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DEA has had license plate reading cameras on U.S. highways for a while. In particular they record every car on some routes in California, Texas, Arizona and recently Utah using ELSAG cameras though they usually make no attempt to hide them.

They analyze the data looking for people transporting drugs from the Mexican border among other things. Maybe they are just expanding the program to watch the traffic along the northern border too.

So, yea welcome to the big brother police state, we've been in it a while now. Say cheese!!

Being an American living in a Southern border city, I cross several DHS checkpoints to travel laterally across the country and each and every time my ass puckers up. They run dogs around my car and send me to secondary because I lose the staring contest or they're in a bad mood. I HATE being asked where I'm going and what I'm doing even though I'm the lone person in the car, Caucasian, never having travelled to Mexico.

Worse, the constitution-free zone extends 100 miles inland. That region is where I spend 95% of my time.

and probably up to 100 miles inland from the actual border, too.
https://www.checkpointusa.org/

Citizen review boards helps some of this but.. yeah, I totally agree with you.

I don't know how to fix this problem, but its bad and getting worse.. There is a guy out there you might find interesting.. he runs a Youtube channel he calls the Obscured Truth Network. Apparently he has attempted to fight back by bringing police, city officials and judges before a grand jury, not sure what his status is on that.

http://www.youtube.com/user/obscuredtruth
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYYytQqkg2M
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6ETi2HZtp0

I don't talk to police.. I try to stay as far away from them as I can and would even hesitate calling them for help because they can make situation worse as evident by that lady that called the police and was taken to jail by them and forcibly strip searched by male officers. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PF6_Q-6cvw (I hate that news story. A voluntary opportunity *OR ELSE* is not an actual voluntary choice.) They are basically a gang.

Also you might like Checkpoint USA.. A guy named Terry who is also refusing to comply.
https://www.checkpointusa.org/blog/

P.S. Found a reference - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Martinez-Fuerte

"We have held that checkpoint searches are constitutional only if justified by consent or probable cause to search....And our holding today is limited to the type of stops described in this opinion. -[A]ny further detention...must be based on consent or probable cause." i.e. Without probable cause, like noises coming from the trunk, the homeland security checkpoints that are randomly placed in certain states may NOT search your car.

Here's a useful resource:
https://www.checkpointusa.org/blog/

That's nice to know, as I must cross such an internal "security" checkpoint near the San Onofre nuclear power plant in SoCal.

I was pulled over one day, while late for work to the north, and subjected to a barrage of questions about my ethnic identity (I am really obviously caucasian), my country of birth, my native language (I speak better English than my interrogator), etc. etc. until I was pulled over and they demanded that I exit my vehicle so that they could search my car.

I refused and asked them what their probable cause was.

Border Patrol told me they didn't have to divulge that information.

I replied that they did, and, after a long stare-off, they let me go.

Pissed me off...

P.S. Found a reference - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Martinez-Fuerte

"We have held that checkpoint searches are constitutional only if justified by consent or probable cause to search....And our holding today is limited to the type of stops described in this opinion. -[A]ny further detention...must be based on consent or probable cause." i.e. Without probable cause, like noises coming from the trunk, the homeland security checkpoints that are randomly placed in certain states may NOT search your car.

Here's a useful resource:
https://www.checkpointusa.org/blog/

Are these the guys you want banging at your door at random for the inevitable(give it a few more years) state-sponsored "health and wellness" checks?

Correct, espically since they've elected Obama as there president. His choices for Federal Cabinet positions are all former Gestapo leaders, or wannabe's at least.

Does the DHS have even one documented case of this information preventing said activity?

I doubt it. I drive through one of these about once a month and I always chuckle at the sign which reads "Terrorist threat level -- yellow".

I've ranted about them before so I'll just quickly say that they're there to catch low-hanging fruit like personal drug use and DUI to scare other citizens and fatten the county's coffers through citation. But I have a recent, true story to add:

A VERY law-abiding acquaintance(we'll call him "Jack") who is a retired State government worker was stopped at one of the checkpoints. They ran a dog around the car and the dog went apeshit. The CBP officers asked if they could search the car, even going so far as to say, "look, if you have something small like a joint, maybe we can make a deal". Of course, there were no drugs in "Jack"'s car so Jack told them to fuck off and get another dog. They did, and whaddya know, the other dog didn't smell shit and so they sent "Jack" on his merry way.

[tinfoil hat]They probably train a dog to scratch at every fifth car to instill fear among the others who have to watch and to see if they can generate an excuse to tear the car apart looking for bad stuff.[/tinfoil hat] And why not? It worked for FISA and all the retroactive "probable cause" bullshit associated with its gutting of our privacy.

DHS are the gestapo. They have been explicitly referred to as the Gestapo by two lawmakers, Luis V. Gutierrez(D-ill) and Sam Farr(D-CA).

They have been placed in charge of thoughtcrime and IP enforcement among others.

Are these the guys you want banging at your door at random for the inevitable(give it a few more years) state-sponsored "health and wellness" checks?

The operation, which involves Border Patrol agents diverted from border operations, specifically targets recreational marijuana users at internal suspicionless 'immigration' checkpoints where the county sheriff has cross-certified Homeland Security agents to enforce state/county law as long as the bulk of the citations and fines end up in county coffers...This joint operation serves as a stark example of the inevitable mission creep associated with the use of suspicionless DHS immigration checkpoints against the traveling public inside the country. ...in 2000, the U.S. Supreme Court specifically struck down as unconstitutional, checkpoints used to detect the presence of illegal narcotics...

and so it goes.

Another noteworthy but absurt point is that Immigration and Customs is now going after child porn across state lines as part of their shadowy Operation Predator. These are the guys who should be AT THE BORDER checking BAGS and PASSPORTS!

When you have one guy and one camera this is a possibility, but when you have a situation where there are dozens of cameras...

Well, for now, this guy seems to be having some good luck recording border agents...

Personally, I'm surprised he hasn't been pounded yet.