Posted on 11/21/2025 7:12:01 AM PST by MtnClimber
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. A network of cameras scans and records vehicle license plate information, and an algorithm flags vehicles deemed suspicious based on where they came from, where they were going and which route they took. Federal agents in turn may then flag local law enforcement.
Suddenly, drivers find themselves pulled over - often for reasons cited such as speeding, no turn signals or even a dangling air freshener blocking the view. They are then aggressively questioned and searched, with no inkling that the roads they drove put them on law enforcement's radar.
The AP's investigation, the first to reveal details of the program on America's roads, is based on interviews with eight former government officials with direct knowledge of the program who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak to the media, as well as dozens of federal, state and local officials, attorneys and privacy experts. The AP also reviewed thousands of pages of court and government documents, state grant and law enforcement data, and arrest reports.
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 the technology is applied responsibly and for clearly defined security purposes."
"For national security reasons, we do not detail the specific operational applications," the agency said. While the U.S. Border Patrol primarily operates within 100 miles of the border, it is legally allowed "to operate anywhere in the United States," the agency added.
The program has been growing
Once limited to policing the nation's boundaries, the Border Patrol's surveillance system stretches into the country's interior and monitors ordinary Americans' daily actions and connections for anomalies instead of simply targeting wanted suspects. Started about a decade ago to fight illegal border-related activities and the trafficking of both drugs and people, it has expanded over the past five years.
Border Patrol has for years hidden details of its license plate reader program, trying to keep any mention of the program out of court documents and police reports, according to two people familiar with the program. Readers are often disguised along highways in traffic safety equipment like drums and barrels.
A license plate reader used by U.S. Border Patrol is hidden in a traffic cone while capturing passing vehicles on AZ Highway 85 on Oct. 21, 2025, in Gila Bend, Ariz.
The Border Patrol has defined its own criteria for which drivers' behavior should be deemed suspicious or tied to drug or human trafficking, stopping people for anything from driving on backcountry roads, being in a rental car or making short trips to the border region. The agency's network of cameras now extends along the southern border in Texas, Arizona and California, and also monitors drivers traveling near the U.S.-Canada border.
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.
Concern about rights of monitored drivers
While collecting license plates from cars on public roads has generally been upheld by courts, some legal scholars see the growth of large digital surveillance networks such as the Border Patrol's as raising constitutional questions.
Courts have started to recognize that "large-scale surveillance technology that's capturing everyone and everywhere at every time" might be unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment, said Andrew Ferguson, a law professor at George Washington University.
Nicole Ozer, the executive director of the Center for Constitutional Democracy at UC Law San Francisco, expressed alarm when told of AP's findings.
"They are collecting mass amounts of information about who people are, where they go, what they do, and who they know," she said. "These surveillance systems do not make communities safer."
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This has the potential to turn into something like the Chinese Social Credit surveillance system.
They need to monitor the illegals who drive back and forth across the border every day. They obviously aren’t really afraid that the drug cartels are trying to kill them and their kids. Virginia Attorneys General are the ones who advocate for killing light skinned non-Demonrats and their children.
I always feel like somebody’s watching me.
“Suddenly, drivers find themselves pulled over....”
And then all at once?
When are cops lights not suddenly turned on?
I’m noticing more and more cameras on street corners around town and on various highways. I was told they were to capture license plates and car make/model in case of amber alerts...
Like the IRS?
Hhmmm...no identification of people stopped? Isn’t this done all over the US by cops everywhere?
I see lots of cars with Canadian tags heading south on I-95.
Should they loudly monitor instead of quietly?
It’s the FLOK system. Takes plates and even figures out car ID from things like stickers and dents.
It’s creepy and very Big Brother.
Drive a white pickup, stock, with no front plate and the bumper inset back plate.
Tilt your plate slightly so it’s harder to read from above. (Put spacers behind it at the top.)
“I always feel like somebody’s watching me.”
Expect a federally funded person on official duty to have read this by 11AM.
The program works so well. When they finally catch a human trafficker, a Maryland senator will have a margarita with them.
EC
Just because you are paranoid does not mean they are not watching.....
I know you’re working for the CIA
They wouldn’t have you in the MAF-I-A!
There is nothing new about border patrol monitoring drivers with suspicious driving patterns. That has been happening since at least the 1970s. The new twist is that they have technology to do it on a much larger scale.
I’m fine with monitoring who comes and goes across the border. I don’t like that kind of surveillance within the country.
If they did their job at the border there shouldn’t be any need for this kind of surveillance.
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