# HIDTA LPR Network The **automatic-license-plate-reader data-sharing network** operated under the federal **High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area** program. HIDTA is a program of the **Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP)** in the Executive Office of the President; it provides federal funding and coordinating infrastructure to multi-jurisdiction law-enforcement task forces operating in regions designated as having a heightened drug-trafficking burden. HIDTA's LPR Network is a federally-funded plate-data-sharing infrastructure that lets HIDTA-participating LE agencies exchange ALPR plate-read data across jurisdictional boundaries. ## How it appears in the corpus The corpus's first documentary anchor for the HIDTA LPR Network is **bundled into the Arkansas State Police's 2024-08 Term Contract with [[Leonardo US Cyber and Security Solutions, LLC]]**. PO 4502235324 line items end with (Tier-1 corpus, `1513_001.pdf`, p. 26): > *"First Year Warranty Included / One Time HIDTA LPR Network License Included"* The HIDTA LPR Network License is listed alongside the warranty as one of the bundled inclusions of the initial system buy. The vendor (Leonardo) delivers this license as part of the cooperative-contract pricing — meaning the federal-LE-data-sharing infrastructure is wired into the procurement at the moment of contract execution, not as a subsequent add-on configuration. ## Structural significance - **The license is included once.** "One Time" suggests a perpetual or one-time-fee license that grants ASP membership in or access to the HIDTA LPR Network for the term of the system's operation (rather than an annually renewing subscription). The exact operational scope (read-write access, read-only access, query API access, alerting integration, etc.) is not described in the PO line. - **It is the first state-LE-agency federal-data-sharing-procurement anchor.** Prior Conway evidence consists of a 5,929-row federal-tagged Flock search export that does not identify searched networks, plus a separate configured-network export ([[Federal Searches CSV]], [[Federal LE Quiet Access through Vendor Platforms]]). The ASP purchase order uses a different documentary mechanism: a named HIDTA network license bundled into the ELSAG procurement. - **It purchases a named network-license term at procurement time.** Whether ASP activated the license, what permissions it carries, whether ASP reads are available to other members, and whether member data is available to ASP are operational questions the purchase-order line alone does not answer. ## In the 2026-07-07 internal-comms production — operational documentation The Item-2 production turns the procurement-time "One Time HIDTA LPR Network License" into an operationally-documented integration, partly answering the architecture and governance questions below: - **A signed ASP / Houston HIDTA MOU** is the legal instrument; user creation on the ELSAG platform was gated on its execution ([[ASP–Houston HIDTA MOU and ELSAG Domain Architecture]], `Re_ Logon access.msg`). This favors reading (a) — a formally-administered federal-HIDTA program with member licensing — over reading (b) — a pure vendor-marketing term. - **The platform is the "EOC" (Enforcement Operations Center)** — *"the EOC software platform that runs the HIDTA LPR Program,"* with hot-listing, Cross search, Convoy Search, and Road Runner tools ([[HIDTA LPR Network Training and EOC Analytics]], `RE_ Class Description.msg`). ASP cameras are named to the HIDTA EOC. - **Governance is domain/group/hot-list-based:** an "AR Arkansas State Police" domain containing an "AR Arkansas Highway Police" group, shared hot lists, a CID [[Silent List (ALPR Hot List Domain)|silent list]], and designated POCs — with a DEA agent granted admin rights ([[ASP–Houston HIDTA MOU and ELSAG Domain Architecture]]). - **[[Houston HIDTA]] is ASP's domain counterparty**, while "AC HIDTA" (Gulf Coast) coordinates EOC analytics training — two HIDTA nodes appear. - **The NHAC tie is now concrete.** The [[DHE Partners ALPR Survey]] that solicited Arkansas's ALPR point of contact used the intake address `[email protected]` — the **National HIDTA Assistance Center** domain named among the stakeholders below — connecting the point-of-contact solicitation to the national HIDTA management arm ([[ALPR Point of Contact for Arkansas — Statewide Coordination]]). ## Governance terms recovered 2026-07-28 The remaining-communications production supplies the blank fourteen-page HHIDTA MOU and five-page LPR policy sent to ASP during onboarding. Later correspondence says ASP transmitted a signed MOU, but that executed copy remains absent. The template terms therefore establish the proposed governance form, not ASP's completed compliance ([[ASP HIDTA Governance Terms and Administrator Duties]]). - The origin agency remains official custodian of contributed information, and public-records requests are referred to it (`HHIDTA LPR MOU 11.15.22 _Secure.pdf`, pp. 6, 10). - The system maintains an access-audit log for at least twelve months; member administrators must perform monthly user/access and hot-list audits (`...MOU...pdf`, pp. 6, 8). - Queries require a purpose, agency incident/report number, requester identity, agency, and contact information (`...MOU...pdf`, p. 11). - State law controls retention; the template's fallback ceiling is two years, subject to evidentiary preservation (`...MOU...pdf`, p. 11; `Houston HIDTA LPR Policy 11.15.22_Secure.pdf`, p. 2). - A member can withhold contribution; if it withdraws data, hosts must delete it and replications within 48 hours (`...MOU...pdf`, p. 5). For ASP specifically, Leonardo/ELSAG confirmed on 2025-06-04 that **"ALL ASP cameras in HIDTA are set to 150 day data retention"** ([[ASP ALPR Policy Retention and FOIA Exemption Proposal]], `RE_ Data Retention.msg`). That resolves the configured-period question as of that date, but not actual purge performance or the policy conflict tracked at [[T037 - ASP Active-Investigation-Only Image Policy vs 150-Day HIDTA Retention|T037]]. ## Stakeholders - **Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP)** — the federal Executive Office program that administers HIDTA generally. ONDCP describes the HIDTA Program as coordinating and assisting "federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial agencies to disrupt and dismantle drug trafficking organizations in all 50 states, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia" (primary public record, [ONDCP HIDTA designation release, 2025-09-22](../../web%20archive/2026-06-06/whitehouse.gov/ondcp-two-newly-designated-hidta-2025-09-22.md)). - **National HIDTA Assistance Center (NHAC)** — the national-level management/training arm of the HIDTA program (based at Miami / Doral FL); publisher of cross-HIDTA management guidance. - **Gulf Coast HIDTA** — Arkansas's regional HIDTA. Six-state coverage: **Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama, Florida** (primary public record, [Gulf Coast HIDTA home page](../../web%20archive/2026-06-05/gchidta.org/gulf-coast-hidta-home.md)). Headquartered at **3748 N Causeway Blvd Ste 200, Metairie, LA 70002**, with an Investigative Support Center (ISC) at a separate Metairie address and a 24-hour Blue Lightning Operations Center (BLOC) at Gulfport, MS. **ASP's HIDTA leadership tie is structural:** Colonel Mike Hagar was elected Chairman of Gulf Coast HIDTA in 2025 (primary public record, [ASP ICP HONORED AT HIDTA — 2026-04-28 DPS press release](../../web%20archive/2026-06-05/dps.arkansas.gov/asp-icp-honored-at-hidta-for-record-seizures-officer-of-the-year-recognition.md)). - **ASP's Interstate Criminal Patrol (ICP)** — the operational ASP unit that runs Gulf Coast HIDTA's Arkansas-Interstate interdiction work. Lt. [[Dennis Overton]]'s "ASP HQ / ICP" posting on the Leonardo PO is the ICP unit. ASP's ICP team has been recognized as Gulf Coast HIDTA Agency / Team of the Year in 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025 (Tier-2 quote). - **HIDTA-participating LE agencies** — the agencies that exchange plate-read data through the network. - **ALPR-platform vendors** — Leonardo / ELSAG (per the corpus); presumably other vendors (Vigilant Solutions, possibly Flock) interface with HIDTA as well, though this corpus does not yet document those connections. ## Open questions - **Architecture of the HIDTA LPR Network.** Is the network a centralized federal data-store, a federated query infrastructure, an alert-sharing-only system, or something else? The operational architecture is not in this batch. - **Whether the HIDTA LPR Network operates under the [[Arkansas Automatic License Plate Reader System Act]]'s § 12-12-1803(d)(1)(C) permission** for ALPR comparison against ACIC / NCIC / FBI / OMV / "a database created by law enforcement for the purposes of an ongoing investigation." The Act's permitted comparisons are narrowly enumerated; whether the HIDTA LPR Network qualifies as one of these (or as a § 12-12-1804(d) inter-LE-agency sharing of "evidence of an offense" data) is a legal question not addressed in this batch. - **Retention implementation.** The template says state law controls and ASP's vendor confirmed a 150-day setting, but configuration history, purge logs, evidence-preservation records, and any distinction between hosted reads and exported reports remain unproduced. - **Executed terms and audit practice.** Which template revision did ASP sign, and where are the monthly member audits, hot-list audits, twelve-month access log, query records, dissemination reports, and current administrator roster required by the form? - **Cross-platform connectivity.** Whether Flock-deployed agencies (Conway PD, LRPD, PCSO) also access the HIDTA LPR Network through Flock's platform, and whether ASP's ELSAG-deployed HIDTA license interoperates with Flock-deployed agencies' data, are testable questions in subsequent FOIA batches. ## Notes - HIDTA's broader public-records footprint includes its annual reports, congressional appropriation requests, and program-evaluation documentation — none of which is archived in this corpus. The legacy ONDCP HIDTA program landing page at `whitehouse.gov/ondcp/high-intensity-drug-trafficking-areas/` returned 404 in the 2026-06-05 sweep (relocated under the current administration); the **current canonical `whitehouse.gov` anchor** is the 2025-09-22 ONDCP designation release archived this cycle (primary public record, [ONDCP HIDTA designation release](../../web%20archive/2026-06-06/whitehouse.gov/ondcp-two-newly-designated-hidta-2025-09-22.md)), which confirms the program is ONDCP-funded and ONDCP-administered; the program's standing public directory and map is at `hidtaprogram.org`. - The HIDTA LPR Network is a procurement anchor for potential federal-network integration, distinct from Flock records that separately document configured relationships and federal-search activity. The HIDTA purchase line does not by itself prove activation, direction of access, or data movement. - The "HIDTA LPR Network" terminology appears most explicitly in vendor (Leonardo / ELSAG) materials describing the integration; it is less prominent in NHAC and HIDTA-program direct publications. Two readings remain in tension and warrant further research: (a) the HIDTA LPR Network is a formally-named federal-HIDTA-administered program (which would imply specific architectural, governance, and statutory anchors that should be discoverable on `nhac.org` or in ONDCP publications); or (b) "HIDTA LPR Network" is a Leonardo-vendor-marketing term for the regional-HIDTA-Investigative-Support-Center-mediated plate-data sharing that Leonardo's customers participate in through the Gulf Coast HIDTA (or analogous regional HIDTA) infrastructure. Both readings are consistent with the ASP procurement evidence; the corpus cannot currently distinguish them. - See [[Federal LE Quiet Access through Vendor Platforms]] for the corpus's synthesis on the broader pattern of federal-LE access to Arkansas ALPR data through vendor platforms.