Episode 26: Mission Creep and Domestic Border Surveillance

In this episode, we continue discussing a long-standing theme of the show: how government develops, mobilizes, and uses surveillance technologies abroad and at home. More specifically, we focus on a program called the "Real Time Regional Gateway," a secretive data processing and mining system introduced by the NSA and deployed during American military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. In May of 2018, Henrik Moltke of The Intercept published a detailed exposé uncovering the RTRG's journey from the international sphere - used in military operations abroad - to the domestic, where it has been mobilized at the US-Mexico border since at least 2017. In what Moltke has called "mission creep," the US government is actively surveilling digital communications intercepted at the US-Mexico border, thus raising important questions of privacy, accountability, and transparency - all well-documented themes of this podcast. 

The voice that you hear in the intro and outro is none other than Kristi Lee, host of the podcast Canadian True Crime. Please support Kristi's excellent work by checking out her show on any of your favourite podcast apps.

Follow your hosts: @Derekcrim | @whatsthatdata | @wtncast

Subscribe for updates

Email us: wtncast@gmail.com

Follow us on Apple Music and on Spotify