CBP, FOIA, and the Art of Bureaucratic Ballet: The Curious Case of Towing Fees You’re Not Supposed to Ask About
- T.F. Moroney
- Mar 10
- 4 min read
The U.S. government has a remarkable way of spending your money while also behaving as if it’s none of your business. If you’ve ever wanted to experience Kafka’s wet dream, allow me to introduce you to Customs and Border Protection (CBP), where a simple question like “How much do you pay your contractors?” leads to a journey through bureaucratic purgatory so surreal, you’d half expect to bump into a talking rabbit smoking a cigarette.
If you’ve ever had your car towed, you know the specific, crushing heartbreak of watching a predatory tow truck haul your vehicle away with the indifference of a Greek god removing mortals from the chessboard of life. Now, imagine that, but with a price tag determined by the government, kept secret, and funded by taxpayers.
I, for one, was curious.
So, on January 28, I filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request—because I, too, enjoy a bit of masochism. I wanted to know how much CBP is paying private contractors like Apple Towing and Amentum to store and transport seized vehicles. This seemed a straightforward query—one might think they’d have this information lying around, possibly in a folder marked “Expenses We Probably Shouldn’t Talk About.”
Alas, I underestimated the sheer Olympian level of bureaucratic evasion I was about to encounter.
The FOIA Two-Step A Dance in Deliberate Obstruction
CBP responded on February 1 with the classic bureaucratic shuffle:
“Your request is too broad.”
“You need to provide specific contract numbers and contractor names.”
“We can’t track our own spending unless you tell us exactly what to look for.”
This is not unlike asking your waiter how much the steak costs, only to be told that you first need to provide the barcode of the cow, the rancher’s social security number, and a notarized letter explaining why you feel entitled to such information.
What CBP is suggesting, in essence, is that they don’t actually know what they pay their contractors—which raises a far more disturbing possibility:
Either:
They do know, and they don’t want to tell us because it’s outrageous.
They genuinely don’t know, which means they’re giving out taxpayer money with the kind of reckless abandon usually reserved for lottery winners and toddlers with a parent’s credit card.
Either option is deeply unflattering.
The Government’s Version of Hide-and-Seek
Undeterred, I turned to the Federal Procurement Data System (FPDS)—a labyrinth of government spending records, seemingly designed to repel casual inquiry.
If you’d like to know how many chairs the Department of Agriculture ordered in 1993, the system will tell you in agonizing detail. But if you’re looking for something as straightforward as how much CBP paid Apple Towing last year to store seized cars, you’re out of luck.
After hours of excavation, I unearthed:
Over 200 contracts related to CBP were reviewed and nothing to do with the subject.
Pricing inconsistencies that would make an accountant cry.
Some contracts listing zero-dollar obligations (charming), while others showed massive payouts—without context.
It was like trying to reconstruct a Picasso using only the bits he threw away.
And that’s the point. The government doesn’t have to deny transparency outright. It just has to make the process of finding the truth so miserable that most people give up.
What We Know So Far
Let’s talk numbers:
A single tow can cost typically $500 but can go up as high as $800 depending on the complexities.
Storage fees run between $34 and $64 every 10 days.
Retrieving a vehicle after one month? Over $2,000.
At these rates, CBP’s preferred contractors aren’t so much storing vehicles as gently curing them, like artisanal prosciutto.
And yet, we still don’t know what CBP itself is paying for these services.
Congress a Heroic Watchdog or Decorative Houseplant?
Expecting elected officials to demand answers on our behalf? That’s adorable.
I contacted Congressman Juan Vargas’s office, hoping for a push on CBP transparency. The response was a resounding shrug, with the general sentiment being:
"Best of luck with that. Let us know how it turns out."
Not entirely shocking. Congressional oversight, much like a decorative fire extinguisher, exists purely for show—comforting in theory, utterly useless in an actual emergency. The committees, in their infinite wisdom and measured inaction, have yet to respond. This is not so much surprising as it is a reaffirmation of an age-old truth: government scrutiny moves at the speed of geological erosion, but with half the urgency and none of the inevitability.
Expecting a swift and decisive response from a Congressional oversight committee is like leaving a voicemail for a goldfish—a noble effort, but one that ultimately changes nothing. They will, of course, eventually say something, and when they do, it will be a studied expression of concern, a muttered commitment to “look into it,” and an adjournment for lunch. Until then, we wait, knowing full well that the only thing oversight committees truly oversee is their own calendar of extended recesses.
What You Can Do (Besides Screaming into the Void)
If this enrages you as much as it does me, here’s how you can help:
File a FOIA request yourself. The more people asking, the harder it is for them to pretend we don’t exist.
Contact your Congressional representatives. Demand they push for full disclosure of CBP’s contractor costs.
Share this article. The best way to fight government secrecy is with public scrutiny.
Final Thought and Why This Fight Matters
This isn’t just about towing fees.
It’s about whether a government agency can operate with zero accountability.
It’s about whether taxpayer money is being handed out like a drunk millionaire at a casino.
And it’s about whether we, as the people footing the bill, are even allowed to ask where our money is going.
CBP doesn’t get to tell us it’s too difficult to find out what it pays contractors—because if they don’t know, that’s an even bigger scandal.
So we’ll keep asking. We’ll keep filing. And we’ll keep watching.
Because when someone goes out of their way to hide the price tag, it’s usually because it’s far too high.
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