War Zone Surveillance Technology Is Hitting American Streets

Big Brother isn’t just watching you: He’s using your cell phone, smartwatch, wireless earbuds, car entertainment systems and license plates to track your location in real time.

Contracting records and notes from local government meetings obtained by NOTUS show that federal and state Homeland Security grants allow local law enforcement agencies to surveil American citizens with technology more commonly found in war zones and foreign espionage operations.

At least two Texas communities along the U.S.-Mexico border have purchased a product called “TraffiCatch,” which collects the unique wireless and Bluetooth signals emitted by nearly all modern electronics to identify devices and track their movements. The product is also listed in a federal supply catalog run by the U.S. government’s General Services Administration, which negotiates prices and contracts for federal agencies.

“TraffiCatch is unique for the following reasons: ability to detect in-vehicle wireless signals [and] merge such signals with the vehicle license plate,” wrote Jenoptik, the Germany-based manufacturer, in a contracting solicitation obtained by NOTUS under Texas public records law.

In another bid to win a contract from a public consortium that services Texas school districts, Jenoptik describes TraffiCatch as a “wireless device detection” system that “records wireless devices Wifi, Bluetooth and Bluetooth Low Energy signal identifiers that come within range of the device to record gathered information coupled with plate recognition in the area. This can provide additional information to investigators trying to locate persons of interest related to recorded crimes in the area.”

Combining license plate information with data collected from wireless signals is the kind of surveillance the U.S. military and intelligence agencies have long used, with devices mounted in vehicles, on drones or carried by hand to pinpoint the location of cell phones and other electronic devices. Their usage was once classified and deployed in places like Afghanistan and Iraq.

Today, similar devices are showing up in the streets of American cities near the U.S.-Mexico border.

Webb County, Texas — which includes the border city of Laredo — received funding under a Department of Homeland Security grant program called Operation Stonegarden to purchase TraffiCatch, contracting records show. County commissioners in another border county, Val Verde County, also voted to buy TraffiCatch, meeting minutes show. That purchase was funded through a Texas state grant program called Operation Lone Star. Val Verde County did not respond to a request for comment.

Capt. Federico Calderon, from the Webb County Sheriff’s office, told NOTUS after publication that the technology was used as a pilot to scan for radiofrequency signals in areas where no devices should be — specifically to try and protect seasonally-used rural ranches from trespassers. He said the county did not share data with the federal government.

Calderon said the county purchased a “very restricted” version of TraffiCatch compared to what governments abroad have purchased. There is a version of the technology that can capture even more information about phones than just Bluetooth and Wi-Fi identifiers. A second person who has seen Jenoptik’s demo confirmed such a model exists.

The Supreme Court has said that attaching a GPS tracking device to a car or getting historical location data from a cell carrier requires a search warrant, and, therefore, probable cause of a crime.

However, law enforcement has found ways around these prohibitions. They sometimes use a device called a “Stingray,” which mimics a cell tower and forces nearby mobile phones to connect to it instead of the legitimate cell network. Agencies also buy data on cell phones’ movements from brokers.

And increasingly, as people walk around with headphones, fitness wearables and other devices, emitting a cloud of radio frequency signals unique to them, their data can be linked to a car, even after they have ditched the car.

“If I worked as a small-county sheriff, I would’ve probably caught something like 200% more of our criminals with just two of these boxes,” said Aaron Brown, a former Central Intelligence Agency countersurveillance and digital tracking expert. Brown said he has built his own version of TraffiCatch from off-the-shelf components and drives around the Washington area with it to see what interesting information he can capture.

Collecting radio emissions, called signals intelligence, was once the purview of specialized classified military units or intelligence agencies. But with so much modern technology emitting information that can be collected by anyone with the right antenna, the practice is becoming more widespread by both commercial and governmental entities.

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