Ride the Lightning

Secret DEA Programs Tracks Us As We Drive

January 28, 2015

In today's world, no invasion of privacy should surprise us.

The Drug Enforcement Administration is operating a secret program to track vehicle movement throughout the United States through license plate readers, according to the American Civil Liberties Union and The Wall Street Journal.

The program uses high-tech cameras on major highways to track time, direction and location of vehicles, according to the Journal. Some cameras are also able to record images of drivers and passengers. The story relies on documents obtained by the ACLU through a Freedom of Information Act request and interviews with anonymous sources. An ACLU summary is here.

The vehicle tracking program began in 2008 with a focus on cars in states near the Southwest border, part of an effort to fight drug trafficking. I guess I get that part. A year later, state and local authorities began participating in the program. Their local cameras feed into the network, and the data is used to track vehicles linked to other crimes, such as kidnapping, murder and rape. About 100 cameras were feeding into the database in 2011- current numbers are unknown, but my guess is that they have replicated like bunnies.

A Justice Department spokesman said that the time period for retaining the data has been reduced from two years to three months. OK, that part I like.

But I still agree with ACLU senior policy analyst Jay Stanley, who criticized the secret program saying “Any database that collects detailed location information about Americans not suspected of crimes raises very serious privacy questions, It’s unconscionable that technology with such far-reaching potential would be deployed in such secrecy."

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