Follow the Fiduciary

On the northeast corner of 3^rd Street and Riverside Avenue in Santa Cruz, California, a solar panel powers a Flock camera. A sticker on the panel reads “Property of NCRIC / NCHIDTA,” “Flock Solar Panel,” and gives an asset number: 10682.

In December 2025, Syd Jones spotted the sticker and asked both Santa Cruz and NCRIC for every contract, MOU, NDA, note, and email associated with the panel. The fusion center produced two emails and a contract. After three months, Santa Cruz produced a single Flock Master Services Agreement. Neither produced a loan agreement, but in the emails a Santa Cruz police lieutenant writes: “We would still like to keep them however, I know they are on loan.”

NCHIDTA cannot own a solar panel. According to the White House office running the program, a HIDTA is not a legal entity. It cannot own property, sign contracts, or employ anyone. On paper, the panel belongs to whichever legal entity the HIDTA’s board picked to hold its money. For Northern California HIDTA, that is the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office.

Two federal agencies have now put the contradiction in writing. In a sworn declaration filed in a FOIA case last December, the DEA said HIDTA records are “handled by the HIDTA Executive Board and the designated HIDTA program office,” not by DEA. The Office of National Drug Control Policy, which funds the program, says the HIDTA and its Executive Board “are not considered legal entities under Federal law.” The records exist. The servers, cameras, and staff exist. The thing that supposedly holds them does not.

404 Media recently published “How Cities Are Forced to Funnel License Plate Data to a Massive Federal Surveillance Program,” based in part on research done for this website. This article looks at what the program’s non-existence means for anyone trying to get records out of it.

#Once upon a time: High-Intensity Drug-Trafficking Areas

Congress created the HIDTA program in the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 to coordinate drug enforcement. The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) administers it, under the Executive Office of the President (EOP). There are 33 regional HIDTAs, each governed by an executive board split evenly between federal and state, local, and tribal law enforcement.^[1]

The program outgrew its name long ago. A 2001 assessment by BOTEC Analysis, funded by the National Institute of Justice,^[2] put it this way:

There are now 28 HIDTA regions, covering part or all of 40 states, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The geographic scope of the program has expanded so dramatically that in an interview, one ONDCP official quipped, “We used to keep track of the HIDTA program by listing areas that had HIDTAs; now, we just list areas that don’t have HIDTAs.” The HIDTA program can no longer be seen as directing funds to specific regions; it is de facto a national program. And the purpose of the program has indeed changed. The mission is now to enhance America’s drug-control efforts by improving coordination among local, state, and Federal law enforcement agencies.

The Nature of the HIDTA

The statute says that “[n]othing in this section is intended to create an agency relationship between individual high intensity drug trafficking areas and the Federal Government.”^[1:1]ONDCP’s HIDTA Program Policy and Budget Guidance (January 17, 2017), in a section titled “Nature of the HIDTA,” goes further:

A HIDTA is not a Federal agency. Likewise, a HIDTA is not an agent of ONDCP, the Executive Office of the President (EOP), or any other Federal agency. Each HIDTA participant has a responsibility not to act in a way that implies or suggests that he/she is an agent or is otherwise acting on behalf of ONDCP or the EOP.

And:

HIDTAs and their Executive Boards are not considered legal entities under Federal law and generally lack the authority to enter into contracts, hire employees, or obligate Federal funds. HIDTA Executive Boards are responsible for selecting one or more grantees that, among other things, provide financial management services. Those grantees will hire employees, issue contracts, manage property, and expend HIDTA program funds as necessary to carry out the grant activities approved by the Executive Board.

In short, a HIDTA is a grant program. Like other grant programs, it can pay for contracts, staff, and property, but it cannot own any of them, because there is nothing there to hold title. The grantees can coordinate and form task forces with HIDTA-funded staff and equipment, but a task force is not a new government agency.

#Parks v. DEA: A FOIA Story

The DEA laid out its half of the arrangement in Parks v. DEA. A FOIA plaintiff asked whether “DAS, Hemisphere, or any HIDTA” had been queried about him.^[3] A DEA official’s sworn declaration, filed December 2025, answers in three steps:

1. DEA has “1,500 authorized special agent positions dedicated to the program,” but “does not operate, manage, or administer” it;
2. “the creation, maintenance, and storage of HIDTA records, are handled by the HIDTA Executive Board and the designated HIDTA program office”;
3. therefore “DEA does not create, possess, maintain, or control HIDTA program records.”

The DEA says the records belong to the HIDTA. ONDCP says the HIDTA does not legally exist.

#Someone Signs the Checks

Because a HIDTA is not an entity, it cannot hold money. ONDCP makes the grant to a legal entity the Executive Board selects. The guidance calls that entity the grantee; the HIDTAs themselves usually call it the fiduciary. It is whoever the board picked: a city (Crown Point, Indiana; Durham, North Carolina), a county (Laurel County, Kentucky; Navarro County, Texas), a sheriff (San Mateo County; Monroe County, Florida, which holds the money for the Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands HIDTA), a prosecutor, a state police agency, or a state attorney general. The fiduciary keeps a share for administration, buys equipment, hires staff, and passes the rest to sub-recipient agencies as the board directs. Each fiduciary answers to a different state records law, and several sit in a different state from the HIDTA they pay for.

The grants are largely visible on USASpending.gov (download CSV). What the fiduciary does with the money is harder to see, and the receiving end may not match up (Gwinnett County denied having grant documentation).

Laurel County, Kentucky, is the fiduciary for Appalachia HIDTA. The county runs the HIDTA money through a “Financial Commission” the Fiscal Court created but does not monitor, budget, or report.

The Kentucky Auditor of Public Accounts objected in the FY2021 audit: “Per the HIDTA grant agreements, the grant recipient is the Laurel County Fiscal Court and since HIDTA is not legally separate, it should be considered a fund of the fiscal court.” The county’s officials gave the auditor two reasons for keeping it off the books. The County Attorney’s opinion was that “with the size and its operating budget, Laurel County Fiscal Court could not offer adequate oversight.”

The County Treasurer, as the auditor summarized her:

…stated that in order for this to happen, all disbursements would have to be approved by fiscal court and due to the nature of the disbursements (undercover drug related), fiscal court could not risk the disbursements being public record. She further stated if HIDTA is made a fund of the fiscal court and made public record, the fiscal court would probably stop receiving the federal funds altogether.

A county treasurer told a state auditor that the county keeps federal grant money off its books so it will not become a public record. The County Judge/Executive responded in 2021 that “Going forward Hidta and Section 8 will be included in Laurel County Budget.” The finding returned, word for word, in FY2022 and FY2023. Both years the recorded response is “No response given.”

#Nobody works here

In 2011, Dawn Strobel, an intelligence analyst, sued in federal court, naming DEA, the State of Indiana, the City of Crown Point, and the Lake County High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area and its director as defendants. Her complaint describes the fiduciary structure from the inside:

The City of Crown Point issues paychecks to the employees of the HIDTA and is listed as the Plaintiff’s employer on her W-2. Each Defendant jointly owns and controls Plaintiff’s employment and together, the Defendants form the task force known as Lake County HIDTA, the Plaintiff’s employer.

Lake County HIDTA answered:

plaintiff was an employee of the City of Crown Point as fiduciary of Lake County High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program … The City of Crown Point, DEA, and State of Indiana did not direct the daily activities of Plaintiff

The city paid her; by elimination, the HIDTA directed her work; and the HIDTA, by ONDCP’s account, cannot employ anyone. The contradiction was never resolved. The case ended in November 2011 on a stipulated dismissal with prejudice, and the party that filed the motion was Lake County HIDTA.

It is worth noting the HIDTA answered at all. A body that cannot sign a contract retained counsel, filed pleadings, and moved to close the case in federal court.

Courts asked the question directly have given the same answer every time. In LaNier v. United States (S.D. Cal. 2017), a San Diego HIDTA employee sued over his firing. The court called HIDTA “a ‘program,’ not a suable entity,” and held the fiduciary city to its role: “If the City wishes to enjoy the benefits of its status as a HIDTA grantee, it is not unreasonable to require it be bound as an employer to the personnel it hires with HIDTA funds.”

In Milteer v. Navarro County, 99 F.4th 268 (5th Cir. 2024), the Fifth Circuit held that “an HIDTA is not a legal entity capable of employing individuals, and an HIDTA Director is specifically an employee or contractor of a grantee.”

And in RVD Realty v. Monroe County Sheriff’s Office (D.P.R. 2024), a landlord sued over the lease on the Puerto Rico/Virgin Islands HIDTA headquarters. The lease was signed by a Florida sheriff “as a fiduciary for PR[]VI HIDTA.” The court found “the PRVI HIDTA is not an entity capable of being sued” and that “the only proper party in this breach of contract action is the grantee of the HIDTA funds.” It counted “at least three courts” skeptical that a HIDTA can be sued, including one that called a HIDTA “not a juridical entity capable of being sued” that “functions at the behest, direction, and control of other governmental agencies.”

That is the rule when a HIDTA is sued. The fiduciary is the party. Nobody has tested whether the same rule applies when a HIDTA is asked for records.

HIDTAs still appear in court on their own account. In Jackson v. State of Tennessee (E.D. Tenn.), Appalachia HIDTA’s director filed without an attorney, signing as “Director of HIDTA” and listing a PO Box in London, Kentucky. Where the Laurel County Fiscal Court is.

#A Game of Contracts and Agreements

Not being a legal entity has not stopped HIDTAs from signing agreements with local police. The Atlanta-Carolinas HIDTA license plate reader MOU, like the Houston HIDTA template it copies, assigns custody of LPR data to the members:

Member Agencies shall retain control of, and remain the official custodian of, all information they contribute to the AC-HIDTA LPR Database. All request for information will be referred to the Member Agency that is the owner of the requested data.

And later:

No person shall release any information contained in the AC-HIDTA LPR Database either by Court Order or in response to a Public Records Act request, unless they are the originating agency or official custodian of such data.

Read literally, that clause bars a member agency from releasing another agency’s data even when a judge orders it to. The charitable reading is that the member is supposed to refer the order to the originating agency. The MOU does not say which.

RVD Realty suggests the fiduciary would be the party if any of this were ever enforced. In the meantime, local police hand over data and disclaim responsibility for it.

The HIDTA is not the custodian on paper. In practice, it has everything a custodian has:

• § 16.1: data is “transmitted to the AC-HIDTA Operations Center… maintained on the Operation Center server.”
• § 16.2–16.3: HIDTA sets retention (two years by default) and “reserves the right to grant or deny” extensions.
• § 10: HIDTA can disconnect users and agencies.
• AC-HIDTA policy (2023): the system “resides on the private HIDTA-owned network with each physical element in a secure federal facility.”

Most state records laws define custody by possession or control, not by a label in a contract.

The Kansas Highway Patrol told its legislature how this works in 2021. Its plate reads go to “Criminal Justice Information System (CJIS) level secure servers located at Houston HIDTA,” are “held for 6 months,” and “open records requests must be received by the Highway Patrol. Houston HIDTA is then consulted whether or not the data is protected from release.”

The official custodian, in Kansas, asks the non-custodian, in Texas, what Kansas law requires it to release.

#The Logs

The servers that store the LPR data and process queries exist somewhere, and they produce logs. The AC-HIDTA MOU itself says so: audit logs are kept twelve months, need-to-know checks are “documented,” and reports the HIDTA disseminates are kept “within internal electronic AC-HIDTA files.” No member agency contributed those records, so the referral clause does not reach them. Someone is their custodian. The MOU names no one. Whoever runs the server, if it is a government agency, holds those logs subject to its state’s records law.

Member agencies play the same game. Alpharetta, Georgia, released its MOU with the Atlanta-Carolinas HIDTA. The MOU incorporates an “Attachment A” listing member agencies and “HIDTA LPRIP Policies and Procedures” that Alpharetta promised to follow. Asked for those, Alpharetta’s full answer was:

“No Records Found. Contact HIDTA”

HIDTA has no records officer to contact.

Someone employs Daniel R. Salter, who signs data-sharing agreements as “Executive Director, Atlanta-Carolinas HIDTA,” from an office in Norcross, Georgia. Someone controls the Flock accounts for Midwest HIDTA and Indiana HIDTA. In every documented case, that someone is the fiduciary. Nobody has said which one.

#FOIAs and GORAs and FOILs: Oh my.

The HIDTA cannot answer a records request because it does not exist. The agencies that feed it answer “contact HIDTA.” The DEA says the records are not its. This is by design.

The only way through is the fiduciary. It is a real agency, subject to a real records law, and it has the grant, the payroll, the purchase orders, and the title to the equipment. The audits name it. USASpending (probably) names it. Court filings name it.

Start there: ask the fiduciary for the grant file, the sub-recipient agreements, the asset inventory, and the payroll roster for HIDTA-funded positions. Ask the member agencies for the MOU and every attachment it incorporates. Ask whoever runs the server for the logs.

When 404 Media asked for comment, nobody responded. Let’s keep asking.