, control over my own body???

[woodbutcher1963]

I heard recently from someone who has a time share down in Ol Mexico that things are too cool down there now. Meaning, the Trump has tightened up the border so much that it is affecting their business plan.
So, they are now starting to resort to KIDNAPPING for a source of income.
Therefore, they were told by people in Mexico to NOT come.
This was somewhere on the west coast down near Mazatlan. I think.

[If You Want It Fixed - Fix It]

Crap! I drive like an illegal!

[delchiante]

Okay.
I waited, and checked back, and I’m a little surprised nobody noticed your song lyric comment.

So, let it be known that it didn’t go unnoticed...
Well done.

I am trying not to have that song enter my head....