Transcription
Hey, how you doing, brother? Hey, my name is uh Joel. I'm with the Bear County Sheriff's Office. Uh the only reason I'm stopping you is when I was watching over there, you were drifting over that fog line for I just want to make sure everything's okay. You got your driver's license on you? It's not going to be a ticket. It's going to be a warning.
>> Hey, I'm going to have you step out and sit in my passenger seat while I do your warning. Okay. Thanks a lot, man.
>> The moment he asked me to get out of my vehicle, I knew right away something was fishy about the entire thing. I've been pulled over a few times in my life for speeding tickets and that was a very unnatural thing to be requested for a warning violation. Do you have anything in your vehicle that you're not supposed to have?
>> Okay. All right. Would you allow me to search your vehicle?
>> Not.
>> Okay. So, what I'll do, um, is we have a K9 pretty close, so I'm gonna have a K9 come out and do a walk around your vehicle. He's coming up. I see.
>> What's going on?
>> Yeah. So, it's off that thing, so I don't want to too much, but this is one of the ones.
>> Okay. Um, yeah. If you want to talk to him.
>> Everything matches or what?
>> Yeah. Well, it's the one they uh was that I was looking for. So, it's they've been tracking it.
>> You have a problem with me running my dog on your vehicle here?
>> It's okay. It's okay. Okay. Is there anything that you know that my dog was going to alert on? Any narcotics? Like that? No. Okay. All right, man. I got a positive alert.
>> I'm going to have you sit in the back seat while I search. Um I'm not going to put handcuffs on you or nothing. Right. You're But you are detained because of the positive alert. If we don't find nothing in there, then you'll be good to go, man. Okay.
You think you're just driving around doing your job, doing things with your kids and family, and you find out the government is tracking your location and your whereabouts as you go about your normal life. And they're using this to suggest that a citizen might be doing something wrong. License plate readers are incredibly powerful surveillance. They are collecting mass amounts of information about who people are, where they go, what they do, and who they know. And then that information is now being weaponized by the federal government to identify, track, and arrest community members.
The night before I drove down to Parasol, Texas uh to meet a customer. The next morning, normal day. Everything went very well. Um we left and I started heading back home to Houston. My route back was up, uh Interstate 35 and I was right at the county line when I was pulled over for Bear County. Um we later found out that he was waiting at the county line for me. Before I got pulled over, I was aware of some of the license plate readers. I'd seen them on the side of the road. Um, I never had any direct interaction with them.
>> So, this guy, they've been uh Yeah, I'll tell you later. Uh, a guy called me and said, "Where you at?" And I said, "I'm here." And he's like, "Yeah." So,
>> I told him, "Oh, that was awesome."
>> Hey, sir. The uh the back seat, does it come forward on the left side? Right. The same as the right. Is there anything up in your sunroof? If I bring it back, is it going to drop anything? Okay. All right, we're almost done, man. You're going to be on your way here in a minute. We just got to with a positive alert. We have to do a full
>> I don't know what alert
>> because unfortunately yeah he said he get a hard hit on the driver's side. I don't know.
As it progressed I became more irritated that he was continuing to ask me questions when there was nothing that came back on my license. There was no warrants for my arrest. There was no evidence to suggest anything nefarious. Watching them struggle to get my kids car seats out and just being very rough with your possessions and your child's possessions. Um, at the time I had a six-w week old baby and this was the first trip out of town. So, I was very conscious of our belongings and how to treat car seats and how important they are and just watching them mishandle and throw things out when there was clearly no evidence of to support their their search.
The Bear County Sheriff's Office declined to comment citing pending litigation. We also reached out to the Border Patrol's parent agency, US Customs and Border Protection, and they told us there are policies, laws, and constitutional protections in place to ensure that the license plate reader program operates responsibly and legally. They declined to provide details of its use, citing national security reasons.
[snorts]
>> Yeah, I'm I'm reviewing the K9. So, he's trying to stop. So, and again, this was a uh it was one of those from the app, the intel stops of a
>> and one day turnaround. And uh so what I did to cover my ass in that report, I believe I put before I said I activated red and blue, I did put in there just in case that ever gets questioned, um what you call it subsequent to uh prior knowledge. So
>> yeah, but I mean your travel stop. I mean
>> it it had PC, but just in case they say, "Well, he was being targeted or anything." I didn't lie. I didn't not put something in there to show that it was an intel thing. Uh cuz I I knowing that it was one of those, I was very careful on that stop.
Traveling inside the state of Texas is not illegal. It's not illegal to drive from one city to another and back the next day.
Where our cars are is where we are. Where our cars are is where our family is. Where our cars are is what we're doing and who we're doing it with. These surveillance systems do not make community safer. They make community members more threatened. This problem is only going to get worse and worse. I'd like to see this be illegal for proactive policing. Um these databases, if they exist, need to be locked down. uh it shouldn't be a free-for-all on all the citizens personal data. I used to think if you're not hiding anything, you have nothing to be worried about. If you didn't do anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about. And now I know that even if you did nothing wrong, you still have something to worry about.
>> Okay, sir. We're done. And then you're warning. Amen.