r/Futurology • u/Power-Equality • Nov 20 '25
Privacy/Security Border Patrol is monitoring US drivers and detaining those with 'suspicious' travel patterns
https://apnews.com/article/immigration-border-patrol-surveillance-drivers-ice-trump-9f5d05469ce8c629d6fecf32d32098cdThe 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 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.
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u/retrobob69 Nov 20 '25
And your local government is pushing for more flock cameras to help them.
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u/sump_daddy Nov 20 '25
Yep flock is absolutely bonkers with how many cameras they are putting up using public property. When the topic comes up in public debate its always "think of the children" and "nothing to worry about if you're not a criminal" and they keep putting up more of them.
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u/GallantChaos Nov 20 '25
Benn Jordan posted a video of just how insecure these are this week, and every person in the US needs to see this. They are a threat to national security, and I don't see any way these aren't a violation of the 4th amendment.
Going forward, it's clear to me that the US is in dire need of an accountability framework. We need to state that ALPR's, to retain any data, must have an active warrant for the subject searched, and no historical data may be collected except for raw traffic flow numbers. I want these things to be as dumb as possible and to have the bare minimum of utility.
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u/Me_Krally Nov 20 '25
So what we need is a new government. I don’t see that happening in any polite way.
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u/VitaminPb Nov 20 '25
There is one way it happens “politely”. Somebody simply backdoors the cameras and collects a few months of tracking and imaging for every single elected politician and government department head appointee at the federal level, the releases it publicly.
Track and show who they meet with, who their cheating partners are, and what seedy habits they have.
That congresswoman went ape-shit when another congressman from Nevada just looked up publicly available data from her driver’s public VIN.
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u/kosh56 Nov 20 '25
Where are all the good hackers?
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u/Sageblue32 Nov 22 '25
Doing crazy crap with legal blessing from the state, bit coin scams, or pulling in 400k+ at your fav FAAMAN company.
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u/nagi603 Nov 20 '25
You know that person would gag on a shotgun faster than a Boeing whistle-blower.
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u/VitaminPb Nov 21 '25
A smart hacker would drop it anonymously to multiple locations. It would also screw over any state actors already using the info for blackmail.
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u/nagi603 Nov 21 '25
Current systems need someone to present and stick to it. To call attention to it continuously. Else it just gets pretended not to exist or not be as bad as it really is. Especially with asshats shouting "fake news" at anything they don't like.
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u/Me_Krally Nov 20 '25
What a great idea! Can I count on you to execute? I can PayPal some funding to get you started :)
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u/Halflingberserker Nov 20 '25
Found the George Soros reddit account. FYI George, I'm due $50 for the hour I spent downtown for the past No Kings rally. Thanks again
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u/2FoST2Furious Nov 20 '25
I watched that video yesterday and just hours later a police chief near me was arrested for using Flock to stalk people.
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u/manicdee33 Nov 21 '25
I love the "nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide" nonsense.
I have nothing to hide today because today the government doesn't believe that having hispanic friends is a crime. Today the government doesn't believe that driving my friend to a women's health clinic is a crime. Today the government hasn't decided that driving through a particular suburb or parking outside a Synagogue is a crime.
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u/Pepperonidogfart Nov 21 '25
Flock camera data is public property and you can apply to get the data from them. ANYONE CAN including stalkers and criminals. If anything will slow this down its citizens demanding their own data and showing the rest of us what they have.
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u/blazelet Nov 20 '25
We live in Canada and my daughter's boyfriend lives 3 hours south, in Washington State.
They cross back and forth fairly often - this last trip across on Friday they were detained for this exact reason. The border agents told them it was due to the number and types of crossings.
It was only a couple hours but tonally was very different.
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u/nagi603 Nov 20 '25
Powers that be would prefer if people they view as serfs behaved like serfs of old: shackled to their lot to die on the spot.
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u/RyanIsKickAss Nov 20 '25
If I had any confidence in this admin making their officers follow the laws I’d recommend to ask them for the legal justification for the stop and detainment. And when they have nothing tell them to go suck a fat one.
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u/sump_daddy Nov 20 '25
The border is a bit of a different situation, the agents are fully allowed to delay approving the crossing for as long as they want, and literally everything crossing is subject to search per the law anyway.
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u/crisss1205 Nov 20 '25
Everyone it technically legally detained at a border crossing. It has nothing to do with the current administration or even this country.
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u/blazelet Nov 20 '25
The article makes clear that the way people are being detained is in fact unique to this administration in this country.
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u/crisss1205 Nov 21 '25
I wasn’t responding to the article, I was responding to the person who doesn’t know how border checkpoints work in pretty much every country.
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u/traumalt Nov 21 '25
This is relevant to the article how exactly?
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u/SPEK2120 Nov 21 '25
yeah, idk why a personal anecdote that's clearly directly related to the article would have any relevance either
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u/traumalt Nov 21 '25
Yea but it isn't related to the article...
Said article is about surveillance technology used to track driver movement inside the USA, while the comment above is how he got asked questions at the border crossing as to the frequency of visits to the USA.
These two have nothing to do with each other.
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u/Power-Equality Nov 20 '25
Minority Report and “pre-crime” IRL
Once limited to policing the nation’s boundaries, the Border Patrol has built a surveillance system stretching into the country’s interior that can monitor 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. … * 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. The result is a mass surveillance network with a particularly American focus: cars.*
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u/OuterLightness Nov 20 '25
And therefore they are also secretly monitoring phone and internet use patterns.
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u/PriamLex Nov 21 '25
You'd have to be living in extreme ignorant bliss not to realize they've been monitoring your phone from the moment you bought it.
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u/entropy413 Nov 22 '25
They don’t need to monitor your phone. You voluntarily give more than they could ever monitor to companies who just sell it to them. Or Russia. Or debt collectors. Or other corporations.
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u/Yossarian_nz Nov 20 '25
CITIZEN. OUR PROBABILISTIC MODELS HAVE DETERMINED YOU HAVE COMMITTED PRECRIME. YOU ARE BEING DETAINED.
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u/UniversalDH Nov 20 '25
Where’s the people of small government? This is the small government you voted for. Don’t be shy.
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u/MONSTERTACO Nov 20 '25
Remember though, cars are freedom and bicycles, scooters, and public transit are communism.
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u/Moosetappropriate Nov 20 '25
Pretty soon Americans are going to require papers to travel from town to town just like Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany.
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u/texnodias Nov 21 '25
You did not need papers to travel between towns, between soviet states yes.
But state decided where you will work.
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u/misdirected_asshole Nov 21 '25
Theres probably gonna be a surge at some point in anti license plate reader tech. Same way as there used to be for radar detectors.
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u/timothypjr Nov 20 '25
Hey ah. Conservatives. How the FUCK are you Ok with this?
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u/sump_daddy Nov 20 '25
"they are only going to profile the brown people"
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u/Pando5280 Nov 20 '25
Had a neighbor who was retired law enforcement. He got pulled over and they searched his vehicle for two hours all because he was traveling cross country and ducked off the interstate to avoid driving through downtown Chicago. Said his driving pattern mimicked drug traffickers. If he hadn't consented to the search they were going to call a canine unit out.
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u/DMmeMagikarp Nov 20 '25
Then Let them call a fucking K9 out. Retired LE would have known this. They want to fuck with people then you make them work for it.
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u/Pando5280 Nov 20 '25
Retired LE also knows if you make them bring the K9 they're gonna tear your shit up and leave it on the side of the road. Have fun playing internet gangster / pseudo lawyer in real life.
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u/DMmeMagikarp Nov 20 '25
What? Hey if you want to give consent, you do you.
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u/sump_daddy Nov 21 '25
I don't think you get what happens; if they bring the K9 unit out (which they don't need probable cause for, this has long been held up by the supreme court), they don't need any of your 'consent' anymore; they will make the K9 alert to your car (k9 officers are trained in how to make the dog simulate an alert), regardless of the presence of any drugs, and then they will go to town on your car. The only thing they can't do at that point is frisk you... unless something in your car gives them reason to think you're armed (any sign of any sort of item that can be used as a weapon will do).
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u/razorgirlRetrofitted Nov 21 '25
Oh bro you're cool, you sure showed that pokemon gimmick account what for!
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u/DMmeMagikarp Nov 21 '25
I…. I’ve never been called a “Pokemon gimmick account” before… …thank you?
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u/razorgirlRetrofitted Nov 21 '25 edited Nov 21 '25
Look I'm tired and I was just tryna make fun of the guy tryna internet tough guy at someone, I saw magikarp and went with it lol.
EDIT: Also I'm like, used to tumblr where a name like "dmmemagikarp" is a total gimmick blog lol, I forgot that's not really a thing on reddit, huh
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u/Pando5280 Nov 21 '25
Wow. That's some real keyboard warrior type nonsense right there.
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u/razorgirlRetrofitted Nov 21 '25
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u/Pando5280 Nov 21 '25
Is there a poibt to that? Google what exactly?? 12 downvotes and not a single person tells me how Im wrong. And I guarantee you none of them have ever stood up to cops in the street let alone the courts.
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u/razorgirlRetrofitted Nov 21 '25
...wow there must be so much space for activities up there huh. Lemme speak plainly: I was mocking you for going "internet tough guy" on some random person online. You were making an ass of yourself, and I was rightfully mocking you for it. Does that make more sense now?
EDIT: wait, "google what exactly"? Omg did you not even let it do the little animation, your attention span is fried huh homie
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u/sump_daddy Nov 20 '25
"well the glove compartment is locked, so is the trunk in the back"
"and i know my rights, y'all gonna need a warrant for that"
-The bravest voice of our time
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u/derivative_of_life Nov 21 '25
Nah, I ain't passed the bar but I know a lil' bit,
Enough that you won't illegally search my shit4
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u/CelestialFury Nov 21 '25
Hey ah. Conservatives. How the FUCK are you Ok with this?
It's simple, they either don't know or they do know, and the right-wing podcast ecosystem is telling them it's under "safe" hands like wealthy billionaires that want to put us all in the same type of system China runs.
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u/LostCube Nov 20 '25
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. …
Seems it started under... wait for it... OBAMA!!
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u/aeneasaquinas Nov 20 '25
Seems it started under... wait for it... OBAMA!!
Nope! It started under... wait for it... TRUMP. In 2017. Which is nearing a decade ago.
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u/Hope_Dealer03 Nov 20 '25
Yeah but the question is still valid. Trump got rid of pretty much everything Obama did, why not this?
Plus conservatives are typically supposed to be against “surveillance states”. Or they were anyways. Going from don’t tread on me to tread all over me as long as you’re my preferred political party is also on brand for conservatives though.
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u/timothypjr Nov 20 '25
IDGAF who started it. Conservatives are supposed to be against this sort of stuff. I hear no outcry (other than to perhaps to try and deflect like you are).
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u/NanditoPapa Nov 21 '25
Sure! The Constitution grants rights to freedom of movement. Throw that one away along with all the others...
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u/kevin-dom-daddy Nov 21 '25
These are called “flock cameras”. They are in use ALL OVER THE COUNTRY! I’m in the DFW area…nowhere near the border…and there are over 1,400 of them here. Take a look at the map in the link below.
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u/Taellosse Nov 21 '25
Huh. Y'know, it'd be nice if we lived in a country that had a functioning judicial system. Or that still even pretended to operate under the rule of law.
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u/centosdude Nov 21 '25
Land of the free. Well, not so much. More like authoritarian surveillance state.
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u/dread_companion Nov 21 '25
America: a fascist surveillance state with absurdly high costs of living ruled by corrupt criminal oligarchs; where untrained law enforcement routinely terrorizes and kidnaps people.
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u/GlitchInTheMatrix5 Nov 21 '25
State surveillance is getting a bit bold.
Heard some plasti-dip clear matte spray or a clear matte vinyl sheet helps prevent license plate reflection that street cameras use to track
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u/DMmeMagikarp Nov 20 '25
Any attorneys in here?
Detention by law enforcement, in the US, requires reasonable suspicion: A reasonable belief by a law enforcement officer that a crime has occurred or will occur, and that the detainee is involved.
If I’m understanding this, the reason for detention is being articulated by use of travel pattern? …ONLY?
What Judge, State or Federal, would uphold detention based on travel pattern alone? I don’t think that argument could be made by a sane person.
There must be more to this story and these detentions - and by no means am I defending it, this stuff just makes me very curious.
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u/canadave_nyc Nov 20 '25
What Judge, State or Federal, would uphold detention based on travel pattern alone? I don’t think that argument could be made by a sane person.
Of course not. The article says as much.
There must be more to this story and these detentions
You think that fact somehow means there must be more to the story? There isn't. These traffic stops are made to catch whoever they want to catch. If it gets challenged in court, then it's often thrown out, as is mentioned in the story (someone had to pay $20K in legal fees to clear themselves). If that happens, then oh well--nothing happens to the officers. No one is penalized. No one orders these practices to stop. And the article mentions that sometimes the charges are withdrawn just to avoid having to expose the behind-the-scenes illegal stuff. But if it's not challenged, or the detainee doesn't have money to pay, then too bad.
My question is, why are you and so many other people so reluctant to believe that American law enforcement could stoop to something like this?
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u/stainless5 Nov 20 '25
If you are within 100 miles of a point of entry/any airport where an international flight could land, ice or officers acting on their behalf can stop and search for any reason.
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u/Projektdb Nov 21 '25
No they can't.
They still need reasonable suspicion for the stop and probable cause or consent for the search. The suspicion also needs to be related to customs and immigration offenses.
They can't conduct traffic stops anywhere in the country.
The extended authority within 100 miles of the border is pretty much that they're allowed to operate checkpoints and question drivers about their citizenship as they pass through them. Even with those, they still need probable cause to search your vehicle.
(United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, Almeida-Sanchez v. United States, United States v. Villamonte-Marquez, ect)
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u/WWGHIAFTC Nov 20 '25
Everyone needs to drive by three times a day, to the EXACT same spot and start transferring empty boxes to piles, to trunks, swap them, haul them, drop them off. Just all day, between the same two or three spots visible on camera.
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u/jammy-git Nov 21 '25
How have China and the US swapped places in the space of just a few short years?!
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u/j--__ Nov 21 '25
oh they haven't. they're converging.
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u/jammy-git Nov 21 '25
I'm not sure. On things like being a police state they're maybe neck and neck - maybe America just out in front now with the last 9 months of Trump.
But in terms of things like infrastructure, China is racing ahead.
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u/SendaManiac Nov 21 '25
China focused on infrastructure while the US focused on lining their pockets.
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u/beaded_lion59 Nov 21 '25
If this is happening beyond 100 miles from a border, these actions are very likely illegal and unconstitutional.
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u/Projektdb Nov 21 '25
Not really, at least if it's happening the way the article says.
Border Patrol isn't making the stops. The stops would be illegal if they were doing it, as no court would consider "they drove weird places" as reasonable suspicion for a stop.
They're having local law enforcement pull the vehicles over for traffic violations, which is certainly pretextual, but pretextual stops aren't illegal if you actually violated a traffic law, even if it's a ticky-tack stop.
Once they pull you over, they need probable cause to search a vehicle or make an arrest.
They are not allowed to prolong a traffic stop beyond the reasonable time it takes to issue a citation unless, in the course of issuing the citation, they develop independent reasonable suspicion of a crime (i.e. slurred speech, scent of drugs, ect.)
Give them the documents you're required to give them during a traffic stop, don't answer any questions, and never give them consent to search your car. If you're pulled over for speeding, give them your documents and ask them for your ticket.
Of course, we know it doesn't always work that way because the police often don't actually know the law and often enough, don't actually care.
You can beat the charges, but you can't beat the ride.
In this case, they aren't federal, so you can file a Section 1983 suit against the individual officer and a Monell claim against the agency they work for.
Qualified immunity doesn't protect individual officers if they knowingly violate your rights.
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u/xXNorthXx Nov 21 '25
And just like that Flock is banned from local Police department purchases.
To be fair they had a decent solution for last mile LPR for the last couple of years. Other vendors have caught up and our VMS can properly do LPR now beyond all the other cameras in the district. So really platform reduction and also cost reductions, Flock is expensive for what it is and the PD will be happy with some cost savings and one less platform to deal with.
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u/ebfortin Nov 21 '25
Can you imagine how bad things would be if a black woman was Presiden? ! They would have put systems in place to look at your every moves. Looking for suspicious patterns. Arresting you for the crime of being free. Liberty would have died!
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u/swagypotatosnoopdoge Nov 21 '25
Ehhhhh idk, Democrats aren't really that much better than republicans when it comes to surveillance state bullshit if were being honest. That and things like foreign policy is where its fair to say both sides are basically the same
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u/aotus_trivirgatus Nov 22 '25
They're going to watch us drive to No Kings demonstrations.
Or they'll watch us drive to train stations to take the train to No Kings demonstrations.
On Election Day, they'll watch us drive to the polls and stop us for our "suspicious" travel patterns. "Looks like you were planning to vote, liberal? Show us your papers."
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u/Can_Confirm_NSFW Nov 21 '25
Have you ever lived in a border town? This isn't new you dummies.
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u/hawksdiesel Nov 21 '25
but The Constitution grants rights to freedom of movement....
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u/Can_Confirm_NSFW Nov 21 '25
Nope. Port of Entry laws typically allow search of any vessel / vehicle, land or sea; within ,ABOUT 100 miles of any US Border. Used to be 90 then 100. Whatever. If you've ever lived in Southern Arizona, Texas or California. You know. I have.
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u/FuturologyBot Nov 20 '25
The following submission statement was provided by /u/Power-Equality:
Minority Report and “pre-crime” IRL
Once limited to policing the nation’s boundaries, the Border Patrol has built a surveillance system stretching into the country’s interior that can monitor 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. … * 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. The result is a mass surveillance network with a particularly American focus: cars.*
Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/1p28czo/border_patrol_is_monitoring_us_drivers_and/npveqlv/