, The Daily Beast; Trump Hatches Creepy New Plot to Target ‘Suspicious’ Drivers
"Border Patrol agents armed with hidden cameras and AI-driven algorithms are flagging millions of American drivers as “suspicious” and triggering covert traffic stops across the country, according to a new investigation.
The Trump administration has quietly expanded a vast domestic surveillance web that tracks and analyzes the travel patterns of millions of drivers—feeding local police tips that lead to secretive traffic stops, searches, and arrests, the Associated Press reports.
The intelligence project, built and run by Border Patrol’s parent agency, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) gathers vehicle movements through a national network of covert license plate readers disguised inside roadside barrels, cones, and job-site equipment, AP reports...
Legal scholars warn that the scale of the data collection—tracking “patterns of life” for millions of ordinary drivers—could violate the Fourth Amendment. “Large-scale surveillance technology that’s capturing everyone and everywhere at every time” may be unconstitutional, Andrew Ferguson, a law professor at George Washington University, told AP.
The program is powered by an enormous expansion of CBP’s intelligence capabilities since President Donald Trump returned to office. Congress has authorized more than $2.7 billion to layer artificial intelligence onto existing surveillance networks.
Meanwhile, Operation Stonegarden—a two-decade-old federal grant scheme—now channels hundreds of millions of dollars to local sheriff’s offices to buy license-plate readers and drones, and to fund overtime that effectively deputizes local cops into Border Patrol’s mission. Under Trump, congressional Republicans increased Stonegarden to $450 million over four fiscal years."
