Daily Surveillance Briefing: September 10, 2026

Joseph Cox at 404 Media named the unit on September 9: Predictive Intelligence Targeting Teams, or PITTs, inside U.S. Border Patrol. A DHS document says the analysts review Americans' financial activity, prior arrests, and ALPR-tracked movements, then send an intelligence package to a state or local officer who does not know why the feds flagged the car. The day's other stories cover a coordinated pro-Flock media campaign, an EFF survey of police agencies instructed to hide ALPR and Stingray use, the first federal Take It Down Act sentencing, and roughly 1,000 pages of FOIA records on Medicare's WISeR AI prior authorization pilot.

State of Surveillance

Today in Surveillance:

  • DHS Border Patrol named the predictive-policing unit: Predictive Intelligence Targeting Teams (PITTs). 404 Media's Joseph Cox reports that PITT analysts review "law enforcement-sensitive databases," including Americans' financial activity and ALPR-tracked movements, then send a written intelligence package to a state or local officer who pulls the car over without learning what flagged it [1][2][3].
  • A coordinated pro-Flock PR push tried to label the local cancel-Flock wave as Chinese propaganda. Sinclair Broadcasting ran a package across at least 40 local TV markets; the Manhattan Institute's Rafael Mangual and Charles Fain Lehman wrote op-eds; Consumer Action for a Strong Economy published "The Compute War At Home" with a foreword by former NSA director Rob Joyce [4][5].
  • EFF says police are being told to never mention ALPR use. An Iowa county's Flock policy tells officers: "DO NOT MENTION ALPR USAGE TO THE OCCUPANTS OF THE VEHICLE." Houston police guidance tells officers to "be as vague as permissible" about Flock, on the theory that a search could be obtained through public records [6][7].
  • The first federal Take It Down Act sentencing produced a 15-year term. James Strahler, 38, of Columbus, Ohio pleaded guilty to cyberstalking, producing obscene visual representations of child sexual abuse, and publication of digital forgeries. The statute requires platforms to remove violating content within 48 hours of being made aware of it [8][9].
  • A man dressed as Doctor Doom appeared at Seattle's Public Safety Committee to protest 62 surveillance cameras. Clifford Cawthon of Community Not Cameras named Axon and Flock as RTCC vendors. The committee voted to move $250,000 away from CCTV expansion; the full council still has to act [10][11].
  • EFF released about 1,000 pages of FOIA records on Medicare's WISeR AI prior authorization pilot. Internal status reports show one prior-authorization request went unanswered for 83 days, against a 72-hour target; two vendors denied more than 20,000 requests combined in the first three months [12][13].
  • EFF named DeFlock, Access Now, 7amleh, and New Media Rights as 2026 EFF Award winners. DeFlock is the volunteer-driven project that maps ALPRs and helped drive a wave of municipal cancellations [14][15].

Also today: EFF published a "Digital Sovereignty" framing essay arguing that user-side sovereignty depends on open source, end-to-end encryption, interoperability, and no backdoors [16]. The Register reported on continuing Gamers Nexus research into LG smart TVs collecting plaintext audio transcripts and home-network device data while in standby, a story that overlaps with our existing LG standby-microphone coverage; LG told the outlet the claims are not true [17]. The site's 287(g) and federal-local policing coverage tracks the same pipeline the PITT unit sits on [1].

DHS Names the Unit: Predictive Intelligence Targeting Teams

404 Media's Joseph Cox published the name on September 9, 2026: Predictive Intelligence Targeting Teams, or PITTs, run by U.S. Border Patrol inside DHS. Cox confirmed PITTs operating in at least two of Border Patrol's 20 sectors: the Spokane Sector in Washington state and the Laredo Sector in Texas. A DHS document Cox obtained says a PITT analyst reviews "law enforcement-sensitive databases" to build a profile of a person, with Americans' financial activity, prior arrests, and ALPR-tracked movements all in scope [1][2][3].

Once the analyst has a target, the document says the analyst prepares a written intelligence package and sends it to a state or local officer. The local officer is told the person is "worth searching," but the underlying analytical work, the database query, the financial pattern, the ALPR history, stays inside the federal package. The driver never finds out why the stop happened. The site's 287(g) and federal-local policing coverage tracks the same pipeline the PITT unit sits on [1].

The two cases that surfaced are the proof of concept. In May 2026, Montana Highway Patrol Sergeant James Beck pulled over a black Chevy SUV driven by Kyle William Olson on Interstate 90. Beck told Olson he stopped him for a tinted cover and a luggage holder obstructing the plate, with nothing said about the Border Patrol referral. A DHS document later disclosed that Border Patrol agent Matthew Phelps had reviewed Olson's information and sent the resulting intelligence to Beck to "support general interdiction efforts." Beck's own report said Phelps had identified a vehicle with "possible narcotics-trafficking indicators" [1][2].

The earlier case ran through Bexar County, Texas. In 2022, a sheriff's deputy pulled Alek Schott over on Interstate 35 for drifting between lanes. The Institute for Justice, which represented Schott, said the search produced nothing. The DHS document describes what the analyst saw in Olson's file as "information contained within law enforcement-sensitive systems suggesting financial activity patterns commonly associated with illicit narcotics activity." That language is what gets handed to the local officer. The local officer never sees the underlying database query [1][2].

What CBP Will and Will Not Say

Customs and Border Protection, the parent agency, gave Cox a written statement that the program uses "intelligence-informed analysis to support national-security operations, allocate resources, identify threats, and identify people described as bad actors." CBP declined to disclose the specific analytical methods, the data sources, the targeting criteria, the investigative techniques, the system capabilities, or the deployment details. CBP also did not confirm whether PITTs operate in any of Border Patrol's other 18 sectors beyond Spokane and Laredo [1][3].

The civil-liberties framing is not abstract. Jake Laperruque, deputy director of the Center for Democracy and Technology's Security and Surveillance Project, told 404 Media that the program means Americans have to "trust" agencies running predictive-policing operations against them. Rob Frommer, a senior attorney at the Institute for Justice, was more direct: "treat all Americans as if they are potential suspects" and "This is not just wrong, it's unconstitutional" [3].

The structural complaint connects to the site's earlier 287(g) coverage, which tracked how local police became part of ICE's enforcement apparatus through formal agreements. PITTs are a softer version of the same pipeline: the local officer does not need a 287(g) agreement or even a written federal request. The local officer just needs an "intelligence package" from a Border Patrol analyst who tells him the car is worth stopping. The driver never finds out why [1].

A Pro-Flock Coalition Tries to Label Local Opposition as Chinese Propaganda

404 Media's Jason Koebler reports that Sinclair Broadcasting's "National News Desk" package, titled "Report: Far-left network behind 'No Kings' protests targeting AI data centers, Flock cams," ran across at least 40 local TV markets. The Manhattan Institute, a think tank associated with hedge fund manager Paul Singer, served as the academic counterpart: senior fellow Rafael Mangual wrote "These Cameras Save Lives, But Some Want Them Banned" in August, and Charles Fain Lehman followed with "In Defense of Flock" in The Atlantic on August 10 [4][5].

The lobbying group Consumer Action for a Strong Economy published a report titled "The Compute War At Home" with a foreword by former NSA director of cybersecurity Rob Joyce. CASE's funding sources are mostly undisclosed. The report alleges that opposition to Flock and data centers is driven by "China-linked activist networks," naming the Party for Socialism and Liberation, CodePink, The People's Forum, ANSWER Coalition, and Breakthrough News, and pointing to American tech billionaire Neville Roy Singham, who now lives in China, as a funder of those organizations. The CASE report was itself flagged by Pangram as "likely written by AI" outside the citation block [4].

The reporting undercuts the framing. The opposition to Flock is bipartisan. The article names Republicans Ron DeSantis, Josh Hawley, and Thomas Massie, alongside Democrats Josh Shapiro, Ron Wyden, and Ed Markey. A neo-Nazi accelerationist group, Private Aryan Resistance, also recruited to sabotage Flock cameras. Fox News and Sinclair both amplified the CASE report. A venture capitalist at a16z, David Ulevitch, deleted a tweet implying 404 Media worked with defund-the-police groups. Flock CEO Garrett Langley had previously called DeFlock "a terroristic organization" closer to ANTIFA before apologizing, according to Forbes [4].

The structural takeaway is that PR infrastructure for a surveillance vendor can coordinate a TV blitz, op-eds, and a foreign-influence report in the same week. The site's DeFlock revolt coverage and cancel-wave tracker track the local side of the same wave [4].

EFF: Cops Are Being Told to Never Mention ALPR Use

EFF's Karen Gullo and Adam Schwartz documented a pattern of police agencies instructing officers to conceal surveillance tool use from the people they stop, from defendants, and from courts. An Iowa county's Flock ALPR usage policy tells officers in capital letters: "DO NOT MENTION ALPR USAGE TO THE OCCUPANTS OF THE VEHICLE" and "DO NOT MENTION ALPR USAGE IN YOUR REPORT OR COMPLAINT UNLESS ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY." Officers are told to write "county resources" instead [6][7].

Houston police guidance goes a step further: officers are told to "be as vague as permissible" about why they use Flock, on the theory that a search could be obtained through public records. EFF describes this as a deliberate hide-the-ball posture that treats transparency as a liability. The pattern extends to cell-site simulators: in Baltimore, a judge ruled police used a pen register order "to intentionally hide its use of a Stingray" from the court, producing a 2015 ruling requiring warrants. Prosecutors have accepted plea deals and dropped cases rather than disclose Stingray details, and U.S. Marshals have driven files hundreds of miles to thwart public records requests [6].

The Stingray history is the older template. Hemisphere, the AT&T phone-surveillance tool, required agencies not to use Hemisphere evidence in court unless no other admissible evidence existed. Police then "recreate" the evidence through traditional subpoenas in what EFF calls "evidence laundering." EFF also calls for Nottinghamshire Police to halt live facial recognition deployment in the UK. The site's public-records transparency coverage tracks how states are trying to make the same queries accountable [7].

The First Take It Down Act Sentencing: 15 Years in Ohio

James Strahler, 38, of Columbus, Ohio was sentenced to 15 years in prison on Tuesday, 404 Media's Samantha Cole reports. He had pleaded guilty to cyberstalking, producing obscene visual representations of child sexual abuse, and publication of digital forgeries. Investigators recovered more than 3,000 real and AI-generated abuse images on his devices, including over 700 images of real victims and animated persons posted to a child sexual abuse website, plus 2,400 additional images and videos on his phone flagged as nudity, morphed CSAM, or violence [8][9].

The Take It Down Act, which went into effect in May 2026, is described in the reporting as the first federal-level law in the country to make it a crime to knowingly publish or threaten to publish such material. The statute includes a 48-hour window for platforms to remove violating content after being made aware of it, and the FTC began enforcing the law in May. Motherless.com, the Netherlands-based service where Strahler posted, was taken offline by Dutch authorities in May 2026 following a CNN investigation [8].

The First Amendment collision is real. Cole reports that EFF and First Amendment advocates have raised concerns about the law, calling it a flawed attempt to protect victims that will lead to censorship, citing potential for misuse. A separate federal appeals court panel ruled last month that the First Amendment protects the possession of AI-generated child sexual abuse material at home, as long as it doesn't depict a child that exists in real life. The conviction here is built on a concrete fact pattern: real victims, real abuse imagery, threats of violence, and platform publication. The site's deepfake state-law tracker covers the parallel state-level map [9].

Doctor Doom Thanked Seattle for Its Surveillance Cameras

Clifford Cawthon, a policy advisor for the Washington State Department of Commerce and member of Community Not Cameras, dressed as Doctor Doom at Seattle's Public Safety Committee meeting on Tuesday, 404 Media's Matthew Gault reports. The persona's lines were written for the room: "Doom will be watching you," "We must work to crush any dissent to Doom's vision of public safety," and "Glory to Latveria" [10][11].

Seattle Police Department has access to 62 surveillance cameras plus a real-time crime center, a wall of nine screens with citywide camera access. The data sources feeding the RTCC include CCTV, body-worn cameras, geolocation data, automatic license plate recognition, shot detection, alarms, and CAD software. Axon and Flock are named vendors. Cawthon's substantive concerns, raised in a phone interview, were that the data is not secure, that companies work with ICE, the U.S. military, and border patrol, that officers have used data to stalk partners, and that racial-profiling risks are real [10].

A committee voted to move $250,000 away from CCTV expansion, though full council approval is still required. The stunt sits alongside Anthony Ralphs's "Darth Vader at San Diego City Council" episode over Flock cameras and the Texas "Joker makeup" public-meeting appearances. Protest theater has become a working language of municipal surveillance debates. The site's Seattle kill-switch coverage covers the city-council side of the same debate [11].

EFF Posts 1,000 Pages of FOIA Documents on Medicare's WISeR AI

EFF's Lena Cohen released approximately 1,000 pages of records from EFF v. CMS, the FOIA litigation against the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. The records cover contracts, internal status reports, provider complaints, and materials tied to the Wasteful and Inappropriate Service Reduction (WISeR) model, a January 2026 pilot that uses AI-assisted prior authorization for 13 medical services in six states [12][13].

The most concrete failure mode in the documents is timing. CMS told providers to expect a 72-hour response. Internal status reports show some prior-authorization requests went unanswered beyond that target, with one request sitting for 83 days. During the program's first three months, two vendors denied more than 20,000 requests combined, and Virtix reportedly denied more requests than it approved and was required to submit a Corrective Action Plan. Innovaccer alerted CMS shortly before launch that its software lacked full functionality and would "auto-affirm all" requests temporarily. An April 2026 report said Innovaccer still had incomplete features several months into the program [12].

The incentive structure is the structural problem. The records state that WISeR vendors are paid for requests they deny, though not for denials later reversed on appeal. CMS says quality scores reduce payments for poor timeliness or accuracy, but the WISeR Data Reporting Guide reportedly caps those reductions at 5 to 10 percent. Provider complaints quoted in the records include: "We have patients calling our offices crying in pain because their procedures are being delayed" and "I HAVE HAD TO WATCH 3 PATIENTS CRY AT BEDSIDE." The pilot's expansion plans reportedly include air-ambulance transport, cancer treatment, MRI scans, and medications without publicly available coverage criteria [13].

EFF's 2026 Awards Honor DeFlock Alongside Three Other Groups

EFF announced four 2026 EFF Award recipients for work "ensuring that technology supports freedom, justice, and innovation for all people." The awards, previously known as the Pioneer Awards, have run for 30 years. DeFlock was founded in 2024 by software engineer Will Freeman as an open-source, volunteer project mapping automated license plate reader surveillance devices worldwide. Access Now, founded in 2009 as an emergency response team helping Iranian activists, now operates a 24/7 Digital Security Helpline for civil society groups, journalists, and human rights defenders. 7amleh protects digital rights for Palestinians in the MENA region and led the #ReconnectGaza campaign. New Media Rights, a San Diego nonprofit at California Western School of Law, provides free legal services defending creators and internet users from copyright abuse, online harassment, and privacy violations [14][15].

The DeFlock recognition matters because it legitimizes the cancel-Flock wave as a movement with institutional backing. The site's DeFlock revolt coverage and cancel-wave tracker sit on the operational side of the same arc [15].

What to Watch This Week

The next PITT disclosure. Cox confirmed Spokane and Laredo. If a third sector surfaces in a FOIA release, a court filing, or a Senate inquiry, the operational footprint stops looking like a pilot. Watch whether Congress asks CBP, in writing, what data sources feed PITT reviews and whether the answers change between now and the next budget cycle [1][3].

The Schott litigation. The Institute for Justice's representation of Schott and the public framing of the search as producing nothing suggest a constitutional challenge is plausible. Watch for a civil suit in Texas that names PITT, Border Patrol, and Bexar County as defendants [1].

Seattle full council vote. The Public Safety Committee's $250,000 CCTV-pull move needs full council approval. Watch whether the Axon and Flock RTCC contracts come up for renewal alongside the existing kill-switch ordinance process.

Medicare WISeR expansion. The FOIA records describe a pilot with stated 72-hour response targets, real 83-day waits, and a denied-request payment structure. Watch whether CMS publishes outcome data, whether the planned expansion to air-ambulance and cancer treatment moves forward, and whether the 5 to 10 percent payment-reduction cap is loosened [13].

Take It Down Act platform enforcement. The first federal sentencing answers the "what does the law actually punish" question. The unresolved question is how platforms handle the 48-hour window at scale, and whether FTC enforcement priorities tilt toward AI-generated material or toward real-victim cases like Strahler's [8].

Sources

  1. State of Surveillance: Inside the 287(g) Pipeline, the federal-local policing vessel. /news/287g-program-explosion-local-police-ice
  2. Scheer Post: republication of 404 Media investigation on DHS Predictive Intelligence Targeting Teams (September 9, 2026). https://scheerpost.com/2026/09/09/secretive-dhs-predictive-policing-unit-is-analyzing-americans-finances/
  3. 404 Media, Joseph Cox: A Secretive DHS "Predictive Policing" Unit is Analyzing Americans' Financial Habits and Pulling Them Over (September 9, 2026). https://www.404media.co/a-secretive-dhs-predictive-policing-unit-is-analyzing-americans-financial-habits-and-pulling-them-over/
  4. 404 Media, Jason Koebler: Smear Campaign Says Anti-Flock Movement Is Chinese Propaganda (September 9, 2026). https://www.404media.co/smear-campaign-says-anti-flock-movement-is-chinese-propaganda/
  5. 404 Media, Jason Koebler: Smear Campaign Says Anti-Flock Movement Is Chinese Propaganda (September 9, 2026), the cited source for the Charles Fain Lehman "In Defense of Flock" op-ed in The Atlantic. https://www.404media.co/smear-campaign-says-anti-flock-movement-is-chinese-propaganda/
  6. Ars Technica, Cyrus Farivar: Stingray secrecy: How police hid the use of cell-site simulators (2015 ruling, updated). https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/01/stingray-secrecy-how-police-hid-the-use-of-cell-site-simulators/
  7. Electronic Frontier Foundation, Karen Gullo and Adam Schwartz: Cops Play Hide and Seek About Using Spy Tech to Avoid Scrutiny and Bad PR (September 9, 2026). https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/09/cops-play-hide-and-seek-about-using-spy-tech-avoid-scrutiny-and-bad-pr
  8. 404 Media, Samantha Cole: First "Take It Down Act" Sentencing Puts Man Behind Bars for 15 Years (September 9, 2026). https://www.404media.co/first-take-it-down-act-sentencing-case/
  9. 404 Media, Samantha Cole: First "Take It Down Act" Sentencing Puts Man Behind Bars for 15 Years (September 9, 2026), the cited source for the U.S. Attorney's Office Southern District of Ohio sentencing announcement. https://www.404media.co/first-take-it-down-act-sentencing-case/
  10. 404 Media, Matthew Gault: Doctor Doom Thanked Seattle for All the Surveillance Cameras (September 9, 2026). https://www.404media.co/doctor-doom-thanked-seattle-for-all-the-surveillance-cameras/
  11. State of Surveillance: Seattle Kill-Switch Ordinance, the dedicated surveillance-pause vessel. /news/seattle-surveillance-camera-pause-kill-switch-ordinance-2026
  12. Electronic Frontier Foundation, Lena Cohen: New Records Reveal Problems with Medicare's AI Prior Authorization Experiment (September 8, 2026). https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/09/new-records-reveal-problems-medicares-ai-prior-authorization-experiment
  13. State of Surveillance: 287(g) and the Federalization of Local Policing, the police-tech context for AI-assisted surveillance pilots. /news/287g-program-explosion-local-police-ice
  14. Electronic Frontier Foundation, Josh Richman: 2026 EFF Award Winners: Access Now, 7amleh, DeFlock, and New Media Rights (September 9, 2026). https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/09/2026-eff-award-winners-access-now-7amleh-arab-center-advancement-social-media
  15. State of Surveillance: DeFlock Revolt Crosses 90,000 Cameras, the cancel-Flock vessel. /news/deflock-flock-safety-revolt-90000-cameras-cities-cancel-2026
  16. Electronic Frontier Foundation: Digital Sovereignty: What It Is, What It Could Be (September 9, 2026). https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/09/digital-sovereignty-what-it-what-it-could-be
  17. The Register, Connor Jones: LG accused of "egregious invasion of privacy" over TV data collection (September 8, 2026). https://www.theregister.com/security/2026/09/08/lg-accused-of-egregious-invasion-of-privacy-over-tv-data-collection/5294956