Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

DEA Cameras Tracking Hundreds of Millions of Car Journeys Across the US

Posted by Soulskill on from the you-can-trust-us dept.

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.

33 of 152 comments (clear)

  1. Cam-tastic by JSG · · Score: 5, Insightful

    As a Brit, I'll feel right at home in the US now.

    1. Re:Cam-tastic by SternisheFan · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The fact that drugs are illegal is the true problem.

    2. Re:Cam-tastic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Just suck it up, citizen. Think of the careers of all those DEA and other law enforcement agents! You wouldn't dare destroy those jobs, now would you?

    3. Re:Cam-tastic by SternisheFan · · Score: 2

      Oh, the boot-stompers have families to feed too, and we should consider this? I've taken on some jobs that I later learned were not in line with my moral coder. I quit and did something else, wasn't that difficult.

    4. Re:Cam-tastic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Just suck it up, citizen. Think of the careers of all those DEA and other law enforcement agents! You wouldn't dare destroy those jobs, now would you?

      On the opposite end of the spectrum, they're suppressing the creation of jobs and an entire industry by maintaining a bullshit stance and justification for exiting positions.

      DEA you want to stop heroin and meth labs? Have at it, but for fucks sake stop spending billions fighting a goddamn plant.

    5. Re:Cam-tastic by Slashjones · · Score: 2

      It's *one* problem, but mass surveillance would still be wrong either way.

    6. Re:Cam-tastic by gstoddart · · Score: 5, Insightful

      What makes you think they give a damn about the Constitution?

      It's now a quaint notion, and every law enforcement agency is making the case that they shouldn't have follow that ... and until a court says otherwise and starts throwing these clowns in jail, do you really think you get a say in the matter?

      The law doesn't apply to law enforcement -- which means it's only a matter of time before the outright corruption and shakedowns becomes like every other banana republic where the police can do whatever they choose.

      As soon as the feds started teaching law enforcement to use parallel construction, and effectively commit perjury and bypass your Constitutional rights ... everyone was pretty much fucked, because "law enforcement" is now about what they can make stick, not what they can prove through legal means.

      You now have a nascent stasi, only some people still cling to the belief that's not actually happening, or that at the very least it's for your own good and therefore OK.

      Papers please, comrade -- if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    7. Re:Cam-tastic by mwvdlee · · Score: 2

      But how else would the law enforcement industry guarentee continued profit growth?
      Won't somebody please think of the corporations?

      --
      Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
    8. Re:Cam-tastic by dcw3 · · Score: 2

      Like it or not, the DEA is doing the job they're supposed to do. If you want them to do what you said, then get the laws changed.

      --
      Just another day in Paradise
    9. Re:Cam-tastic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Just suck it up, citizen. Think of the careers of all those DEA and other law enforcement agents! You wouldn't dare destroy those jobs, now would you?

      On the opposite end of the spectrum, they're suppressing the creation of jobs and an entire industry by maintaining a bullshit stance and justification for exiting positions.

      DEA you want to stop heroin and meth labs? Have at it, but for fucks sake stop spending billions fighting a goddamn plant.

      Then hurry up and vote it into legality, ffs. You act as if the DEA made the laws they are tasked with enforcing.

    10. Re:Cam-tastic by cayenne8 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Where in the Constitution it is not ok for them to do this? After all, you are on public roads, you still can go anywhere you want. I don't see where they are violating the Constitution here.

      Remember, the Constitution doesn't grant YOU rights, those are natural. The Constitution is there to GRANT the federal govt very limited, enumerated rights. Basically it is supposed to be there to grant them rights and responsibilities, and anything NOT in the constitution is not something they are supposed to be able to do. This was the foundation for a limited, and minimally intrusive form of Federal Govt., which has been bastardized over the years, and many of us would prefer to have reigned in.

      The govt is not supposed to be there to track me, nor put out a blanket dragnet of surveillance to try to find any wrongdoers out there. Especially at the Federal level. Possibly more able to at the state level, but at least on state and local level, you have a bit more recourse and influence over the local politicians than at a federal level.

      Not to mention, if you don't like the rules of one state you are free to move to a more like minded state. If this is done federally and nationally, you lose that freedom.

      But yes, the Constitution is there to grant very LIMITED and enumerated rights, roles and responsibilities for the federal govt. If it isn't in it the constitution, it should not be a power they have.

      At least, that's the way and thought behind the construction and mandate of our govt. in the beginning.

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    11. Re:Cam-tastic by SternisheFan · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Education and drug treatment is key to the drug problem, not draconian laws that jail and destroy the lives of otherwise law abiding citizens. Make all drug use legal so the cost is not prohibitive, and you will see a huge drop in crimes like burglaries and car theft and many others. Let's let Darwin's law sort out those who can't properly use them. Alcohol is a legal drug, been declared a drug by the FDA for over 30 years now. How did prohibition work out? Oh yeah, made millions for the mob and hootch runners, and didn't solve anything, later repealed. You want to be a coke/heroin/meth head? Go for it, just know how life destroying it is to you and the people around you. Want to fly a plane or drive a bus/car/taxi/ or any job that requires being sober? Be a good parent to your kids? No, of course you can't be an addict to any substance and be able to do those things. Lose your job, kids, whatever, and go live your life of addiction. The heavy drugs do own the user, this is true. That's the price to be paid for not wanting to live a decent life. But to have heavy handed laws that target citizens for personal drug use is asinine, and not productive for society. Smoke a joint, eat a brownie, shoot heroin, that's all fine. As long as no one else is affected in any negative way by your personal conduct, there's no problem except for the user.

    12. Re:Cam-tastic by ihtoit · · Score: 2

      no, the problem is the pharmaceutical industry (in the case of opiates, which USED TO BE LEGAL) and the paper industry (WHICH USED TO BE MADE FROM HEMP) stifling competition with the weight of lobbying and propaganda - which you have swallowed hook, line and sinker.

      --
      Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
    13. Re:Cam-tastic by jpapon · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The Constitution is there to GRANT the federal govt very limited, enumerated rights.

      This is not really true. The Bill of Rights is a list of things that the government specifically cannot do. It would not be necessary if the Constitution didn't grant the federal government some pretty broad powers (such as the power to make and enforce laws).

      --
      -- Let us endeavor so to live that when we pass even the undertaker shall be sorry. -- M. Twain
    14. Re:Cam-tastic by Chris+Mattern · · Score: 2

      no, the problem is the pharmaceutical industry (in the case of opiates, which USED TO BE LEGAL

      And when they were legal, the pharmaceutical industry sold them. Made a tidy amount of money at it, too. Why would they want to ban them?

      the paper industry (WHICH USED TO BE MADE FROM HEMP)

      Well, no, at least in the larger sense. There are a few isolated documented cases of making paper from hemp, but for the most part, mass production of paper has always been from wood pulp. I've heard that processing hemp into paper is actually more expensive than using wood pulp, but I can't verify that.

    15. Re:Cam-tastic by SternisheFan · · Score: 2

      At the time, newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst and his rich pals created a dis-information campaign against hemp, demonizing it as a real threat to society, when in fact they themselves felt their paper companies were threatened by the possibility of hemp taking over. Today we still live under the laws created then, and are burdened by them.

    16. Re:Cam-tastic by Penguinisto · · Score: 4, Informative

      One state at a time. Once all states (or at least a majority) have it legal, then the feds will have to either re-evaluate, or double-down on their stance. Considering that the foundation for the relevant laws are tenuous at best, they'll become pretty much useless anyway.

      (I live in Oregon... come July, it'll be perfectly legal here. It's already legal for all uses just over the river in Washington. I don't partake, and haven't for 23 years; OTOH, my wife has a medical license, and it works far better for her than the Oxycodone did. After seeing the improvements it's made in her life, well, the DEA can go fuck itself.)

      --
      Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
    17. Re:Cam-tastic by blue+trane · · Score: 3, Insightful

      But they don't have to break the spirit of the laws against unreasonable search and seizure, they shouldn't profile, and they shouldn't selectively enforce (HSBC money-laundered drug money, they were slapped on the wrist).

      I'm reminded of the Dave Chappelle sketch about what would happen if drug dealers were treated like Wall Street criminals. Tron, testifying before Congress, takes the "fizzith" amendment to every question and gets off scot-free.

    18. Re:Cam-tastic by Immerman · · Score: 2

      The government only has the right to make and enforce those laws Necessary and Proper to the execution of the powers given to it in the constitution.

      As for the bill of rights, that was added later as a second line of defense to address some people's concerns that the government might try to expand beyond the powers granted to it. The 9th and 10th amendments made this fairly explicit:

      9th: The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
      10th: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
  2. Are they using Waze? by gatkinso · · Score: 5, Funny

    Had to ask.

    --
    I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
  3. Welcome to the police state by Ritz_Just_Ritz · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Hope...change....whatever.

    Any excuse is given to erode civil liberties. If it wasn't drugs, it would have been something else.

    1. Re:Welcome to the police state by gstoddart · · Score: 5, Informative

      Let me simplify that alphabet soup for you ... USA.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
  4. The UK's automatic numberplate recognition system by Bruce66423 · · Score: 2

    probably has the same capability, but has not attracted a lot of attention.

  5. And in other news drug smugglers fight back by OzPeter · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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

    --
    I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
  6. I see what you did there. by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Apparently we have no right to go anywhere without car and license plate tracking, and facial recognition software on tens of thousands of cameras. Or in cyberspace without tracking everything. Or using credit and debit cards, to buy anything untracked.

    Dictators of old would dream of such a thing at their disposal. England, having abused it badly during the revolution, would have caused the founding fathers to have banned it all...had they succeeded, which would have been far less likely.

    More and more government observation can "be done by steam", in the words of Blaise Pascal. It shouldn't be. When politicians have a system "they're supposed to" get a warratlnt for (probably not even that in this case) but no penalty or even alarm if they don't, it will be abused to track political opponents to those in power.

    --
    (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
    1. Re:I see what you did there. by gstoddart · · Score: 5, Insightful

      And any pretense of the 4th amendment no longer being completely shat upon is pretty much gone.

      They're pretty much just doing general warrants/blanket surveillance, without probable cause, just in case they find something.

      You are not a free society. You think you are.

      Someone will say how China actually censors, and the usual sputterings about how you're still free -- but the reality is, every damned thing you do it monitored, tracked, collated, cross-referenced, shared, and cataloged .. and then is dutifully shared across agencies so that if one of them wants to trump up charges on you they can.

      With parallel construction, and massive government sharing ... they can incriminate you any number of ways, none of which involve the truth, probably cause, or proper court oversight. If you become troublesome, they'll just sift through the vast catalog of your life and try you for something they find.

      Papers, please, comrade.

      Western society is pretty much fucked ... the only difference is if those in power will force us to pray, or keep us quiet with American Idol. But "security" is every bit the threat to us as religious extremists.

      But make no mistake about it, our freedoms and rights ended on 9/11, and the US is steadily making themselves, and everyone else on the planet, far less free.

      America has now become the enemy of freedom and liberty of everybody on the fucking planet.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
  7. Coincidence? by hcs_$reboot · · Score: 2

    A U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration program set up in 2008

    Hmmm that's exactly the year of Breaking Bad TV show debut...

    --
    Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
  8. Cops Frighten Themselves by JimSadler · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  9. Re:Preposterous by SternisheFan · · Score: 2

    Those news stories are meant to keep the public distracted from what's really going on. It's the old pickpocket/magician's trick of misdirection, watch the left hand waving about, pay no attention to the other hand slipping into your pocket.

  10. The hunt for suspects by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 4, Funny

    their hunt for suspects.

    Is that the hunt for people already under suspicion, or a hunt for new names to add to the list?

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
  11. I guess I can drive on toll roads again by davidwr · · Score: 2

    I was boycotting them because of the cameras, but now it's like "oh well, either I stay locked in my house all day, invent a Harry Potter cloak for my car and hope I don't get hit because I'm invisible, or smile for the camera."

    That middle option is looking mighty attractive right now.

    --
    Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
  12. Re:Preposterous by SternisheFan · · Score: 2

    Of course, DEA deflated themselves the footballs to distracte public from this news. *sigh*

    What's with the sigh? I never suggested that anyone in a 3 letter agency purposely sent agents to deflate footballs. However when a simple news story, or whatever TV show, takes over the publics attention, it keeps said public from seeing and hearing about issues that do matter.

  13. Seattle does the same thing by bobjr94 · · Score: 2

    In Seattle they have patrol cars parked around the city with special license plate reader equipment than scan and record all passing cars. They say its only for finding stolen cars and wanted felons. But when asked by news media how long they keep these records, they said forever. They don't see a reason why they should not keep a database where a person drives and how often. http://seattletimes.com/html/l...