Senator Demands Info About White House's License Plate Surveillance Program

Sen. Ron Wyden has demanded public disclosure of how a federal license plate reader (ALPR) surveillance program operates after reporting showed the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) program mirrors local ALPR data into federal databases. HIDTA, run by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), has stitched together a system that pulls location data from vendors such as Flock, Axon, and Motorola through agreements with cities and towns, creating a nationwide aggregation of license-plate-derived location information. The program is compared to past secretive federal efforts that harvested phone-location data, raising concern that local systems are being funneled into a large-scale federal repository.

Wyden’s letter to ONDCP director Sara Carter demands the release of a 2024 privacy review conducted by nonprofit contractor MITRE that assessed HIDTA surveillance programs, including ALPR and a cell-phone data collection project, along with a separate analysis of ALPR systems and practices. According to Wyden, ONDCP has refused to provide the MITRE assessment to his office and has not made it public, despite the program’s limited transparency and the potential for mass-location tracking. He insists the review and related analyses be published to allow public and congressional scrutiny.