Customs Buys Massive Surveillance Power

Customs and Border protection signed a contract with LexisNexis Risk Solutions last year and it is scary both in terms of how much data they have access to and how cheap the cost is.

Anyone is free to execute a similar contract at the company’s discretion as there are very limited laws anywhere prohibiting this.

The contract enables them to collect location data, monitor social media and track cell phone call histories according to records obtained by Just Futures Law (JFL).

These capabilities are even more extensive than the ones that Immigration and Customs Enforcement has.

Don’t think that these agencies are using these powers legally all the time. Their own inspector general called them out for using cell site simulators for surveillance without proper authorization.

All of this only costs CBP $3 million a year.

The contract says they are providing facial recognition and social media surveillance, but LexisNexis says they are not providing that.

According to documents received, they have geolocation analysis and geographic mapping of cell data. They are also providing personal information from 10,000 government and private sources.

The system provides them access to real time jail booking information as well.

Similar to what would normally require a search warrant if the government did this itself rather than buying it, the service provides pen register capabilities, giving CBP access to real time information on calls from a given device, including numbers it called and the duration of those calls.

By matching this information with other LexisNexis information, they can match data from 280 million Americans with the real time data they are collecting.

While LexisNexis says they are not currently providing facial recognition, the documents say that the requirements include the ability to incorporate images from different law enforcement sources to perform facial recognition.

Again, they say they are not providing Babel X to CBP. Babel X can link social security numbers to phone numbers with social media profiles and location data. Previous reports say that CBP does use Babel X. Possibly, that is under a different agreement.

The reason they are doing this is that asking a judge for a warrant requires probable cause. All this requires is that the government prints money.

Credit: The Record

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