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DEA Cameras Tracking Hundreds of Millions of Car Journeys Across the US
itwbennett writes: A U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration program set up in 2008 to keep tabs on cars close to the U.S.-Mexican border has been gradually expanded nationwide and is regularly used by other law enforcement agencies in their hunt for suspects. The extent of the system, which is said to contain hundreds of millions of records on motorists and their journeys, was disclosed in documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union as part of a Freedom of Information Act request.
You can get "trusted traveler" status in order to reduce the time it takes to cross the border. Less checks, faster throughput - what's not to love? Even the drug smugglers love it as they have been targeting such travelers and attaching packets of drugs via magnets to the bottoms of said travelers cars. And to make it really helpful for the smugglers, the DEA used to issue decals for the windshield - thus making it really easy to target the travelers.
Smugglers using unwitting drivers to carry drugs from Mexico
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I suspect that the cops have crossed over into paranoia. I have noticed that certain types of crimes are being pretty much ignored even though complaints about those crimes are numerous. There is a saturation point at which arrests get too common and too expensive. Apparently the cops have been following millions of vehicles and compiling records and are certainly spotting quite a bit of crime. Yet we are not seeing people being swept up in large numbers. I wonder how many people who continuously commit crimes are simply being ignored as a matter of economics and also how frightened law enforcement is about it all. Perhaps we are heading for a situation like we see in Mexico or Italy with crime being almost a part of government of the masses.