For one, nothing about this resembles small government. Border Patrol was never intended to operate as a nationwide intelligence agency monitoring millions of American drivers, and if they are tracking the travel patterns of American citizens across the entire country, that is ultra vires, meaning they are acting beyond the legal authority they have. Border Patrol’s jurisdiction is tied to the border and ports of entry, not the entire United States, and if a federal agency steps outside its legal boundaries and detains or monitors citizens without proper authority, those citizens absolutely have the right to sue. They can challenge an unlawful program through the Administrative Procedure Act, they can file a Bivens claim against federal officers who violate their constitutional rights, they can bring civil rights lawsuits for unlawful detention or deprivation of liberty, and if a large number of people were targeted they can even pursue class-action litigation. Border Patrol does not have the authority to run a domestic mass-surveillance program against American citizens, and if they are doing it anyway, every person affected has the legal right and grounds to take them to court.
Quote
PBS News
@NewsHour
The U.S. Border Patrol is monitoring millions of American drivers nationwide in a secretive program to identify and detain people whose travel patterns it deems suspicious, The Associated Press has found. to.pbs.org/486bTMT