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Run, The DEA Is Tracking You!

Ernest Hemingway, that American author dude you should have read in high school when you were instead salivating over a glossy car rag, suffered from severe paranoia. He was convinced the Feds were hot on his tail, tracking his location and bugging his phone. No one believed him until an FBI file was released detailing Hemingway’s surveillance by the bureau. Oops.

Fast forward a half-century later and we’re at a tippin’ point where everywhere we go, everything we do, say and search for on the web is being surveilled, recorded and tucked away on terabyte hard drives in massive data centers.

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And for what? Blackmail Freedom, of course.

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2015_Kawasaki_Vulcan 900 Classic_action_04.high

I’d say hide yo’ wife and hide yo’ kids, but there is nowhere left to hide. And a new, secret vehicle-tracking program by the Drug Enforcement Agency is making it even harder to hide that dead body you’ve stuffed in your trunk (PRO TIP: Always bury a dead body several feet below that of a dead dog. Throws ‘em off every time).

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In the meantime, get out your tinfoil hats and get your alibi straight, people, because if you’ve driven in any populated areas since 2008 or so, it is likely your movements have been tracked and recorded by the DEA,

They know you like to visit Candy down at the local Strip Slide when you’re lonely on Saturday nights. Oh, and that you hit the liquor store on your on lunch break because LIFE IS HARD. Don’t judge.

License plate scanners and cameras have apparently been in use by the DEA since 2008 to track U.S. vehicles, with the Wall Street Journal reporting that at least 100 cameras were operating and collecting vehicle data back in 2011.

Just avoid ever doing anything ever or go anywhere again, right?

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Originally developed to track vehicles used for drug trafficking—because that is a war the DEA is clearly winning—the database is now accessible by federal, local and state authorities who participate in the data collection. The system can now track people accused of rapes, murders and kidnappings.