I appeared today on RT America based on the following post at Reason’s Hit & Run Blog:
DEA Wants to Track Your License Plate, and You May Already Be Tagged!
I distinctly remember, when I was a kid, watching an episode of Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom, during which Marlin Perkins lounged safely in a camp chair, while Jim Fowler put a lion in a headlock, bit a hole in the cat’s ear, and then attached a tag for easy tracking. Well, it went something like that, anyway. It’s been a long time. Too bad Fowler didn’t work for the DEA, or even a biggish police department. He could have saved himself a little sweat and blood by tracking Americans instead of animals, by the simple expedient of setting cameras by the side of the road to capture license plates as they speed by. …
Checkpoint USA
May 28, 2012 at 1:08 amGlad to see this issue getting some attention. Last year I videotaped a DEA surveillance camera array system setup along SR86 in Southern Arizona on the outskirts of a DHS Border Patrol checkpoint and wrote about it here:
https://www.checkpointusa.org/blog/index.php/2011/06/05/p242
Lots of info about the specific equipment being used can be found in the article.
Plug Nickel Outfit
May 29, 2012 at 1:18 pmCheckpoint – thanks for posting that link to your site. There’s a similar array at the BP checkpoint north of Tombstone. I suspected that it was for such purposes and that it was probably linked to a screen somewhere in the shack where the agents shelter – giving them some level of info on the vehicle and building a profile. Saw the same type of set-up at the BP checkpoint on I-10 west of Las Cruces last year also. Haven’t seen the halogens flash at night yet at the Tombstone location – but did see them flash at the Las Cruces checkpoint.