A new report claims the government is stockpiling a vast national database of Americans' license plates and driving habits, a program that was formed to combat drugs but one that has grown in size.
The
Wall Street Journal reports the program is run by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). Its primary purpose is to collect information that leads to the seizure of money, cars, and other pieces of the war on drugs.
The program, however, has expanded from the United States' border with Mexico to the rest of the country. And it is now being used to track down other criminals, from murders and rapists to kidnapping suspects, according to the Journal.
The report says law enforcement agencies at the state and local levels are using the database as they search for criminals. And, according to the DEA, it's legal.
"It is not new that the DEA uses the license-plate reader program to arrest criminals and stop the flow of drugs in areas of high trafficking intensity," a Justice Department spokesman told the Journal.
Lawmakers, however, are not so sure.
Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Democrat, said the practice "raises significant privacy concerns. The fact that this intrusive technology is potentially being used to expand the reach of the government's asset-forfeiture efforts is of even greater concern."
Leahy added that Americans should not have to worry "their locations and movements are constantly being tracked and stored in a massive government database."
Jay Stanley, an ACLU senior policy analyst, echoed Leahy's feelings.
"Any database that collects detailed location information about Americans not suspected of crimes raises very serious privacy questions," Stanley told the Journal. "It's unconscionable that technology with such far-reaching potential would be deployed in such secrecy. People might disagree about exactly how we should use such powerful surveillance technologies, but it should be democratically decided, it shouldn't be done in secret."
The program works, according to the Journal, through video cameras on major U.S. highways. The cameras track cars' license plates to see where they are going and when. The cameras, according to documents cited by the Journal, are run by local, state, and federal authorities.
The DEA was using 100 cameras to build its database in 2011, the Journal reports. And the program is apparently working.
The Journal cites documents that show the program helped the DEA seize nearly 100 kilograms of cocaine, more than 8,000 kilograms of marijuana, and $866,380 in cash — all in 2010. The program also helps authorities find abducted children through the Amber Alert program.
The program is just one of many domestic spying programs that are currently being employed within the U.S. In November, a report claimed the U.S. Marshals Service is gathering cellphone data though
devices on airplanes that mimic cellphone towers.
Early last year, another report outlined how
police agencies are using stingray devices to capture cellphone data. And in the fall, another report claimed there are
fake cellphone towers sprinkled across the nation that steal cellphone data.
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