National Car Tracking System Proposed For US 563
bl968 writes "The Newspaper is reporting that the leading private traffic enforcement camera vendors are seeking to establish a national vehicle tracking system in the United States using existing red-light and speed enforcement cameras. The system would utilize Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) to track vehicles passing surveillance cameras operated by these companies. If there are cameras positioned correctly the company will enable images and video to be taken of the driver and passengers. The nice thing in their view is that absolutely no warrants are needed. To gain public acceptance, the surveillance program is being initially sold as an aid for police looking to solve Amber Alert cases and locate stolen cars."
Why Am I Not Surprised (Score:5, Insightful)
public space (Score:3, Insightful)
But it's all in public space, so there must be no expectations of privacy, right? RIGHT?
DHS' real agenda (Score:5, Insightful)
Now the agenda of the DHS should be clear for everyone. It isn't about catching terrorists, its about tracking every citizen. Most of their money goes to putting up cameras in cities across the US, big and small and putting up "fusion" centers which track everything.
Call me crazy or whatever you want. It isn't hard to verify everything I said via google.
Re:Inductive sensors (Score:5, Insightful)
How would it tell my Civic from the millions of other Civics?
Re:I'm all for it (Score:5, Insightful)
"To gain public acceptance, the surveillance program is being initially sold as an aid for police looking to solve Amber Alert cases and locate stolen cars."
Here in california we already have the Amber alert system tied into those highway warning signs and I see about 1 Amber alert every month or two. What percentage of cars on the streets are stolen? Not a whole hell of a lot either way, so we're going to rape everybody's privacy and invite abuse of sweeping power just for anomalies? It's not like this database will prevent a nuclear attack!
Here's an obligatory horror story from TFA:
In the past, police databases have been used to intimidate innocent motorists. An Edmonton, Canada police sergeant, for example, found himself outraged after he read columnist Kerry Diotte criticize his city's photo radar operation in the Edmonton Sun newspaper. The sergeant looked up Diotte's personal information, and, without the assistance of electronic scanners, ordered his subordinates to "be on the lookout" for Diotte's BMW. Eventually a team of officers followed Diotte to a local bar where they hoped to trap the journalist and accuse him of driving under the influence of alcohol. Diotte took a cab home and the officers' plan was exposed after tapes of radio traffic were leaked to the press. Police later cleared themselves of any serious wrong-doing following an extensive investigation.
I'm going to build motorized, retractable cover for my front license plate if this system is implimented. Fuck that.
How handy! (Score:5, Insightful)
Police later cleared themselves of any serious wrong-doing following an extensive investigation.
I just love this quote so much, for so many reasons.
Easy to work around, ride a bike (Score:3, Insightful)
If you don't want your rights violated, try riding a bicycle. By driving a motor vehicle, you are giving up many of your rights, most of which have been whittled away with arguments of protecting public safety. You also have the added benefit of doing less to fund terrorism through the purchase of gasoline.
Frog (Score:2, Insightful)
If you want to boil a frog, you don't dump it into a pot of boiling water. You put it in cool water, and slowly bring it to a boil.
Who here would want to be dumped into a pot of boiling water? I figure between those two evils, being burned and jumping out, or being boiled slowly, I say the later is the lesser evil. At least that way we don't feel the pain.
This is just one step in the corrosion of our civil liberties. We're bound to have the worth eventually happen. So why not let it happen and be done with it?
One layer of indirection (Score:5, Insightful)
When my wife and I were in another state, we were using her car, I was driving, and I got photographed running a red light. They sent a citation to my wife, complete with a copy of the photo clearly showing me driving. They demanded that she either pay or give the name and address of the person who was driving. My wife - who is a lawyer - told them that that her husband was driving, and then refused to give name or address. She informed them that is is a protected relationship, that is, you cannot be compelled to testify against your spouse. They gave up on it.
So register your car under your wife's name, and hers under your name. Don't have a wife? Pay your attourney to register it for you. Attourney/client relationship is privleged also.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. (Score:5, Insightful)
"You do not examine legislation in light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered, but in light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered." -- Lyndon B. Johnson
Seriously, how do these people live with themselves, knowing what they are doing.
Re:Not that big of an issue (Score:3, Insightful)
See, there is a problem with that. This is video of public space, captured on law enforcement cameras. There would be no need to obtain the warrant because it would fall under the "plain sight" rule.
Re:public space (Score:5, Insightful)
It is public, until all of that data is aggregated in some unknown and unavailable-to-the-general-public database.
Do you mind having someone email you a turn-by-turn itinerary for every single place you went, how fast you drove, where you stopped, how long you stopped, and so on... from your front door in the morning until you come home at night, in your email every day? Do you have any major problem with that?
This isn't about "seeing" you in public, it's about TRACKING your movements in public. Run that through some beta software to track "suspicious" activity, or appear in more than one place that a "known terrorist" was seen (fast food joint and then the carwash? Now you're a "person of interest").
The implications of this are so massive it is unbelievable.
Re:It should be (Score:5, Insightful)
They don' really want to enforce laws.
Commercial entities want to create a business opportunity selling and maintaining these systems with possibility of further extension of the technology to other aspects of life.
The Government wants to keep track of its citizens, because the Government is scared of its citizens. The government also wants to justify taking more taxes from its citizens to buy these expensive technologies and to create new forms of government for regulation of such tech and the new laws that will come with it.
Nobody cares about 'enforcing laws' and besides, if they wanted to enforce laws they should have started with enforcing of the Constitution first.
Think of the income^Wtickets (Score:5, Insightful)
Your car was determined to be at point 1 at time alpha and point 2 at time beta. 1 and 2 or the same road with a speed limit.
(D2-D1)/(beta-alpha) - speed_limit = excess_speed
As the owner of the automobile this ticket has been sent to you under law HTA2009-01 and you are responsible for payment. A picture from point beta is attached for your reference should you not have been driving at the time you can contact the driver and make arrangements for them to reimburse them for your expense.
Note of this excess speed has been forwarded to your insurance company. Should the automated face recognition software have matched the photo against your drivers license you will also have been assigned appropriate demerits.
If an extreme hazard was detected in the amount of observed speed we trust that an officer has already contacted you about this issue.
They are right -- no warrants are needed (Score:3, Insightful)
This technology is equivalent to having hundreds of thousands (millions) of officers watching the public highways and recording the every license plate. Included are also the clerks collecting the notes and able to search through them in seconds.
No society could afford this many policemen — the cameras and the computers are productivity tools, just as they are in the offices or at industrial facilities.
The old adage is, police can solve any crime, but not every crime — for lack of resources.
The real question is, do we want to increase the ratio of solved crimes (up to 100%) — as the technology may allow us to do? Or do we want to allow some transgressions unpunished to allow some "breathing room" for future fighters against some hypothetical tyranny?
Que the new gadgets now.... (Score:3, Insightful)
First up - IR license plate lights causing cameras to see nothing but glare where your license plate should be.
Next - New cameras at 400% the cost of the originals.
Followed quickly behind holographic projection license plate covers.
This can escalate for quite some time and only manufacturers and lawyers will make any money while not even 1/100th of one percent of criminals will be tracked with this system.
Sometime after it is established, the network will be hacked and more will be spent to secure the network. Still no criminals caught yet.
In larger cities, people will begin regularly using those rental cars things, where you all share vehicles, just grab one that is free at the moment. Fuel shortages will increase the use of alternatives to motor vehicles.
Criminals will always be using a stolen plate on the car they stole from elsewhere anyway.
The only people that can possibly be caught using this are stupid criminals and the innocent, where innocent is a variable of personal taste. A cheating husband is innocent in this case where it is used by his wife to catch him out.
Most interestingly, we'll be able to publicly verify that police are abandoning their creed of protect and serve with respect.
Well, they are possibilities...
Re:I'm all for it (Score:3, Insightful)
Aren't police allowed to place tracker bugs on your vehicle without your knowledge anyways?
Not without a warrant.
Re:Inductive sensors (Score:3, Insightful)
It would have to be some very, very clever signal processing and you would have to be content with some very, very rough estimates of anything you were looking for.
It's easier to just put RFID chips in license plates and install sensors on the side of the road. They will do this eventually.
We can put this on Scottsdale, Arizona and greed (Score:5, Insightful)
About 60-70% of AZ residents are welcoming the highway speed cameras with open arms - thanks to Governor Napolitano whoring the state out to Redflex to balance her budget. (The tickets taken by the cameras will not count against insurance points - it's only a fine. Once you pay your "tax", it's forgotten.
If you speak out against the system, you're branded a speeder, GTA wannabe, and told to, "Just slow DOWN!", or, "Stop breaking the law!" They don't get that it's all about money (and now outright spying).
Hell, even if the people rose up against the system and stopped this tracking, what's to stop the NSA from doing it under the table with the same system, all in the name of safety?
I single-handedly hold Scottsdale, Arizona and its town council for bringing this system to the entire nation. If they'd had their heads pulled out and not put the system up on the Loop 101, it wouldn't have gained any traction to go state-wide, and now nationwide. Thanks, guys... I hope you enjoyed that paltry revenue stream while introducing Big Brother to us. Damn, I hate Scottsdale more than ever now...
It looks like the tin foil crowd got this system 100% right, and the sad thing is that nobody will be educated enough about what's going on to care.
Comment removed (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I'm all for it (Score:5, Insightful)
Not a whole hell of a lot either way, so we're going to rape everybody's privacy and invite abuse of sweeping power just for anomalies?
That has been the justification behind every major piece of "security theater" installed since 9/11. Some sort of random, one-off attack happens and you have this momentous knee-jerk reaction as entire industries are created or transformed in order top deal with this "new grave danger".
Just look at all the hassle we have to go through at the airports because some British nutjob tried to blow up a home-made shoe bomb. Or all the 3 oz container rules because of some rumor that you could assemble a chemical bomb from component parts in an airliner's lavatory.
I'm not one for conspiracy theories, but with all of the lobbying that goes on at the state and federal level, combined with what companies are able to get away with these days, it's not surprising our liberties are given away for new, lucrative profit creating endeavors.
Re:Why Am I Not Surprised (Score:5, Insightful)
And why am I not surprised when the public buys the "think of the children" pitch hook, line and sinker; when previous measures passed on this logic have done little to anything to address the problems they've supposed to have fixed while at the same time introducing new issues?
If only people would seriously think of the children when they consider legislation that would sacrifice liberties: what kind of society do you want to leave to you're children after you're gone? Already I hear parents reminiscing about a time when they could play pickup baseball or hang out by the lake until well after sunset without a care in the world. Even though the activities may be different (e.g. playing Madden 2008 instead of touch football on the street), why can't children today get to enjoy the broad freedom to play that their parents enjoyed? And more directly on this topic, a generation who grew up with a rite of passage of driving around with friends and boyfriends/girlfriends at 16 years (and younger in certain areas) is increasingly pushing to raise the driving age to 18. The hazards of our society haven't changed that dramatically in the past 40 years; on average in the U.S. violent crime rates are signifcantly lower than they were in the early 1970s, a time considered to be the "good old days" by many Baby Boomer parents. Child abduction and pedophila have existed for much longer than the past few decades, and I'm curious to see whether there's really been an increase in incidence of these problems or just an increase of coverage of them.
While some measures like educating children about not getting into a car with strangers and our present Amber Alert system are good, imposing a surveillance society does little to improve actual safety from the ostensible hazards that prompt such measures and at the same time creates new hazards of abuse by government and corporations.
It amazes me that so many a generation that grew up in a time where the defeat of Nazism and fascism were fresh in our collective minds (their parents experienced World War II firsthand) and our freedoms were cherished as our distinguishing feature from totalitarian Communism can turn its back on the values they were raised with and build an increasingly restrictive society for their children. The same holds true of our fiscal values; a generation raised on thrift is now building an unimaginable amount of public and private debt to leave to their heirs.
While not every Baby Boomer is guilty of this type of convenient thinking, apparrently there are enough who do to cause these measures to take effect. When someone says to you "think of the children," you really should think of the next generation. If I ever have children, I'll accept a 1-in-1000 (probably even lower, though I'm too lazy to look it up) chance that they'll be abused by a teacher, priest or any other adult over a much higher chance of being abused by a know-it-all government any day of the week. And even if I don't have my own children, I'll have nieces and nephews and friends' kids to think about.
Re:One layer of indirection (Score:5, Insightful)
This sounds like a great idea, except for one thing. You DID break the law. You SHOULD have paid the fine.
I'm all in favor of finding ways around the surveillance state. But I wish there were ways for lawful citizens to avoid surveillance that did not also allow criminals to get away.
And I'll note that we have such omnipresent surveillance because of criminals like you that slip between the cracks. If people would own up and take responsibility for their bad behavior (or, ya know, not behave badly in the first place) then the state might be less inclined to monitor everyone, all the time.
heuristics (Score:5, Insightful)
How would it tell my Civic from the millions of other Civics?
Obviously the system would have a degree of certainty that is dependent on the number of cars on the road, the uniqueness of the car in question, the number of sensors, etc.
The key premise is that cars don't just randomly appear and disappear from the road. They pass over sensors in a predictable sequence. You would use all kinds of heuristics. For example, you might predict when a given car should pass the next sensor, and then if you see that same signature at around the expected time, you can be pretty sure it was the same car. Correlate that with additional data about the cars nearby it and you can increase the degree of certainty. It's not simple, but it's feasible.
Sadly this is inevitable (Score:3, Insightful)
This is all but inevitable. The only power there is will be that of limiting the invasion of privacy that a person reasonably has on their day to day business. Tracking someone in their car clearly is an invasion of privacy, even if they are in public, because that's not normal behaviour - you don't know where people have come from and where they are going when you see them in public, you see them in that instant doing a small portion of their daily movement.
However the infrastructure could be used in a responsible manner if the tracking is only granted by a judge for specific cars.
I can see where it would be useful for a stolen car - until the number plate is changed anyway. Thieves will get clever though, switching number plates early, putting the hot number plate on another car, etc. Of course these cameras could still track certain cars by model/colour if the camera network is dense enough..
Average road speed cameras are already in the UK. I don't know if they only keep records of transgressing cars, or if they keep a record of every car that goes past. I bet they record aggregate information - average speeds of vehicles going through at different times of the day and so on. The problem of these cameras, and systems in general, is that they aren't reactive to road conditions at the time, and they also are put in places with artificial speed restrictions, or even obscured speed limit signs. Revenue collection is the primary aim.
Re:I'm all for it (Score:4, Insightful)
What percentage of cars on the streets are stolen? Not a whole hell of a lot either way
More importantly, what percentage of stolen cars are recovered without this Orwellian nonsense? I've had two cars stolen, One back in 1975 when I left the keys on a coffee table at a friend's house and his teenaged daughter and her friends decided to run away, and took my keys, and the one I'm driving now (It's chronicled in the NSFW sm62704 journals somewhere; again, the keys were stolen).
In both cases the cars were recovered in a matter of hours. If a professional steals your car it won't be recovered at all; it will be in a chop shop in a matter of minutes. Cameras won't help in that case, as the pros use the newer flatbed tow trucks and will simply cover the automobile.
In an Amber Alert, what percentage of child kidnappings do the police know the make and model, let alone license plate number?
There's a sig somewhere at slashdot that says "Orwell was an optimist".
Re:DHS' real agenda (Score:5, Insightful)
When you have an oppressive government, every citizen is a potential terrorist.
I can only explain it as such: The government expects some massive revolt soon, and it needs to be able to target any organizing into a power structure. Being that roads will be used to get to targets, they need to identify the people they need to watch and see them coming.
As for why, I have to say it is economic collapse. There is no way we can continue to bail out these banks, have "world police actions", and fund national health care. In true political fashion they will deny it to the last, then spin it. Then when we actually have to know the truth, the ruling party (the rich) will have already adjusted leaving the rest of us with no recourse but to get their heads on a stick... If there is any accountability at all.
I cannot see any good times ahead for the US. The people I work with and I agree this is the beginning of the decline of the US to a living standard more on par with the rest of the world. But hey, at least we'll have universal health care and/or cheap oil.
Re:I'm all for it (Score:5, Insightful)
California Child deaths by cause [childdeathreview.org].
Cause Number of Deaths Mortality Rate
Natural 3,923
Perinatal Conditions 1,508
Congenital Anomalies 836
Neoplasms 322
Respiratory Disease 157
Circulatory Disease 146
Nervous System Disease 183
SIDS 153
Unintentional Injury 1,149
Motor Vehicle 746
Drowning 134
Fire/Burn 20
Poisoning 44
Suffocation/Strangulation 73
Firearm 25
Homicide 508
Firearm 395
Suicide 155
Firearm 54
Suffocation/Strangulation 75
Poisoning 8
Comparatively: Number of Amber Alerts in California 2003 - 24. Role of Amber Alerts in recovering those children - Questionable [boston.com].
In terms of children-saved-per-dollar, we could be doing a lot more for children by educating and enforcing laws about swimming pool fences, or cleaning the air in our major cities. Or, for that matter, getting drivers to pay attention to the road and stop running over the kids.
Re:RFID (Score:4, Insightful)
amber alert == BS (Score:2, Insightful)
amber alerts are BS...
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/07/20/abducted/ [boston.com]
It's getting to the point where I don't think "we need to stop this guy", instead it's "we need to help this guy".
More and more, it appears that police and prosecutors need something:
Extreme mental help. Locked away, extensive questioning and medication.
Either they don't have a firm grip on reality; or they do. and they're squeezing too tight, and it can't breathe.
Can't find the link, but I remember reading a few months ago about BAC monitors/interlocks installed in all new cars within the next 4 to 8 years; effort lead by Toyota... sooner or later, just like airbags, it'll be required.
Use of private companies to enforce the law is illegal, and if it actually now isn't recognized as such, then it needs to be declared fiercely, illegal.
We the people need less restrictions, not more. I'm not doing anything wrong, what is wrong with you that you think you need to track me?
Re:Inductive sensors (Score:4, Insightful)
Just wait till they embed RFID tags in license plates. Seriously, it can't be THAT long till it happens.
Hell, they can sell it as an easy replacement for EZPass...
I ... still think the whole thing is a bad idea... who watches the watchers? Why, more corrupted oversight committees...which provide cushy jobs for those with zero interest in contributing to society, zero skill but a good connection to someone in charge.
Re:Think of the income^Wtickets (Score:4, Insightful)
Toll roads don't do this.
Because toll roads want you to drive on them. If toll roads handed out speeding tickets nobody would drive on them.
Toll roads are not run by the police they are run by corporations.
Re:public space (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm a paranoid privacy tinfoil wacko and I'm not /that/ outraged by this. I'm against it because it is unnecessary and excessive, but anywhere I'm driving is basically public as far as I'm concerned.
If it's done in person, it's stalking, tailgating, etc. If it's done remotely, though, it's merely unnecessary? Excuse me while I attach a cellular GPS unit to the bottom of your car.
If you're a reasonable person.... (Score:3, Insightful)
If you're one of those "reasonable" people who, when discussing these sorts of cameras, pooh-poohed other people's claims that they'd be used for this purpose, calling them "paranoid" and accusing them of seeing black helicopters or some such, please accept this on behalf of all us paranoid types everywhere
WE TOLD YOU SO, ASSHOLE!
(And if you're interested, tinfoil hat fitting is down the hall and to the right. Remember, shiny side out)
Re:I'm all for it (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, the consequences are pretty severe for not getting a warrant. They could end up in the same dire straits as the police in the GP, clearing themselves of any serious wrong-doing following an extensive investigation.
Re:Inductive sensors (Score:1, Insightful)
The idea is that the waveform would not change in a short time, and car B, crossing a sensor after car A and before car C, will roll over the next traffic sensor in close proximity to the other cars as well. Or it won't. You could fit this information into a stochastic model and calculate the chance that the car which crosses some other sensor right now is car B. Add verification by the more sparse cameras and you've got a pretty good idea where everybody is. Of course this is all too much work when you can just read wireless pressure sensor IDs.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Inductive sensors (Score:5, Insightful)
Over time? All of them.
Re:This shouldn't be a problem (Score:2, Insightful)
You're confusing "brave" with "stupid". I'm surprised the cop didn't arrest him on a drug charge; lots of cops aren't exactly honest [illinoistimes.com]. If a cop had an ounce of cocaine in his pocket, the poor fellow would be serving time in prison on a drug charge, even if he's never seen an illegal drug in his life. That's one more reson to be against victimless crime laws; they make police misconduct easier for crooked cops.
Or worse, the cop could have shot him with his service revolver and put a stolen gun in his cold, dead hand.
The cop had no authority, that's what "just doing my job" means. The reasonable thing to do would have been to complain loudly not to the cop, but to his elected officials and his newspapers.
Giving a cop a hard time is incredibly stupid.
Just a really bad idea (Score:3, Insightful)
Not that hard to find stolen cars (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:One layer of indirection (Score:1, Insightful)
Let me get this straight: You're actually proud of the fact that you ran a red light, and got away with it? About 800 people are killed and another 200,000 are injured each year as the result of some asshole running a red light. Geez. Maybe we need a system like this after all.
Hey! Guess what! (Score:3, Insightful)
"They" aren't doing this, YOU are.
You are the government. Go govern your civil servants.
Re:Inductive sensors (Score:3, Insightful)
Anyone who has ever sat at a traffic light for several minutes in a motorcycle waiting for the light to change when there's no traffic in the other direction will attest to the fact that saying those sensors are "not very precise" is an understatement. I doubt if they could detect the difference between Hummer and and Mini.
Re:heuristics (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Inductive sensors (Score:3, Insightful)
Or if you're installing sensors, just have the read the existing license plate. Remember that plate with 3" tall, high-contrast, OCR-friendly lettering that you're required to install on your car? Is there some reason they couldn't just use that?
I'm as opposed to tracking as the next guy, probably more so, but I can't believe how silly people get about RFID and other such short-range ID technologies on a device that is already registered with the state and required to carry large identification signage.