A new report from news outlet NOTUS shows that at least two Texas counties along the U.S.-Mexico border have purchased a product that would allow law enforcement to track devices that emit Bluetooth signals, including cell phones, smartwatches, wireless earbuds, and car entertainment systems. This incredibly personal model of tracking is the latest level of surveillance infrastructure along the U.S.-Mexico border—where communities are not only exposed to a tremendous amount of constant monitoring, but also serves as a laboratory where law enforcement agencies at all levels of government test new technologies.

The product now being deployed in Texas, called TraffiCatch, can detect wifi and Bluetooth signals in moving cars to track them. Webb County, which includes Laredo, has had TraffiCatch technology since at least 2019, according to GovSpend procurement data. Val Verde County, which includes Del Rio, approved the technology in 2022. 

This data collection is possible because all Bluetooth devices regularly broadcast a Bluetooth Device Address. This address can be either a public address or a random address. Public addresses don’t change for the lifetime of the device, making them the easiest to track. Random addresses are more common and have multiple levels of privacy, but for the most part change regularly (this is the case with most modern smartphones and products like AirTags.) Bluetooth products with random addresses would be hard to track for a device that hasn’t paired with them. But if the tracked person is also carrying a Bluetooth device that has a public address, or if tracking devices are placed close to each other so a device is seen multiple times before it changes its address, random addresses could be correlated with that person over long periods of time.

It is unclear whether TraffiCatch is doing this sort of advanced analysis and correlation, and how effective it would be at tracking most modern Bluetooth devices.

According to TraffiCatch’s manufacturer, Jenoptik, this data derived from Bluetooth is also combined with data collected from automated license plate readers, another form of vehicle tracking technology placed along roads and highways by federal, state, and local law enforcement throughout the Texas border. ALPRs are well understood technology for vehicle tracking, but the addition of Bluetooth tracking may allow law enforcement to track individuals even if they are using different vehicles.

This mirrors what we already know about how Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has been using cell-site simulators (CSSs). Also known as Stingrays or IMSI catchers, CSS are devices that masquerade as legitimate cell-phone towers, tricking phones within a certain radius into connecting to the device rather than a tower. In 2023, the Department of Homeland Security’s Inspector General released a troubling report detailing how federal agencies like ICE, its subcomponent Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), and the Secret Service have conducted surveillance using CSSs without proper authorization and in violation of the law. Specifically, the Inspector General found that these agencies did not adhere to federal privacy policy governing the use of CSS and failed to obtain special orders required before using these types of surveillance devices.

Law enforcement agencies along the border can pour money into overlapping systems of surveillance that monitor entire communities living along the border thanks in part to Operation Stonegarden (OPSG), a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) grant program, which rewards state and local police for collaborating in border security initiatives. DHS doled out $90 million in OPSG funding in 2023, $37 million of which went to Texas agencies. These programs are especially alarming to human rights advocates due to recent legislation passed in Texas to allow local and state law enforcement to take immigration enforcement into their own hands.

As a ubiquitous wireless interface to many of our personal devices and even our vehicles, Bluetooth is a large and notoriously insecure attack surface for hacks and exploits. And as TraffiCatch demonstrates, even when your device’s Bluetooth tech isn’t being actively hacked, it can broadcast uniquely identifiable information that make you a target for tracking. This is one in the many ways surveillance, and the distrust it breeds in the public over technology and tech companies, hinders progress. Hands-free communication in cars is a fantastic modern innovation. But the fact that it comes at the cost of opening a whole society up to surveillance is a detriment to all.

公正競争ワーキンググループ（第6回）開催案内

情報通信審議会　電気通信事業政策部会　電気通信番号政策委員会（第33回）　開催案内

令和6年度「スタートアップ創出型萌芽的研究開発支援事業」 研究管理機関の公募の結果

「インターネット上の偽・誤情報対策に係るマルチステークホルダーによる取組集」の公表

情報通信審議会　情報通信技術分科会　ITU部会 放送業務委員会（第53回）会合の開催について

パラグアイ共和国とのICTに係る協力覚書の署名

情報通信審議会 情報通信技術分科会 技術戦略委員会 オール光ネットワーク共通基盤技術WG（第5回）開催案内

In the following two chapters, APC's Paula Martins (global policy lead) and Namita Aavriti (Women's Rights Programme co-manager) expand on the power of ICTs to overcome inequalities along…

　

Guide Features Border Tech Photos, Locations, and Explanation of Capabilities

SAN FRANCISCO—Sensor towers controlled by AI, drones launched from truck-bed catapults, vehicle-tracking devices disguised as traffic cones—all are part of an arsenal of technologies that comprise the expanding U.S surveillance strategy along the U.S.-Mexico border, revealed in a new EFF zine for advocates, journalists, academics, researchers, humanitarian aid workers, and borderland residents.

Formally released today and available for download online in English and Spanish, “Surveillance Technology at the U.S.-Mexico Border” is a 36-page comprehensive guide to identifying the growing system of surveillance towers, aerial systems, and roadside camera networks deployed by U.S.-law enforcement agencies along the Southern border, allowing for the real-time tracking of people and vehicles.

The devices and towers—some hidden, camouflaged, or moveable—can be found in heavily populated urban areas, small towns, fields, farmland, highways, dirt roads, and deserts in California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas.

The zine grew out of work by EFF’s border surveillance team, which involved meetings with immigrant rights groups and journalists, research into government procurement documents, and trips to the border. The team located, studied, and documented spy tech deployed and monitored by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), National Guard, and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), often working in collaboration with local law enforcement agencies.

“Our team learned that while many people had an abstract understanding of the so-called ‘virtual wall,’ the actual physical infrastructure was largely unknown to them,” said EFF Director of Investigations Dave Maass. “In some cases, people had seen surveillance towers, but mistook them for cell phone towers, or they’d seen an aerostat flying in the sky and not known it was part of the U.S. border strategy.

“That's why we put together this zine; it serves as a field guide to spotting and identifying the large range of technologies that are becoming so ubiquitous that they are almost invisible,” said Maass.

The zine also includes a copy off EFF’s pocket guide to crossing the U.S. border and protecting information on smart phones, computers, and other digital devices.

The zine is available for republication and remixing under EFF’s Creative Commons Attribution License and features photography by Colter Thomas and Dugan Meyer, whose exhibit “Infrastructures of Control,”—which incorporates some of EFF’s border research—opened in April at the University of Arizona. EFF has previously released a gallery of images of border surveillance that are available for publications to reuse, as well as a living map of known surveillance towers that make up the so-called “virtual wall.”

To download the zine: https://www.eff.org/pages/zine-surveillance-technology-us-mexico-border

For more on border surveillance: https://www.eff.org/issues/border-surveillance-technology

For EFF’s searchable Atlas of Surveillance: https://atlasofsurveillance.org/ 

 

Contact:  DaveMaassDirector of Investigationsdm@eff.org

　TBSのOBで元JCJ事務局長の林豊さんが３月１７日、逝去された。享年７８才。　御子息によれば死因は心臓と肝臓ということだが、そうした疾患で苦しんでおられたことを知っていたJCJの仲間はいないのではなかろうか。もの静かで我慢強い人であった。　TBSにはアルバイターとして入社したそうで、民放労連の「二重身分反対闘争」の成果で正社員になれたという苦労人。その闘争を指導した組合執行部にたいする感謝の念と組合活動の重要性を強く心に刻んでいる人でもあった。JCJへの加入も自然の成り行..