DHS 'Predictive Policing' Unit Is Analyzing Americans' Financial Habits
Border Patrol is utilizing 'Predictive Intelligence Targeting Teams' to analyze the financial and movement data of Americans to justify traffic stops. Critics argue this practice, known as parallel construction, allows law enforcement to bypass probable cause requirements by using secret data to create pretexts for stops.
Why it matters
The use of predictive policing and financial surveillance by federal agencies raises significant concerns regarding civil liberties and the Fourth Amendment.
Border Patrol is running secretive predictive policing units that analyze Americans’ financial activity and other data, then feed that intelligence to local police who pull people over who are not suspected of any specific crime, but which the government thinks may be worth searching, 404 Media has found.
The units, the name of which 404 Media is revealing here for the first time, are called Predictive Intelligence Targeting Teams (PITT). In one case, a PITT analyzed the financial activity of a man who was driving across Montana, and local authorities stopped him under the pretense of an obstructed license plate and charged him with a DUI.
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