We are already living in a surveillance state. It only gets worse from here. I do not think there is any chance that reform rolls any of this back.
This story is about how thoroughly US Border Patrol and other law enforcement agencies are already relying on mass surveillance to identity "suspicious" patterns and then stopping and sometimes detaining people based on nothing more. Well worth the read.
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.
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.
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.
And it reaches far into the interior, impacting residents of big metropolitan areas and people driving to and from large cities such as Chicago and Detroit, as well as from Los Angeles, San Antonio, and Houston to and from the Mexican border region. In one example, AP found the agency has placed at least four cameras in the greater Phoenix area over the years, one of which was more than 120 miles (193 kilometers) from the Mexican frontier, beyond the agency’s usual jurisdiction of 100 miles (161 kilometers) from a land or sea border. The AP also identified several camera locations in metropolitan Detroit, as well as one placed near the Michigan-Indiana border to capture traffic headed towards Chicago or Gary, Indiana, or other nearby destinations.
Border Patrol agents and local police have many names for these kinds of stops: “whisper,” “intel” or “wall” stops. Those stops are meant to conceal — or wall off — that the true reason for the stop is a tip from federal agents sitting miles away, watching data feeds showing who’s traveling on America’s roads and predicting who is “suspicious,” according to documents and people interviewed by the AP.
The chat logs show Border Patrol agents and Texas sheriffs deputies trading tips about vehicles’ travel patterns — based on suspicions about little more than someone taking a quick trip to the border region and back. The chats show how thoroughly Texas highways are surveilled by this federal-local partnership and how much detailed information is informally shared.
Today, the deserts, forests and mountains of the nation’s land borders are dotted with checkpoints and increasingly, surveillance towers, Predator drones, thermal cameras and license plate readers, both covert and overt.
Border Patrol’s parent agency got authorization to run a domestic license plate reader program in 2017, according to a Department of Homeland Security policy document. At the time, the agency said that it might use hidden license plate readers ”for a set period of time while CBP is conducting an investigation of an area of interest or smuggling route. Once the investigation is complete, or the illicit activity has stopped in that area, the covert cameras are removed,” the document states.
But that’s not how the program has operated in practice, according to interviews, police reports and court documents. License plate readers have become a major — and in some places permanent — fixture of the border region.
In a budget request to Congress in fiscal year 2024, CBP said that its Conveyance Monitoring and Predictive Recognition System, or CMPRS, “collects license plate images and matches the processed images against established hot lists to assist … in identifying travel patterns indicative of illegal border related activities.” Several new developer jobs have been posted seeking applicants to help modernize its license plate surveillance system in recent months. Numerous Border Patrol sectors now have special intelligence units that can analyze license plate reader data, and tie commercial license plate readers to its national network, according to documents and interviews.
Where Border Patrol places its cameras is a closely guarded secret. However, through public records requests, the AP obtained dozens of permits the agency filed with Arizona and Michigan for permission to place cameras on state-owned land. The permits show the agency frequently disguises its cameras by concealing them in traffic equipment like the yellow and orange barrels that dot American roadways, or by labeling them as jobsite equipment. An AP photographer in October visited the locations identified in more than two dozen permit applications in Arizona, finding that most of the Border Patrol’s hidden equipment remains in place today. Spokespeople for the Arizona and Michigan departments of transportation said they approve permits based on whether they follow state and federal rules and are not privy to details on how license plate readers are used.
A federal grant program called Operation Stonegarden, which has existed in some form for nearly two decades, has handed out hundreds of millions of dollars to buy automated license plate readers, camera-equipped drones and other surveillance gear for local police and sheriffs agencies. Stonegarden grant funds also pay for local law enforcement overtime, which deputizes local officers to work on Border Patrol enforcement priorities. Under President Donald Trump, the Republican-led Congress this year allocated $450 million for Stonegarden to be handed out over the next four fiscal years. In the previous four fiscal years, the program gave out $342 million.
AP found numerous other examples similar to what Schott and the delivery driver experienced in reviewing court records in border communities and along known smuggling routes in Texas and California. Several police reports and court records the AP examined cite “suspicious” travel patterns or vague tipoffs from the Border Patrol or other unnamed law enforcement agencies. In another federal court document filed in California, a Border Patrol agent acknowledged “conducting targeted analysis on vehicles exhibiting suspicious travel patterns” as the reason he singled out a Nissan Altima traveling near San Diego.
In cases reviewed by the AP, local law enforcement sometimes tried to conceal the role the Border Patrol plays in passing along intelligence. Babb, the deputy who stopped Schott, testified he typically uses the phrase “subsequent to prior knowledge” when describing whisper stops in his police reports to acknowledge that the tip came from another law enforcement agency without revealing too much in written documents he writes memorializing motorist encounters.
Once they pull over a vehicle deemed suspicious, officers often aggressively question drivers about their travels, their belongings, their jobs, how they know the passengers in the car, and much more, police records and bodyworn camera footage obtained by the AP show. One Texas officer demanded details from a man about where he met his current sexual partner. Often drivers, such as the one working for the South Carolina moving company, were arrested on suspicion of money laundering merely for carrying a few thousand dollars worth of cash, with no apparent connection to illegal activity. Prosecutors filed lawsuits to try to seize money or vehicles on the suspicion they were linked to trafficking
We are cooked
Certainly feels like the only thing we can do here is sort of clench and look for edge cases where we might still preserve a little freedom.
There was a time when bitcoin might have had the potential to curb some of this by reducing government power. Now it looks like bitcoin might be the government's best opportunity to cling to power.
Americans see 'the government' as the greatest threat to their individual freedoms because they face no challenge to their freedoms from other nations.
Other nations increasingly see America a threat to their freedom.
Remember US independence being founded to escape the taxes and tariffs imposed by Britain?
USA following the tradition of the European empires has gained and exerted immense power projection over all corners of the planet.
Today that global hegemony, in large part manifested by the USD petrodollar is being challenged by China, Iran, Russia and N.Korea.
The individual freedoms and 'rights' that liberal western democracies have delivered citizens were always built upon the global resource hegemony and dominance enjoyed over the rest of the world.
Europe itself is realising that its dependence upon the US for security is increasingly fragile and likely unsustainable.
As are other US allies.
China and its proxies are showing that US military power is no longer omnipotent.
The global network of US military bases and Navy are stretched and their supply chains are weak.
The Iran war has depleted reserves of defensive and offensive missiles.
China won the trade war.
Chinas economic model has proven stronger and now the US military looks weak and vulnerable.
The power that lies in international institutions and protocols remains nominally under US control or dominance and the prize in that set of tertiary power levers is the USD - SWIFT network.
Continued viability of US dominance depends upon the petrodollar...and the petrodollar is not looking strong.
Bitcoin is not a viable alternative for the US government - it is an escape vehicle for individuals as the empire declines.
The complacency of the west has allowed its decline to progress to this point.
The belief that after 500 years of enslaving and conquering almost anyone we wanted to that was our prerogative.
The rise of China turns that equation and cultural arrogance on its head.
I do not see the sovereign individual virtue signalers often condemning the Zionist US war of aggression and genocide in the middle east...
There is no real solidarity among them as they are so entitled and believe their individual freedom can be achieved without the protection and power of the nation state.
How wrong they are.
You cannot have freedom for one but not for all.
10000 sats downzap - what is somebody trying to hide from us?
AI certainly encourages and enables a police state.
Here in New Zealand one of the two major supermarket chains has introduced digital recognition technology to track shoppers and combat shoplifting, which is a major cost to them.
Recently a relative of mine went to one of their outlets and was noting prices of various products in a notebook in order to compare with the prices at the competing chain (yes we have a quasi duopoly in grocery supermarkets).
He like me is budget conscious and likes to take advantage of the specials they sometimes have- but on this day this chain had no decent offers so he walked out of the store having purchased nothing.
On entering the exit area he was challenged by a store security agent aggressively who alleged he had shoplifted and demanding to see the contents of his backpack.
He was shocked as you would be but responded to the agent 'ok sure have a look, I have stolen nothing'- at which point the agent took a cursory look through his backpack and walked off muttering further threats and that he would be watching him. No apology for wrongful accusation.
This prompted us to speculate that AI could be being used to study shoppers behaviour and alert security staff to anyone behaving outside the norms- not a lot of people after all will go to a supermarket and buy nothing after spending time looking closely at the prices...and wearing a backpack must also be a risk factor. He also explained he changed his hat while in the shop due to it getting warmer in there than outside- another potential trigger to alert an AI monitor!
So basically AI will perhaps target those with behaviour patterns outside the norms.
Everyone must conform or risk be targeted.
Mind you that approach has existed a lot longer than AI...but AI certainly might intensify its focus and coverage.