DHS 'Predictive Policing' Unit Is Analyzing Americans' Financial Habits
Recorded: Sept. 8, 2026, 3:08 p.m.
| Original | Summarized |
A Secretive DHS ‘Predictive Policing’ Unit is Analyzing Americans’ Financial Habits and Pulling Them Over
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About Advertisement Go ad free DHS Joseph Cox · Sep 8, 2026 Image: 404 Media, logo from a Border Patrol's WhatsApp account and videos from bodycam and related footage provided by Olson.
Border Patrol is running secretive predictive policing units that analyze Americans’ financial activity and other data, then feed that intelligence to local police who pull people over who are not suspected of any specific crime, but which the government thinks may be worth searching, 404 Media has found.The units, the name of which 404 Media is revealing here for the first time, are called Predictive Intelligence Targeting Teams (PITT). In one case, a PITT analyzed the financial activity of a man who was driving across Montana, and local authorities stopped him under the pretense of an obstructed license plate and charged him with a DUI. 404 Media identified one PITT in the Spokane Sector, Washington, which polices the U.S. border with Canada, and another in the Laredo Sector, Texas, which polices the border with Mexico. The findings add to an Associated Press investigation from last year which found Border Patrol was using automatic license plate readers (ALPRs) as part of the same wide-spanning predictive policing program. “The bottom line is genuine probable cause cannot be synthetically generated,” Jake Laperruque, deputy director of the Security and Surveillance Project at the Center For Democracy & Technology, told 404 Media in an email. Here Border Patrol seems to be “using parallel construction to cloak the reason behind its car stops in secrecy. If we can't meaningfully review and evaluate these systems, we can't trust them,” he added.💡Do you work at DHS? Do you know anything else about these predictive policing teams? I would love to hear from you. Using a non-work device, you can message me securely on Signal at joseph.404 or send me an email at joseph@404media.co.Predictive policing is a highly controversial practice that police departments and federal agencies are increasingly turning to. The practice is designed to find people who may have committed crimes, but at the moment, no evidence of them doing so exists. Broadly, law enforcement may analyze data — such as a person's movements, where they are at a certain time, or the roads they drive — then create or find another pretense to pull them over. At around 9:30pm one night in May, Kyle William Olson was driving his black Chevy SUV on Interstate 90, with his dog Ducky in the backseat, according to police reports and an interview Olson gave to 404 Media. In Olson’s vehicle were marijuana edibles, marijuana cuttings, and butane hash oil. He works on a licensed cannabis farm in California, where he had picked up the weed, and was transporting it home to Wisconsin, he told 404 Media.Olson drove past Sergeant James Beck of the Montana Highway Patrol who was sitting in his police car along with a colleague. When Olson passed, Beck noticed the vehicle’s license plate was obstructed by what he described as a tinted cover and the luggage holder, according to a police report. Beck pulled out, caught up to Olson, and pulled him over.“Nothing major,” Beck said once he approached the passenger side window and exchanged pleasantries with Olson, according to bodycam footage. Beck said Olson’s license plate was “a little bit obstructed.”“Just so you know, that’s our reason for stopping you,” Beck said. In the end, the officers demanded Olson step out of the vehicle, they tested his blood and charged him with a DUI. Authorities later charged Olson with possession with intent to distribute because of the marijuana in his vehicle, Olson told 404 Media. 0:00 /1:29 1× Some of the bodycam footage of Olson's traffic stop. Cut by 404 Media. 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A secretive unit within the Department of Homeland Security, identified as Predictive Intelligence Targeting Teams (PITT), is reportedly analyzing Americans' financial habits to inform predictive policing strategies, which includes directing local law enforcement to pull over individuals without specific criminal suspicion. This practice involves Border Patrol units in sectors like the Spokane and Laredo, utilizing intelligence derived from analyzing financial activity and other data to justify vehicle stops. For instance, a PITT analyzed the financial movements of a man driving through Montana, leading local authorities to stop him based on an obstructed license plate, resulting in charges for a DUI; this incident highlights how intelligence can be used as a pretext for enforcement. This predictive policing approach is linked to broader surveillance methods, including the use of automatic license plate readers (ALPRs), as detailed in previous investigations by the Associated Press. While Customs and Border Protection (CBP) maintains that its intelligence-informed analysis supports national security operations while citing operational security concerns regarding specific data sources, they declined to disclose the exact financial activities monitored or whether warrants are obtained. This lack of transparency has led to significant scrutiny regarding the system's validity. Commentators suggest that generating probable cause through these methods is problematic; Jake Laperruque, deputy director of the Security and Surveillance Project at the Center For Democracy & Technology, noted that genuine probable cause cannot be synthetically generated. He further suggested that Border Patrol appears to use parallel construction to obscure the true reasons for traffic stops, emphasizing the need for meaningful review of these systems before trust can be established. The implications of this system extend to civil liberties and fairness, as predictive policing has resulted in innocent individuals being stopped and questioned, exemplified by the case of Alek Schott. Rob Frommer, a senior attorney at the Institute for Justice, contends that the combination of increased mass surveillance—through methods like ALPRs and financial records—and predictive policing creates conditions ripe for tyranny, treating all Americans as potential suspects. Frommer asserts that this approach is unconstitutional and advocates for judicial and legislative action to curb government encroachment on citizens' rights regarding security. |