[Ccecil]

This has been going on for at least 15 years. But it is a wider scale than just the Border patrol. Police agencies monitoring cameras and working with other agencies to notify in advance of people coming through. Flagged plates are pulled over. IIRC, "Desert snow" was part of this. [1] I suppose the new thing now is the bandwidth and tech to watch more cars. Local police forces and cities are purchasing more readers and installing them on cars and around town in certain bottlenecks. In my town there has been a bit of an uproar...but about 25 years too late (my area started this after 9/11).

Certain highways have always been worse than others though. Back in 2013 I was working with Trinitylabs in Portland developing 3d printers (For those of you in Ruby on rails this was Ezmobius' company). After working for a week doing 15hr days getting 3d printers assembled I was driving home along the Columbia river gorge but I was on the highway on the Washington side. I was pulled over in the middle of nowhere at ~10pm for going 8mph over the limit. After a bit of talking and letting him know what I was doing..including a 20min conversation about 3d printing on the side of the highway in literally the middle of nowhere [2] the officer tells me "I only pulled you over because you are on a known drug running highway...and you are driving an Audi which is a known drug runner car."

At least he was honest :)

[1] https://www.engadget.com/2014-09-09-police-seizure-black-asp...

[2] We were so far out that he his radio wouldn't work to contact his dispatch...he had to use a cellphone :)