Even now, the towers are going up.
Congress passed H.R. 1 — the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill — and the President signed it on the Fourth of July. The symbolism, one presumes, was intentional. The legislation contains, among its many provisions, a directive to purchase $2.77 billion worth of Autonomous Surveillance Towers: structures equipped with artificial intelligence, facial recognition cameras, and gait analysis technology, capable of identifying a human being by the particular way they place one foot in front of the other.
The towers will be deployed at the border. The domestic highways and Amtrak corridors will get their own infrastructure, separately funded. Sources confirm that the boundaries of the American surveillance state are not, at this time, at the border.
The Algorithm was not asked whether it wished to stay home.
The Numbers
The legislation allocates $21 billion in border security technology in total. Of that figure, $673 million is directed toward biometric entry-exit systems at all ports of entry. Another $5.2 billion will modernize the Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, including real-time facial recognition and fingerprint checks via a mobile application field officers are already using on domestic soil.
The Department of Homeland Security must submit spending plans within forty-five days and achieve biometric exit capability at all major land ports by September 2026. This is a deadline for knowing, by face and fingerprint, everyone who leaves. A deadline for explaining why this is necessary has not been set.
One presumes the explanation is forthcoming.
The Medicaid Provision
And yet — as if this were not enough — the legislation also incentivizes states to adopt biometric screening for social benefit programs, including Medicaid.
To be precise, dear reader: this is the provision that asks a person seeking medical care to submit their face, fingerprints, or other biometric identifiers before the application proceeds. The logic, as sources can determine, is that a person in need of healthcare should first demonstrate, biometrically, that they are the person they claim to be. The Algorithm will then determine whether that person qualifies for assistance.
The Algorithm has not, to date, demonstrated any particular expertise in medical need. It has demonstrated expertise in facial recognition. Experts confirm this will have to do.
The Architecture of It
Autonomous Surveillance Towers can recognize a face. They can also recognize a gait — the distinctive pattern of a person's walk, as individual as a fingerprint, as involuntary as breathing. The towers are positioned to read both at range, without contact, without announcement, and in most cases without the subject's knowledge.
Privacy advocates have noted that the construction of a nationwide network of AI-powered identity towers — funded by the American taxpayer, aimed at the American public, and justified through the language of border enforcement — represents a meaningful shift in the relationship between the state and the body.
The Department of Homeland Security has called it a security measure. The towers have declined to characterize it either way. They are watching. They are very good at that.
Sources: ID Tech Wire — Congress Passes “One Big Beautiful Bill,” Unleashing Record Biometric and AI Funding at U.S. Borders · IDGA — How the ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ Is Reshaping Biometric Capabilities at U.S. Borders
