By BYRON TAU and GARANCE BURKE, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — A number of Democratic lawmakers are questioning the legality of a U.S. Border Patrol predictive intelligence program that singles out and detains drivers for suspicious travel inside the country.

Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts sent a letter Monday to Border Patrol’s parent agency calling the license plate reader program an “invasive surveillance network” that “poses a serious threat to individuals’ privacy and civil liberties” and raised the possibility that the program may run afoul of the U.S. Constitution.

“Such pervasive surveillance — similar to surveillance conducted by authoritarian regimes such as China — not only chills lawful expression and assembly but also raises serious constitutional concerns. Without transparency, accountability, and clear limitations, these practices erode fundamental individual rights and set a dangerous precedent for unchecked government power,” Markey wrote in a letter asking the agency for details about the plate readers and their use.

A license plate reader stands along the side of a road, Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2025, in Stockdale, Texas. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

An Associated Press investigation published last week revealed that the U.S. Border Patrol, a component of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, is running a predictive intelligence program monitoring millions of American drivers nationwide to identify and detain people whose travel patterns it deems suspicious. In some instances, Border Patrol concealed its license plate readers in ordinary traffic equipment. The agency also had access to plate data collected by other federal, state and local law enforcement agencies as well as from private companies.

The program, which has existed under administrations of both parties, has resulted in people being stopped, searched and in some cases arrested. A network of cameras scans and records vehicle license plate information, and an algorithm flags vehicles deemed suspicious based on where they came from, where they were going and which route they took. Federal agents in turn sometimes refer drivers they deem suspicious to local law enforcement who make a traffic stop citing a reason like speeding or lane change violations.

Courts have generally upheld license plate reader collection on public roads but have curtailed warrantless government access to other kinds of persistent tracking data that might reveal sensitive details about the movement of individuals, such as GPS devices or cellphone location data. A growing critique by scholars and civil libertarians argues that large-scale collection systems like license plate readers might be unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment, which protects people from unreasonable searches.

“Increasingly, courts have recognized that the use of surveillance technologies can violate the Fourth Amendment’s protections against unreasonable searches and seizures. Although this area of law is still developing, the use of LPRs and predictive algorithms to track and flag individuals’ movements represents the type of sweeping surveillance that should raise constitutional concerns,” Markey wrote.

CBP did not immediately respond to a request for comment but previously said the agency uses license plate readers to help identify threats and disrupt criminal networks and their use of the technology is “governed by a stringent, multi-layered policy framework, as well as federal law and constitutional protections, to ensure the technology is applied responsibly and for clearly defined security purposes.”

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Other lawmakers echoed Markey’s concerns about the legality of the program.

Rep. Dan Goldman, a New York Democrat and member of the House Homeland Security Committee, wrote on the social media site X on Saturday that if CBP “is secretly tracking millions of Americans’ travel patterns and detaining people based on an algorithm, not warrants or evidence, how is that consistent with the Fourth Amendment?”

“Driving isn’t probable cause,” Goldman wrote. “Congress needs full transparency on this program immediately.”

Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, also said he had constitutional concerns.

“As Americans across the nation hit the road this holiday season, they shouldn’t have to worry that their travel might make them a target for law enforcement or open them up to undue questioning about their movements, activities, and relationships,” Warner said in a statement.

Tau reported from Washington. Burke reported from San Francisco.

By MARCIA DUNN, Associated Press

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Boeing and NASA have agreed to keep astronauts off the company’s next Starliner flight and instead perform a trial run with cargo to prove its safety.

Monday’s announcement comes eight months after the first and only Starliner crew returned to Earth aboard SpaceX after a prolonged mission. Although NASA test pilots Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams managed to dock Starliner to the International Space Station in 2024, the capsule had so many problems that NASA ordered it to come back empty, leaving the astronauts stuck there for more than nine months.

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Engineers have since been poring over the thruster and other issues that plagued the Starliner capsule. Its next cargo run to the space station will occur no earlier than April, pending additional tests and certification.

Boeing said in a statement that it remains committed to the Starliner program with safety the highest priority.

NASA is also slashing the planned number of Starliner flights, from six to four. If the cargo mission goes well, then that will leave the remaining three Starliner flights for crew exchanges before the space station is decommissioned in 2030.

“NASA and Boeing are continuing to rigorously test the Starliner propulsion system in preparation for two potential flights next year,” NASA’s commercial crew program manager Steve Stich said in a statement.

NASA hired Boeing and SpaceX in 2014 — three years after the final space shuttle flight — to ferry astronauts to and from the orbiting outpost. The Boeing contract was worth $4.2 billion and SpaceX’s $2.6 billion.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX launched its first astronaut mission for NASA in 2020. Its 12th crew liftoff for NASA was this summer.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

By SYLVIA HUI, Associated Press

LONDON (AP) — The BBC’s chairman acknowledged Monday that it was too slow in responding over a misleading edit of a speech by President Donald Trump but rejected claims that the broadcaster’s impartiality was being undermined from within its own board.

Senior BBC leaders were quizzed by Parliament’s Culture, Media and Sport Committee amid a major crisis at the publicly funded corporation after its director general and head of news both quit earlier this month and Trump threatened to file a billion-dollar lawsuit.

Chairman Samir Shah said the broadcaster should not have waited days before responding to allegations of biased reporting over a documentary on Trump it aired days before the 2024 U.S. presidential election.

The third-party production company that made the film — titled “Trump: A Second Chance?” — spliced together three quotes from a speech Trump gave on Jan. 6, 2021, into what appeared to be one quote in which Trump urged supporters to march with him and “fight like hell.”

The editing made it look like Trump was directly encouraging his supporters to storm the U.S. Capitol as Congress was poised to certify President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election. Shah has acknowledged that the documentary gave “the impression of a direct call for violent action.”

“I think there’s an issue about how quickly we respond. … We should have pursued it to the end and got to the bottom of it, and not wait as we did till it became public discourse,” he told lawmakers Monday.

The BBC said last week that Shah sent a letter to the White House saying that he and the corporation were sorry for the edit of the speech. But the broadcaster said it had not defamed Trump and rejected the basis for his lawsuit threat.

On Monday, Shah also defended board member Robbie Gibb, a nonexecutive director of the BBC’s board who has been the subject of wide scrutiny because he was the director of communications for former Prime Minister Theresa May’s Conservative government.

Critics have accused Gibb of pro-Conservative Party bias and political interference at the BBC.

“I think I’ve become weaponized in terms of how I’m perceived,” Gibb said.

He rejected claims that a coup from within the BBC board forced the resignations of senior news leaders as “complete nonsense.”

Last week Shumeet Banerji, a BBC board member, also said he was stepping down over “governance issues,” sparking further questions about the corporation’s leadership.

Asked whether his own position was in doubt, Shah said his priority was to “steer the ship” and find a new director general.

Earlier, lawmakers at the parliamentary session focused on questions about editorial standards raised by Michael Prescott, a former journalist and external editorial standards adviser to the BBC.

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Prescott was the author of an internal note to BBC bosses that raised concerns about the editing of the Trump speech as well as other instances of alleged bias at the BBC, including its coverage of Gaza and transgender issues.

The Daily Telegraph newspaper published that note in early November, sparking the latest crisis.

Prescott said he believed the BBC had “systemic” issues with tackling problems raised and described the corporation as defensive and dismissive of concerns raised about its reporting.

He said ex-BBC director general Tim Davie and other managers “had this blind spot on editorial failings” but told the lawmakers he didn’t think there was “institutional bias” at the broadcaster.

The 103-year-old BBC faces much greater scrutiny than other broadcasters and commercial rivals because of its status as a national institution funded through an annual license fee of 174.50 pounds ($230) paid by all households who watch live TV or any BBC content. The broadcaster is bound by the terms of its charter to be impartial.

A driver struck two pedestrians in a St. Paul crosswalk and one was critically injured, according to police.

The 22-year-old driver was heading south on Dale Street and turned left onto Summit Avenue when he hit a 75-year-old woman and her 74-year-old husband. The couple was in the crosswalk and had the right of way when crossing Summit Avenue, based on preliminary information, said Alyssa Arcand, a St. Paul police spokeswoman

St. Paul Fire Department medics took the woman to the hospital in critical condition. The man sustained minor injuries.

The driver stayed at the scene and preliminary information suggested he was not under the influence, Arcand said. Police continue to investigate the crash.

The incident came just over a week after another driver struck a woman in a St. Paul crosswalk on St. Anthony Avenue as she walked with her husband and their dogs. Amber Deneen, 30, died and a man has been charged with criminal vehicular homicide.

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