According to Fox News, Federal agents have enlisted the help of police officers to scan gun-show participants' license plates.

The article sites government emails that were reviewed by The Wall Street Journal that show how agents with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency created a plan in 2010 to use license-plate readers that record the plate numbers of all passing cars at gun shows in Southern California, including one that was held not far from the Mexican border in Del Mar.

According to the Journal's research, agents then compared that information to cars that crossed the border with hopes of uncovering gun smugglers.

However, this initiative has raised questions as to how government officials monitor constitutionally protected activity. Privacy and guns-rights advocates have called it a major invasion of privacy, while law enforcement officials have said that it is a key legal tool for pursuing "dangerous, hard-to-track illegal activity."

While there has been no indication that this gun-show surveillance has led to any arrests or leads, officials haven't ruled out that such monitoring may have happened elsewhere in the country.

What do you think of this type of surveillance? Share your thoughts in the comment section.