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The Associated Press has the results of a wide-ranging investigation showing that the U.S. Border Patrol has built a nationwide dragnet driver-surveillance system that it uses to target people it thinks are 鈥渟uspicious.鈥� The Border Patrol, which most Americans probably think just, as its name says, patrols the border, has long been a lawless, rogue agency. Now it appears to have become an ugly new nationwide intelligence agency and police force that targets innocent people using techniques that should be unacceptable in a free society.

Congress needs to act rapidly to rein in this program, as do state and local governments that are allowing some of these federal agencies to put plate readers on their highways and their law enforcement officers to participate directly and through data sharing arrangements.

Here鈥檚 how it works:

1. Collect data on Americans鈥� movements. The U.S. Border Patrol (which is part of Customs and Border Protection [CBP], which is part of DHS) has secretively built a system of automated license plate readers (ALPR) across the nation that carries out dragnet surveillance of millions of Americans鈥� movements
2. Identify 鈥渟uspicious鈥� movement patterns. Border Patrol 鈥渋ntelligence鈥� operatives monitor this data for movements they deem suspicious. We know little about what they consider suspicious, or what kinds of AI algorithms they are using to do so.
3. Find an excuse to pull them over. Local police, acting at the behest of the feds, then pull over the targeted driver using what is known as a 鈥減retext stop,鈥� in which officers use real or claimed minor traffic violations as an excuse to pull over a driver whom they really want to target for other reasons.
4. Interrogate, search, and seize. Once the person has been stopped due to some supposed legal violation, they are , according to the AP, and often searched and subject to having their property seized without proof of wrongdoing in a manner tantamount to .

Not only is the Border Patrol engaging in a mass-surveillance domestic intelligence operation, but it鈥檚 receiving billions more with which to build this system as the Trump Administration and Congress funnel money into anti-immigration efforts.

This system is rife with problems
The Border Patrol鈥檚 surveillance infrastructure is made up of its own plate readers strung across highways from the southern border to such faraway places as Illinois and Michigan. We don鈥檛 know the full extent of their placement. It also accesses a similar nationwide network of plate readers run by the DEA, and has been authorized to access systems operated by private companies. Immigration agencies鈥� access to data collected by the ALPR company Flock has sparked widespread controversy, and the company, which is feeling the heat, says it no longer has a formal relationship with any DHS agencies. But there are other companies in this space that engage in mass driver surveillance, including Motorola (operating as ) and . Neither company responded to a request for comment by AP. We know that at least ICE has to the Vigilant database, and they and other immigration agencies may also have contracts with Rekor.

We know little about how the government singles people out for stops. We do know that private companies advertise the ability to not only collect data on Americans鈥� comings and goings, but also to use AI to flag some people with supposedly suspicious travel patterns. I recently wrote about how the company Flock has been doing this; both Vigilant and Rekor also boast that they do the same.

A former CBP official told the AP that the agency develops 鈥減atterns of life鈥� about people to try to detect when they deviate from their normal daily routine in suspicious ways. This is a term for an activity that stretches back to the use of aerial mass surveillance during the Iraq war, when searches for patterns of life were used to try to locate Iraqi resistance fighters planting roadside bombs. Of unclear effectiveness and impossible to carry out at scale without watching everyone all the time, pattern-of-life surveillance has clearly now been brought home. (In 2021, an attempt by Baltimore police to deploy mass aerial surveillance akin to that used in Iraq was struck down by the courts.) Logs of nationwide Flock plate searches by the ACLU of Massachusetts show that 鈥減attern of life鈥� has been listed regularly as the purpose of a search by police agencies across the country.

Once a target is identified, the AP reports, officers use such alleged violations as speeding (even over the limit), failure to signal, window tinting, or a dangling air freshener supposedly blocking the driver鈥檚 view. 鈥淭he beautiful thing about the Texas Traffic Code is there鈥檚 thousands of things you can stop a vehicle for,鈥� a sheriff鈥檚 deputy in that state. (There鈥檚 no reason to think that Texas is an outlier among states when it comes to traffic law complexity.)

Law enforcement can鈥檛 search a person鈥檚 car under the Constitution without either permission or probable cause on the officer鈥檚 part to believe that the car contains evidence of a crime, but in reality intimidated drivers often give such permission, or officers use bogus dog sniffs to obtain probable cause. The AP also that the authorities 鈥�often鈥� used the American policing profession鈥檚 and of civil asset , in which police cash and vehicles without proof of wrongdoing. That forces drivers to engage in expensive legal battles to regain their property; often they鈥檙e never able.

A secretive system hidden from Americans
Do Americans want their government engaging in this kind of activity? That鈥檚 doubtful, but they haven鈥檛 even been able to make a judgment because these agencies have been keeping it largely secret. According to the AP,

The 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, former officials say, even going so far as to propose dropping charges rather than risk revealing any details about the placement and use of their covert license plate readers. Readers are often disguised along highways in traffic safety equipment like drums and barrels.

This stratagem is known as evidence laundering or 鈥� .鈥� It was so-named by the DEA, which used it to hide leads that it was obtaining from NSA surveillance that was carried out without a warrant, under the justification that it was purely for national security purposes rather than for criminal law enforcement. 鈥淚t's just like laundering money 鈥� you work it backwards to make it clean,鈥� a former agent Reuters of the DEA program.

Other important elements
There are other important civil liberties aspects to this story. They include:

• The Border patrol as rogue agency. The ACLU has long pointed out that the Border Patrol is a 鈥渞ogue agency鈥� 鈥� a 鈥漧awless agency with a history of abuses.鈥� The Border Patrol is the most aggressive and abusive immigration agency鈥� 鈥� and has been behind many of the worst abuses we鈥檝e seen in American cities so far. Ominously, the Trump Administration is now filling ICE leadership positions with Border Patrol staff. This program, like DHS鈥檚 new face recognition app, represents an importation of abusive Border Patrol practices into the rest of the country.
• The transformation of the Border Patrol into an 鈥渋ntelligence鈥� agency. There is a long, sordid history of police 鈥渋ntelligence鈥� units being involved in abuse against people who hold views that law enforcement dislikes, going back to the notorious urban police 鈥溾�� of the 20th century, who worked to infiltrate and suppress liberals, radicals, and civil rights activists for decades. 鈥淚ntelligence鈥� also has a tendency to devolve into mass surveillance. While there might be a legitimate role for police intelligence officers in analyzing legitimately obtained evidence and case materials, in our age of surveillance technology it all too often means 鈥渨atching and sifting through everybody鈥檚 activities to find people who are suspicious to us.鈥�
• The recruitment of local police. An important element of the AP鈥檚 reporting is the extent to which the Border Patrol relies on local officers to assist in their program, such as by carrying out pretext stops. Communications obtained by the AP reveal group chats in which federal and local officers tightly coordinate their targeting of suspects. The AP also how massive federal grants are helping to construct the dragnet used in that targeting, and (as we recently discussed) the Trump Administration is generally working to enlist local law enforcement into its abusive deportation drive.
• This system has been gestating for years. The DEA first created an ALPR system in 2008, as we pointed out in a 2013 piece drawing attention and objecting to the program. By 2015 FOIA records we obtained showed that it had greatly expanded in scope. Still, the AP鈥檚 reporting makes clear that much has changed after 10 more years of expansion, the adoption of ALPR by other agencies like the Border Patrol, improving technology, the emergence of centralized private providers like Flock, Vigilant, and Rekor, and the overall context of Trump鈥檚 drive to terrorize immigrants. We鈥檙e in an entirely new reality now.