Months of meticulous reporting allowed the AP to exclusively reveal that U.S. Border Patrol is conducting a secretive surveillance program that monitors millions of American drivers nationwide. The program is designed to flag individuals whose travel patterns the agency finds suspicious — often far from the U.S. border.
Investigative reporters Byron Tau and Garance Burke interviewed eight former government officials with direct knowledge of the surveillance initiative, along with dozens of current officials, attorneys and privacy experts. They filed numerous public records requests and analyzed hundreds of pages of court documents and police reports across multiple states to piece together how Border Patrol built an expansive monitoring system inside the country’s interior.
Video producer Marshall Ritzel brought the story to life with footage showing a Texas man pulled over by a sheriff’s deputy — at Border Patrol’s request — and his truck searched.
Photographer David Goldman traveled to Texas to capture photos and video that became central to the presentation. Photographer Ross Franklin located and photographed hidden license plate readers uncovered through records requests. Dario Lopez-Mills built the visual APNews presentation, integrating Goldman’s and Franklin’s images with illustrations and animations by Ritzel.
Serginho Roosblad contributed on-the-ground reporting from Arizona and supported video production for video customers. Karena Phan led social promotion efforts, and Akira Kumamoto produced a social video for broader reach.
Contest judges praised the team for its “absolutely meticulous and watertight” sourcing and documentation. They also called the story “incredibly important.”
For crossformat teamwork that stretched across the U.S. to expose the federal government’s secretive surveillance of its own citizens, Tau, Burke and Ritzel earn this week’s Best of AP — First Winner.
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