Security1 publisher2 min readPublished
White House drug program pools city Flock and Axon plate reads on federal servers
White House drug program HIDTA, with 33 regional programs covering every state, pulls local Flock and Axon plate data onto federal servers, 404 Media reports. The outlet calls it an end-around to the limits cities are now placing on how Flock data is used.
The Watch · Security desk
What happened
- Agencies can search the pooled reads through HIDTA systems even when they have no contract of their own with Flock, Axon or another plate reader vendor.
- Georgia bars cities from running plate readers on state rights of way unless they sign a memorandum of understanding, one of several state and White House steps to feed local systems into HIDTA.
- The Trump White House recently gave HIDTA an award for managing a plate reader platform that brings together all levels of law enforcement.
- Many of the records behind the report came from public records requests filed by Cris van Pelt, who created HaveIBeenFlocked.com and the Footnote4a blog.
Compiled by The WatchSomething wrong?How this is made
Why it matters
- exposure A city's record of who searched its plate reads covers its own vendor account; searches of the pooled copy happen on federal servers the city does not run.
- decision Georgia cities that want cameras on state rights of way must sign the MOU first, so keeping their reads out of HIDTA would cost them those camera sites.
- precedent Hemisphere and the plate pool are both ONDCP projects serving HIDTA users, so the practice belongs to the office, and a limit won from one vendor or one regional center leaves it standing.
Nobody clearly controls the pooled copy. Each HIDTA intelligence center is managed by an executive board, usually made up of law enforcement officials and government lawyers, and 404 Media reports that the setup can cause confusion about who is actually in charge of the data a given HIDTA collects [12]. The centers resemble fusion centers, where local, state and federal police share surveillance data, but they are separate from them [12]. The program as a whole sits under the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) [6].
The data does not always stay at HIDTA. In some cases it is shared again, into a larger DEA system called the National License Plate Reader Program [3]. At that point a read is two transfers away from the city that installed the camera. The route runs through a drug trafficking grant program created in the 1980s [1].
"The whole scheme adds another layer of obfuscation of how license plate reader data is being used and who is using it," Jeramie Scott, director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center's Surveillance Oversight Center, told 404 Media [13].
ONDCP has built a pool like this before. It funded Hemisphere, a call records database that collected phone records and location data on more than a trillion AT&T calls [10]. Scott said Hemisphere was used by HIDTA participants and that the office "has apparently done a similar thing for license plate reader data" [14]. "The government went to great lengths to keep the Hemisphere Project out of the public's eye, and I wouldn't be surprised if they have tried to keep this program from the public too," he said [15].
The public records and court documents 404 Media reviewed document the data flow itself [1]. The secrecy is Scott's expectation. The claim of a hidden agenda comes from van Pelt, who obtained many of those records. "When local police and private vendors promise community control over surveillance, they obscure a broader agenda. The DEA and ONDCP are already aggregating local data behind the scenes," van Pelt said [9].
What to watch
- A count of cities feeding HIDTA and the number of reads held on its servers would size the pool.
- Any statement from ONDCP or the DEA on which agencies may query HIDTA and National License Plate Reader Program data, and under what rules.
- Whether cities that have restricted Flock sharing move to cut or condition their HIDTA feeds, and whether more states adopt a Georgia-style MOU requirement.