404 Media released an investigative article on the 8th exposing DHS’s new secretive pre-crime “predictive policing” unit called Predictive Intelligence Targeting Teams(PITT). These are Border Patrol teams that use the financial activity and other collected electronic intelligence, including data fed from surveillance cameras like Flock’s AI powered automatic license plate readers(ALPRs), to target Americans for unlawful stops, searches, and detentions.
Note- there’s a distinction between what’s happening here and the people who have been erroneously accused of crimes due to police incompetence and their overreliance on Flock ALPRs. Like the innocent 23 year old woman who was falsely accused of killing three people in a hit and run, had her vehicle impounded for seven months, was jailed for 13 days, and faced the possibility of life in prison due to that accusation. The only evidence police had was that her black SUV had shown up on a Flock camera 4 miles away from the crash site, and a witness at the crash said it was a black SUV which caused the accident. They put her through seven months of hell based on her vehicle(which had no damage) showing up on a Flock camera near the crash site.
What DHS’s PITT teams are doing is equally if not more evil, but in a different way. Their predictive intelligence software, probably powered by Palantir and almost certainly using AI puts together profiles of people who the software suspects of committing crimes- like drug trafficking. It then sends that information out to local police who pull over drivers with a pretext that their license plate was covered or they crossed the median. The cops then go fishing for illegal activity.
This is called “parallel construction.” The cops can’t admit that they pulled you over because DHS’s Palantir AI performed illegal warrantless surveillance on you and accessed sensitive financial and other information they shouldn’t legally have access to, so, they say that your tail light’s out, or your window tint looked too dark. Then they go on a fishing expedition to see if they can find some way that you broke the law.
In November the AP reported on the Border Patrol’s mass surveillance network that stretches across the interior of the U.S. and targets U.S. citizens. The stops that Border Patrol make are not based on any law written by congress or evidence that any crime was committed. It is based entirely on their own internal criteria which includes driver’s behavior that’s deemed suspicious, like driving on backcountry roads, driving a rental car, or making short trips to the border region.
If you’re not doing anything illegal you have nothing to hide.
Just to pre-empt this comment, you’re wrong. Gutierrez Lugo was pulled over on the pretext of speeding and court documents showed that Border Patrol’s predictive algorithm flagged him for potentially smuggling contraband. They searched his truck and found no contraband yet he was still arrested, on suspicion of money laundering and engaging in organized criminal activity. All because they found a couple thousand dollars of cash on him. Gutierrez delivers furniture to small Latino communities and those customers like to pay in cash.
No criminal charges were ultimately brought against Gutierrez Lugo but they still tried to seize the cash and his vehicle. Finally with the help of lawyers Gutierrez had all of these motions dropped.
He did nothing wrong! He was driving around delivering furniture. Yet his life was upended, his job put in jeopardy, and his freedom was at risk because Border Patrol’s mass surveillance network and predictive policing AI said that this guy makes too many trips near the border, he must be smuggling contraband.
The fourth amendment protects against unlawful searches and seizures. Police in America don’t get to stop you on the suspicion that you might have committed a crime. That’s draconian, right? That’s what would happen in an authoritarian police state where you don’t have rights and the police get to do whatever they want with you, like North Korea, right?
Well, sorry, that’s the reality in the U.S. today. I got a message from a viewer this week that her nephew was pulled out of the car he was riding in, handcuffed and ID’d by ICE and eventually released because he’s a U.S. citizen. They had no reason to stop the car except that the occupants looked Hispanic.
The terror that ICE spreads to immigrant communities is not about immigration. This is what they want to do to all of us. And now we’re seeing another glimpse with this predictive policing of the police state that we’ll all suffer under.
The man pulled over in this video obtained by 404 Media is a citizen. He’s white. Yet now he’s fighting DUI charges and intent to distribute narcotics because DHS’s AI told local cops to pull him over.
If we don’t stop this here and now we’re going to face a future where you’ll be harassed by cops because of your voting record. You’ll be detained and searched, and have your phone and computers confiscated because of the political views that you expressed online(this already routinely happens to citizens and non-citizens at airports). You’ll be flagged as high-risk and met with guns-drawn if their AI data shows that you own firearms- just like ICE routinely draws their weapons during immigration stops today. They’ll look for any reason to put you behind bars and likely laws will be passed which criminalizes being anti-fascist, which criminalizes being a leftist.
Remember, everything that happened in Nazi Germany was legal.
You must organize locally. Join PSL, DSA, Black Panthers, John Brown Gun Club. Start your own org if one isn’t nearby. Make sure you’re registered to vote, vote early, and drop off your ballots in-person.
We will win. Nothing lasts forever and fascist governments have a history of self-destructing. Just keep doing whatever you can.
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there now.
There was an article in the Sun Sentinel yesterday about how the uproar about Flock cameras has caused DeathSantis to shut it down and remove them on all State Roads “because he doesn’t want Florida becoming a police state.” He put them there…now he doesn’t like the blowback? Some cities are going as far as shutting down other ALPR’s as well.
We will win and make sure you are registered to vote regularly and “do” drop off your mail ballot at an early voting site or SOE office before that.
Ben Franklin said it best. Don't sacrifice liberty for security, Ben Dover.