CBP Officers And Contractors Abused Government Databases To Stalk Their Exes

from the because-of-course-they-did dept

This news will come as no surprise to anyone. Those who have been following police misconduct revelations for years have seen this happen time and time and time and time again. Those who are in the business of engaging in police misconduct have known for years that it’s easy to do and it seldom gets punished.

While Flock Safety is currently hoovering up most of the negative headlines about tech-enabled stalking by law enforcement officers, it’s a relative newcomer. Cops (and federal officers) have been exploiting database access for years to do everything from harass complainants to stalk their exes to dig up info on people they’d like to coerce into a sexual relationship.

The documents obtained by Wired come from the DHS OPR (Office of Professional Responsibility). The last time we saw a DHS-adjacent OPR take any action, it was to open investigations into people opposed to ICE, rather than limit itself to the confines of its office: investigating complaints about ICE officer misconduct. So, it’s nice to know the DHS OPR isn’t completely compromised. On the other hand… well…

Internal records obtained by WIRED reveal how, for years, United States Customs and Border Protection employees and contractors were accused of abusing sensitive government databases for reasons that had nothing to do with their jobs. The records contain hundreds of allegations of misuse of law enforcement databases, including federal agents querying data to look up romantic interests, monitor family members, expose various personal information and, in some cases, provide intelligence to suspected smugglers or drug-trafficking organizations.

Acquired through Freedom of Information Act requests to CBP’s Office of Professional Responsibility and the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General, the records reveal the breadth of alleged database abuse by CBP employees spanning more than a decade. 

It is as it is everywhere. If you give someone access to tons of personal data and tracking information and then simply trust that they’ll do the right thing, you’ll always be disappointed. If you wouldn’t trust AI with this access, why would you trust humans? Their goals are far more simplistic, banal, and perverse.

And yet, this is what we’ve been doing for decades: allowing officers to access tons of personal info and providing them tech that can convert digital voyeurism into physical acts of stalking. The databases may be a necessary part of government functionality. But once you add license plate readers, facial recognition tech, and expensive algorithms to the mix, a bit of click-wrap is never going to be enough to deter officers (and government contractors) from using this wealth of information to um… enhance their personal lives.

In one case, a CBP officer allegedly used government databases to contact a flight attendant. In another, an officer was accused of pulling information from trusted-traveler applications to ask people out. Other CBP employees were accused of providing border-crossing data to someone involved in a “heated divorce.” And yet another DHS employee allegedly used controversial ad-tech-derived location data to track several coworkers’ cell phones—which appears to be the first known internal abuse case involving DHS use of ad-tech-derived mobile location data.

That’s the tip of the iceberg. What’s seen here is just what’s been caught and documented. But everyone who wants to do this sort of thing learns stuff from those who have been caught. And it’s not just officers doing the expected ex-stalking. According to the documents, DHS employees and contractors have been caught supplying inside info to drug traffickers and other criminals.

And it’s not going to get better any time soon. Most officers are allowed to resign rather than face discipline or criminal charges. And the private sector’s revolving door just means contractors abusing their access will move on to other jobs in the same field, because surveillance tech companies are similarly uninterested in punishing employees for abusing access to surveillance tech and government databases.

Will this revelation result in meaningful change? Obviously, it won’t. Previous revelations have done little in terms of accountability or oversight. And this administration in particular is deeply opposed to accountability and oversight. Trump himself is openly supportive of law enforcement misconduct. That means the most likely response will be re-tasking the CBP Office of Professional Responsibility to align more with ICE’s bastardized version. The focus will no longer be internal. Instead, the OPR’s power and personnel will be redirected to target Trump critics and amplify the administration’s narratives. The only thing CBP officers and contractors will learn from this is: “Don’t get caught.”

Filed Under: cbp, dhs, law enforcement misconduct, mass deportation, opr, stalking