Customs and Border Protection (CBP) just got its hands on a whole bunch of location data. The news service Motherboard uncovered a procurement order for $476,000 paid to the company Venntel Software last month. Venntel specializes in location data mining, compiling and selling GPS data gathered on users from various phone apps.
The technology allows the CBP to draw a perimeter around a geographical area, and obtain the location data for any phones in that area. In this way, CBP could draw a circle around one particular home, acquire the data from it, and surmise that the few devices in that home belong to the homeowners.
This allows Customs and Border Protection to ignore laws that require them to obtain a warrant before surveilling particular subjects. They simply purchase the data, instead of having to show probable cause that a crime has been committed.
And keep in mind that CBP does not just target immigrants. They recently flew their surveillance drones over cities outside the border zone to help other local and federal law enforcement agencies identify and monitor protesters.
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