ACLU Protests Police Scanning License Plates

dustman81 writes "The ACLU is objecting to the practice of police in Springdale, Ohio using an automated license-plate scanner on patrol cars to locate stolen vehicles or those whose owners are wanted on felony warrants. The scanner can read 900 license plates an hour traveling at highway speeds. So far, the scanner has located 95 stolen cars and helped locate 111 wanted felons. The locations of the license plates scanned are tagged with GPS data. All matches are stored (with no expiration date given) and can be brought up later and cross-referenced on a map. If the plate is wanted, the times and locations of where it was scanned can be referenced. The Springdale police department hopes to begin using the system soon to locate misdemeanor suspects. This system is also in use in British Columbia."

And they're going to lose..

It's a state-issued plate, and it's designed to be publicly viewable and even photographable in many areas (where photo blocking equipment is illegal). This is really not much different than officers looking at plats normally, just more efficient. Next up? GPS tagging plates.

Re:And they're going to lose..

I'm guessing the bit they're worried about is the indefinite storage of the GPS-location of every licence-plate ever seen by the system. I'm not really sure you can liken that to an officer saying "I think I saw that guy 3 months ago". Effectively, the police are keeping tabs on cars (and by extension, people driving those cars), in an automated and later-searchable manner.

If the idea is "innocent until guilty", then the innocent ought to be given the *rights* of an innocent man, not just have lip-service paid to it. One of those rights is not to be constantly under surveillance by police - in that respect it's very similar to having to produce "papers" at checkpoints, and having the checkpoint-cop record your movement for later use. The 4th amendment may be what they're thinking is being infringed - is it reasonable for the cops to be constantly checking your details, or should there be some level of expected result before they are allowed to do so ?

Simon.

Re:And they're going to lose..

Let me see, tracking and (indefinitely) storing the travel patterns of EVERYONE. No that's not objectionable. Not at all...

Re:And they're going to lose..

I won't object to it as long as I can recored the location and activities of the cops, and store that indefinitely

Don't think that argument will get you far

I won't object to it as long as I can recored the location and activities of the cops, and store that indefinitely

Most police patrol cars now have dashboard video cameras, which are required to be recording continuously while they're on patrol. When they were first introduced, there was some debate over the usefulness of having everything recorded vs. policemen being able to do their jobs without having everything recorded. But the overall usefulness of the recordings won out over policemen's individual rights (e.g. no better way to convince a jury that a suspect was acting belligerently / policeman was acting reasonably than showing them a video of the incident). The only potential problem for purposes of police misconduct is that the tapes are under the control of the police. But that's the whole 'nother issue of "who polices the police?"

Of course this resolves down to a case of the public being monitored vs. an agency serving the public being monitored, so they're not directly comparable. But you made the comparison, I didn't. I think a pretty good argument could be made that the police should be monitored in this way while the general public shouldn't.

Re:And they're going to lose..

Let me see, tracking and (indefinitely) storing the travel patterns of EVERYONE. No that's not objectionable. Not at all...

True, a future step is to analyze moving patterns with AI, recognize deviations from normal and preemtively bring criminals to justice before they commit crimes.

Recently, I received a questionaire from the police department to check out citizen's concerns. The language which was used in the questionaire was interesting: Repeated uses of "arresting criminals" - or similar as valuation item: not -> very important. Appeared to me they were suspecting "criminals" undiscriminately behind every bush. Looks to me one needs a certain training and frame of mind to see things in that way.

Re:And they're going to lose..

I believe it is the cataloging the time and location of thousands of innocent people which is causing the problem.

But after all, if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.

The end of our rights?

Like the wiretapping, the real issue is the lose of privacy and damage to our rights. In particular, the storage of plates numbers with locations is bothersome. I do not like the idea that the police can recall where any car was at. But if the system tries to locate a positive and then discards all else, well, it sounds useful to me.

As to the fast scan of all cars that the vehicle passes, personally, I am trying to figure out why the ACLU is fighting that. For the life of me, I would think that it makes things safer since it allows police to drive and observe other issues rather than pay heavy attention to cars.

Re:And they're going to lose..

yeah, but i can sit on my front porch and do the same thing legally.

Yes, and you'd be a creep for doing it.

i guess people only have a problem when it's law enforcement that can do the same things i can legally do.

Probably because people don't want the police getting too accustomed to acting like creeps all the time.

It is about automating it.

Here, read up on cops who commit crimes.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/conductunbecoming/ [nwsource.com]

Yes, a cop on the street can follow you around and record where you go and when. But you would be able to see him doing that. You would know.

More importantly, the cop would have to skip other crimes to pursue you.

The information has always been there, and they could have recorded it if they liked. So it's nothing new.

And the Gatling gun wasn't anything new compared to the musket. Yet it certainly changed land warfare.

Sometimes increasing the speed of an action does change the situation. And automating data collection on people NOT accused of a crime does change the situation.

Re:It is about automating it.

How does it change the situation?

By automating the surveillance of people who are not suspected of any crime.

The same arguement could be made against permitting police to use helecopters. Or unmarked cars. Or squad cars. Or horses. Or bicycles. Or the internet. Or computers. Or telephones. Or binoculars. Or tape recorders. Or radar guns. And so on...

Nope. As long as it's one cop following one person and the person can see the cop, it doesn't matter.

What changes is when the cops can automatically track people who are not suspected of any crime.

The entire argument is a load of crap. If the cops can do something manually, they can do it with some sort of technological assistance.

That's why I gave the example of the Gatling Gun. And it did change the situation.

Therefore, automating a process DOES change the situation.

The legallity of the action being performed doesn't change just because a computer lets them do more of it or do it faster.

It should. Because automating it allows for more abuse of they system. And cops DO abuse the system.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/conductunbecoming/ [nwsource.com]

If I am not suspected of any crime, why do you support surveilling me?

Fascism begins when the efficiency of the Government becomes more important than the Rights of the People.

Re:And they're going to lose..

The information has always been there, and they could have recorded it if they liked. So it's nothing new.

On that point, consider yourself pwned. [findlaw.com]

Re:And they're going to lose..

Probably the fact that they can keep track of the travels of anyone caught in these cameras - which could be misused to blackmail etc. I can see the benefit of this - but there needs to be controls on it so that they are deleted from the system after a while and that access is carefully monitored. Given the government's usual incompetence I can see why the ACLU is not very trusting.

Re:And they're going to lose..

There is a difference between catching criminals and creating a database of the travel patterns of presumably innocent people.

My initial reaction was "that sounds neat" but by the time I got through even just the summary, it was obvious that creating a database of everyone's travel patterns is not the right way to run the system. Perhaps 10 years hence, you take a different route to work for whatever reason, later that night you get a knock on your door and then: "Sorry to bother you Mr. Jones but we see you deviated from your usual route. Care to explain?" 10 years after that, you have to file travel plans. "Papers please." Yeah, call me a nutter.

Re:And they're going to lose..

I, and likely the ACLU, have no issues with the scanning - it really is just speeding up the officer's job and working more effectively. It's the data storage without deletion date that's an issue. If I've done nothing wrong why are you storing where my car was last spotted?

I researched these systems not too long ago and the article I read had the officer dumping the data at the end of his shift. Data storage time was minimal and not part of some huge consolidated "Skynet" (to borrow another poster's appropriate term). Indeed this simply speeds up what an officer normally does - even though they aren't supposed to do it while moving. However in this case the data is apparently being kept for an extended period of time. How bad could this get? Could it be made part of public record? Will we eventually be able to look it up in Google? Bad enough I get a speeding ticket and the court date can be found posted on Google. (yes, seriously) Seems to me an argument could be made that this is "public record" too. So, maybe one day I go for a new job and my apps are rejected without my knowledge because someone looked me up and found that my car was "seen" at a local strip joint. Or abortion clinic. Or Church\Mosque. Sounds far fetched but considering some of the mashups with Google's mapping service already I wouldn't be so sure. The "predator" ones are a pretty good example of this - especially when you find out some of the crap that can get you onto those lists and how hard it is to have a mistake removed...

Drop the data storage requirement or limit it to a SHORT period of time such that thefts could be tracked down and I'm okay with it. Watching the pseudo-Science of CSI where they can pull up a database of damned near anything to catch a thief is kewl and all but no I don't really want to live in a society where it's really that simple for Joe-Blow officer to pull up so much information on me. My reasoning being that I've met a few cops I wouldn't trust to help me across the street much less be trusted with that level of potential data access. It would only take one bad one to really make a mess and I'm quite sure there's far more than one out there...

Take a look at how this has been deployed in Canada. I saw one picture of a highway overpass when I researched this a few months ago that was capable of reading every single tag that passed by it - for 8 lanes of traffic. Realize that this need not be just something put on an officer's car, it can be stationary units setup discreetly all over a city. Now store that data for ever more and yeah I start to get creeped out about it. IMO this slope is indeed a bit slippery. Do "we" really trust these folks to be the custodians of this data?

P.S. Take a close look at the way things have been going in the U.K. to include speed cameras and cameras on street corners. They went so far as to propose banning GPS units that could store user input landmarks at one point because they were being used to warn of speed cameras. (lol) Sorry but the U.K. is exactly where I do *not* want to be in ten years.

Re:And they're going to lose..

Privacy matters to me, and apparently matters to you too. If we allow these types of systems to creep into our society on the merit of "it will savez the childrens!!" type arguments, with no objections, then it will be a sad day when the powers that be finally hook everything together and can pinpoint your exact location, with live video feeds, no matter where you go. Privacy is difficult to quantify, but it's a very real thing that I highly value.

Imagine a world where jaywalking gets you automatically direct-withdrawal fines from your bank account? And how about when your credit score goes down because you took a right-on-red where you weren't supposed to, therefore marking you as "risky?"

I don't think those things are very far fetched. They don't just use these new systems to catch offenders; they store the data and can use it against you at any time for the rest of your life. It'll be awesome to be rejected for a job because I was tracked walking around NYC on a day I called in sick, 10 years ago.

Re:And they're going to lose..

The time to be up in arms is when the systems are abused.

When it's too late IOW.

Re:And they're going to lose..

The time to be up in arms is when the systems are abused.

Quite right - what I'm hoping that the ACLU will establish with this suit is strict procedures of when this information can be used. Searching should be entirely automated against the license plates of fellons and against license plates of stollen cars. Searching would also be valuable at the request of citizens, as it may help them prove an aliby - or just remember one:

Trailer Park Joe: Shucks officer, I don't remember where I was three weeks ago, why don't you just run my license plate through that database of your.
Officer: Your car was seen at Billy Bob's Bar at 10:26PM
Joe: Oh yeah, now that I think about it, I'm there every night - I was just too drunk to remember.

What the system should not be used for, is so the new police Lt. can check up on where his girlfriend's car was seen last night. If he does, he should be straight out of a job.

Finally, citizens should be able to request that their data be removed. As beneficial as the data can be to its citizens, the government has no right to keep tabs on them at all time. A provision to allow for the removal of that information insures that this program is in line with similar privacy laws, which allow citizens to have their criminal record as a minor destroyed, or allows them to have the records of a DNA test destroyed imediately after the test has been completed.

With the above provisions, the program is more mundane than OnStar. Yes, it can get you in some shit if you are doing something wrong, but more likely it will help you out when you're already in a tight situation.

Re:And they're going to lose..

Except that those camera-enforcement systems actually cause more accidents, not less. So if you're OK with the automatic license-plate system, I'd probably try to distance them from the red-light cameras. They're a disaster, and the only reason they're around is because they generate revenue.

E.g.: 2007 Virginia DOT Report Shows Red Light Cameras Increase Accidents [thenewspaper.com]

Re:And they're going to lose..

Racial profiling works. I don't see why there's a big deal about it. If some 49 year old white dude fitting my description commits a crime, and I walk past a cop who has a description of the perp, and he doesn't give me a second look, there's something seriously wrong with that.

That's not what racial profiling is. What you're describing is a situation where the cops are (or should be) looking for someone who committed a crime who fits a particular description, and of course race is part of that description. I don't think anyone objects to that. Racial profiling is when cops harass people of a particular race when no crime has been committed, just because they think people of that race might be criminals.

Not racial profiling: "Suspect is a white male, approximately 50 years of age ... hey! There he goes!"

Racial profiling: "What're you doing driving around in this neighborhood this time of night, whitey?"

Don't tell me you can't see the difference.

Re:Yeah, racial profiling works like this --

Few people are that stupid when their life is at stake.

People should be allowed to go about their legitimate business without regard to time, place, coat, pants, slanty eyes, skin color, reported need for pharmaceuticals or food. It isn't your place - or the cops - to judge why she needed her meds suddenly; there are all kinds of situations that can come up, ranging from not having the money to stock them up in advance, to prescriptions that force refills to happen at the end of a supply that may be fully depleted, to spilling a bottle down a drain, to your kid getting into the medicine closet and feeding them to your goldfish, and so on, ad infinitum.

I live in a rural area (Glasgow, Montana) with a diabetic; she uses a med called "Byetta" that has, at most, one extra shot left when the prescription is refillable. More common diabetes drugs don't work for her any longer, though they used to. She really needs this; without it, her blood sugars reach for the 400's, which is just plain no good. The only local source for the med - the only place that has been willing to carry it, since it is moderately expensive, about $225 per monthly refill - is the local Pamida. I convinced them by paying in advance for a years worth of prescriptions. One time, they simply didn't receive it, though they had ordered it. I drove her to Billings, 300 miles from here, to get that med. We bought it at an all-night pharmacy. It wasn't about money. I have lots of money. It wasn't about stupidity. I'm a reasonably smart fellow, and she's smarter than I am. It wasn't about planning. The prescription is specific, and it isn't an option to get extra. We bought it late at night because it's a five hour drive and we learned the Pamida didn't have it after 5 pm, and the fastest I could get to Billings was five hours. Part of the reason for that is mommy speeding laws. There are four very small towns between here and there, and it used to be that the parts of the trip between the towns could be made legally and safely at 95 MPH; I'd have been there with daylight to spare. In a car that is well designed to handle those speeds. This time, I couldn't do that, because some minion of Montana's legislative mommy core might have stopped us and put her at even greater risk. Does that piss me off? Yes, and you have no idea just how much.

What am I doing about it? I am in the process of getting my pilot's license, and as soon as I have it, I'll buy a plane. That'll put Billings a lot closer in time. Luckily, I'm in a financial position where I can do that simply because I want to, I can dedicate the time required, and I'm capable of learning to fly one. What about people who don't command the inherent and developed resources I do? Should they be subject to opinions like yours? "Attempted suicide"? "Stupid"?

When police actually protect you from an intentional assault, or stop someone they know to have done same because they have probable cause and a warrant, they're doing the jobs that naturally arise for such a role in any society. When they take on the role of mommy, second guessing safe traffic maneuvers, coercing you to wear seatbelts, concerning themselves with which seat your kid is in, worrying about what you're smoking, wearing, buying, saying or doing with a consenting, informed and competent partner... they're the enemy of the citizens. No less than that.

Rules? Doesn't matter if they're following the rules or not; There's an underlying social rationale for having police, and being your mommy isn't it. AT&T's's minions were just following the government's instructions when they tapped people's phones without warrants, too. When bad government makes bad rules, following them is no act of public service, and it is not "ok." A good cop is looking for direct threats from one source against another. Watching residences for people breaking windows and doors; looking for accidents; stopping altercations, that sort of thing. Y

Re:And they're going to lose..

Maybe you don't realize that there are still police in US cities who are being convicted of torturing suspects. The election for mayor didn't make a difference.

ArcherB, be careful of loving authority too much. Whether the slope is slippery is less important than the fact that the slope trends downward.

Re:And they're going to lose..

The problem here is that they of course want to go after misdemeanor suspects first. Its the cliche slippery slope argument. The problem is they will lower and lower the bar for what is acceptable. Eventually minor crime will be what they search for.

The problem i see here is that this is a small attack on our liberty from all sides. Imagine in the future the government makes some really asinine illegal, like burning an American flag. They make it a crime but to appease the people who want it to be legal they make it a tiny tiny offense, a slap on the wrist. What they don't make clear is that anyone who is wanted for this crime is probably going to be arrested on their way to work causing serious hardship.

Also view this police practice in light of the ridiculous war on drugs we have. Marijuana for person use is not a serious crime but that is where i see this tactic being used in the future. Overzealous cops trying to make a career for themselves with no care for the greater good of society will vigorously pursue average peaceful citizens. Their property will be seized for to pay for the inertia of the police force. Too many people's careers are involved in policing small things for this is lighten up.

Re:And they're going to lose..

The problem i see here is that this is a small attack on our liberty from all sides.

By the government, or the dudes that thugged your car?
Sample 1,000 people who've had their liberty severely curtailed by some scofflaw, and see if they don't think this is a jolly good idea.

Overzealous cops trying to make a career for themselves with no care for the greater good of society will vigorously pursue average peaceful citizens. Their property will be seized for to pay for the inertia of the police force. Too many people's careers are involved in policing small things for this is lighten up.

Sounds like we have a trade-off between the government and the thugs, with only a blurry line separating.
And yet, we are supposed to feel like government intereference with health care and retirement is somehow good.

Re:And they're going to lose..

I hear that Saudi Arabia is really tough on crime. You should probably go check them out, sounds like your kind of government. In the mean time, keep the fuck away from my freedom. My original U.S. citizen ancestor came here a year before the country was founded to escape from goofy shits that wanted to clamp down on everything not deemed 'proper' by some asshole sitting in luxury somewhere. He fought a war and everything for that. I will too. Oh, and by the way, I'm one of those liberals who cherish (and practice!) the 2nd amendment just as much as the rest of the Bill of Rights.

I've found those that truly hate me for my freedom, and they live right in my own country. Flag-waving Freedom-hating To-Scared-to-Live simpletons who want daddy government to protect them from their own shadows.

Re:And they're going to lose..

I think that the part that the ACLU (and myself for that matter) is objecting to is that there's absolutely no notification of how long the data will be stored and for what purposes used in the future. Sure, if it's nabbing a stolen car now it makes a lot of sense. But if you're driving around in your normal, law abiding ways, by what right or to what purpose should data relating to your movements be stored by the government? Imagine the day that there's a camera in your home's front entry-way that's automatically wired to Police HQ for the "sole purpose of knowing when your house is being broken into," but you're never allowed to shut it off, and there's no way you can now where the data is being used, or for how long that imagery will be stored. Heck, while we're at it, let's start slipping the RFID tags into our right hands, and placing sensors all over so that we will always know if you get kid-napped or hurt! What seems to be your boggle?

Okay, it seems to be far-stretched... but 50 years ago, would anyone have imagined that everywhere they go in New York City or in London that they're always on camera?

If this system is grabbing felons and stolen cars, all the power to them! Once they've determinded that they've grabbed someone, and the court process has occurred, dump the data. If Joe Trooper has sat for 5 hours filming car-plates and has found exactly zero offenders, drop the data... there's no need to keep it.

The Constitution

The ACLU will protect criminals at all costs, they don't care that the cars are on public roads, and that police calling them in is no different. For quite some time the ACLU has moved away from protecting the rights of people to being a liberal shill.

Are you saying it is only liberals that care about the U.S. Constitution with its "thing" against warrantless search and seizures? The ACLU will try to make the government follow the constitution at all costs!

Would you rather some of those rights be amended?

Re:The Constitution

What you're not understanding is that these ignorant apes believe that thinking the government should be limited to the powers granted it by the constitution equals being a 'liberal shill'.

After all, how is the president supposed to protect us from terrists if he's being held back by that "goddam piece of paper"?

That's right, you give up a little liberty for a little security, but don't come crying when you lose both, after all you've had the warning for over 200 years.

One final note, this whole plate scanning system will see many fascist government officials trying to pass laws allowing access to more and more databases and associated cross-references. For example, how long will it be before they start using it to decide who to pull over as being a 'high-potential criminal' or some such obnoxiousness because they are on probation/parole, or were once convicted of a felony. How about when they start linking in the crime-rates statistics from the census office and check your address? When they add in economic factors? (what the hell you doin in the well-to-do neighborhood boy, get your poor ass outta here)

I'm a tinfoil hat wearing loony, right? Okay then, what criteria do they use to put someone on a terrorist watchlist, or a no-fly list? Oh, you don't know do you. No, you don't, because they won't tell you. Won't even tell you what can get you on a blacklist. Brought to you by the same people that scan the plates.

I just don't understand why people have so much blind trust for other people with shiny badges on their shirts. Really now, I've had good encounters with police, I've had bad encounters with police. Some police were intelligent thoughtful people, some were drooling fucktards with guns. They are just people like you and me, some good, some bad, mostly just self-centered-kind-vaguely-good-if-its-not-to-much -bother. Oh, and with the added psychological twist of authority + physical-force-capable (especially the magical ability to call for backup, that's nearly impossible to beat). Blindly trusting that someone has your best interests in mind because of a piece of tin pinned to their shirt is ludicrous and asking me to do the same will be disappointing.

If you RTFA

Every plate being scanned won't be tossed away but stored for future use. Once a warrant is issued on a plate, officers can pull up the previously scanned data, using coordinates on a map to pinpoint the exact location and time of the car when it was identified.

So what they are doing is creating a database of where all cars have been, whether they belong to the guilty or the innocent. When I read the summary I thought, "Wow, the ACLU has crossed the line here"; which made me suspicious, usually when folks want to vilify the ACLU they leave out key facts like this one. Read the article, this tidbit is buried in the second to last paragraph and is likely key to the ACLU's concerns.

While technically its not doing anything that crosses a line, noting plates and locations of cars in the public, technology is enabling some very concerning capabilities that need to be addressed. Distrust of the government isn't just a liberal thing, its an American thing.

ACLU Wrong Again

I'm sorry, but this is one of the instances where I disagree with the ACLU.

You're out on the open road. You have no reasonable expectation of privacy. No civil right is being violated, IMO.

Is this another example of us basically having less and less privacy when we leave our homes? Yes? Are our movements being recorded more and more and is it getting annoying? Yes? But claim that the police recording license plates on the open highway is unconstitutional? Can't side with you.

Re:ACLU Wrong Again

You're out on the open road. You have no reasonable expectation of privacy. No civil right is being violated, IMO.

The police have no legitimate interest in tracking the driving patterns of people who have not committed a crime and are not under suspicion of having committed a crime.

This is the sort of database that is ripe for use for illegal and unconstitutional purposes:
* Have you been making too many trips to the anti-war rally? Oh, sorry, we're going to have to deny you entrance to this political forum for, uh, 'security' reasons.
* Oh, thank you for your job application... oh dear, it seems you were parked for a while at the planned parenthood, we don't hire your type.

Re:ACLU Wrong Again

But claim that the police recording license plates on the open highway is unconstitutional? Can't side with you.

I disagree. The fourth amendment states:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

I think that a surveillance system which magnifies normal abilities beyond anything humanly achievable must, by definition, raise questions of being an unreasonable search and seizure. If it is not reasonable to expect a person or an affordable group of people to achieve the same results, then it should be considered an unreasonable search.

Re:ACLU Wrong Again

Actually, if I owned an office building that abutted a freeway, I could legally set up cameras and record the license plate numbers of every car that passed, and no one could do anything. I could even go and sell that information on the internet or charge people to search the database of license plates recorded. And no one could stop me (muahaha?).

If you're out in a public place, overtly displaying identifiable information, there's no law saying I cannot record that. And let's face it, if you're a law abiding citizen, you're in more danger from the databases being kept by private credit reporting agencies than the ones being kept by law enforcement agencies.

- Greg

Re:Yes and No

I say let the police do all the automated tracking they want, but encrypt the data and set the system up so that it can only be decrypted by court order. Then the police can use the data when they have reason to, but they can't go on fishing expeditions or use the data for personal vendettas.

Re:Coulda Shoulda Woulda

While PERHAPS this could be used to hinder said right, the REALITY is it does not. Until it does, you have no real reason to complain other than being overly paranoid.

That may be the fucking stupidest thing ever said.

Misleading summery

It does not say if _all_ or just the ones that one on the "hit" list plates are "tagged" and recorded. I would object to this system IF it recored _all_ plates and locations. Recording just the ones that came back with warrants or stolen I have no problem with. And would disagree with the ACLU on this one.

Re:Misleading summery

I would object to this system IF it recored _all_ plates and locations. Recording just the ones that came back with warrants or stolen I have no problem with.

Sorry. If you read the article to the very end you find this:

Every plate being scanned won't be tossed away but stored for future use. Once a warrant is issued on a plate, officers can pull up the previously scanned data, using coordinates on a map to pinpoint the exact location and time of the car when it was identified.

Kind of dumb that they put this information at the END of the article instead of in the headline. I thought there was not a problem until I got to the very end of the article. Still not sure it's illegal on technical grounds, but definitely not right for them to be tracking innocent people this way.

You know what? FUCK the ACLU.

Last year my car was stolen. It happened a few days after some scumbag killed a cop and went on the lam, so the police had zero time for me (and I can't really blame them). If we'd had these gizmos then, they might have caught the piece of shit cunt that boosted my wheels.

If I was a cop on the hot auto squad, I'd cross-correlate owners reporting stolen vehicles with ACLU members - and I'd shitcan their cases.

Re:You know what? FUCK the ACLU.

If I was a cop on the hot auto squad, I'd cross-correlate owners reporting stolen vehicles with ACLU members - and I'd shitcan their cases.

Mod parent up: "+1 unintentionally insightful" for accidentally proving the ACLU's point...

Surprised at the description of this system.

I'm surprised by the way this system works.

I implemented a system that does basically this, as custom development for a police department in a small American city. It's worked fantastically well, but they had a lot of specific restrictions.

Examples:
They didn't want fully automated scanning, because apparently it causes all sorts of legal troubles if you run some plates (undercovers, celebrities, people who are later stalked/attacked).

Also, they didn't want to geotag the searches (even though all of the data was available) because they specifically didn't want to build a database of people's locations outside their duties.

And lastly, they didn't want permanent data storage of *anything*. They wanted two years, to comply with various regulations and to allow time for investigation into abuses, but no more. After that, they wanted it gone forever.

As such, I find it very surprising that a police department would even have interest in building a tool that is so incredibly ripe for abuse, when it is likely to open them to all sorts of litigation, as evidenced by the ACLU lawsuit.

And as to the tools who claim the ACLU is just interested in freeing criminals, I'd remind you that the ACLU simply cares about rights, even though sometimes that's unpopular. They're willing to fight to let you quote the Bible in your yearbook [aclu.org], to prevent 13 year olds from being arrested for writing on their desks [aclu.org] and as this article notes, they are also against recorded surveillance of innocent drivers.

It's telling that nearly all of the right-wingers in this thread have distorted the ACLU's actual complaint (that surveillance databases are being built against innocent drivers) and have replaced it with a claim that somehow the ACLU is against running plates altogether or direct claims that the ACLU is pro-criminal.

In BC, they purge data after three months

According to this announcement [baitcar.com], license plate data in BC is purged every three months. Yes, in Canada we do have privacy laws. It may not be perfect privacy, but at least it's a consideration when they roll out these programs. The Springdale cops should at the very least do the same.

Harsh punishments as a deterrent

There's a reason that many crimes in the US elicit such a harsh punishment, and that everything from bouncing a check to picking your nose in public is now a felony (ignoring the corporate-prison industry and other such arguments for the moment); the long prison sentences and exorbitant fines are thought to be a deterrent to other nare-do-wells who would now think twice before committing the same crime and getting the same sentence.

But part of the deterrence theory of punishment is premised on the fact that law enforcement can't catch all the criminals. To make up for the fact that there will always be Joe Robber or Tina Car-Thief who gets away with something, the hope is that they will be deterred from breaking the law in fear of receiving the harsh punishment.

The whole punishment-as-deterrent system will become quite warped however, when cops across the nation can cruise around scanning hundreds of license plates and arrest X number more felons than before. As law enforcement is armed with new technology, do the punishments ever decrease despite law enforcement being more effective in catching the bad guys?

To take this thought to the extreme: if police suddenly developed new drug-detecting technology that could scan people's surrounding air-mass as they walked out in public and determine with certainty whether they were carrying illegal drugs, should we still retain the harsh sentences that many states do for simple drug possession?

Re:explain to me

Because the police have no right to track me when I have committed no crime and am not wanted in connection with a criminal investigation.

Re:explain to me

If you are of no interest to the police, then your records will just be sitting on a disk somewhere.

If I am of no interest to the police, they should not be tracking me in the first place. Convenience is not a strong enough reason to abrogate our basic rights.

Re:explain to me

At least in my state, driving an automobile is not a RIGHT, but a privilege granted by the department of revenue

You actually believe that? That getting from point A to point B in the way society has designed it (i.e. by driving) is a PRIVILEGE? Welcome to the police state, I guess, where doing anything except breathing requires governmental permission.

Re:Constitutes UNREASONABLE search (duh!)

Apparently you didn't Read The Fucking Article.

*Every* license plate that is scanned gets saved and downloaded onto PCs at Police HQ. Then when a warrant is issued on you later on, they can go back into the database and pull up *everywhere your car has been* before you did anything wrong. The article clearly states this.

This is not just storing the location and plates of criminals, because the cross-checking isn't done in real time, it is done when the data is downloaded later. The article clearly states this.

This is not targeted surveillance of criminals with the 'innocent plates' discarded in real time (which I would agree would be perfectly fine). This is creating a massive database of where every car in that part of Ohio is, with no time limit on when the data expires, and no limit on who can access the data.

Papers, please, comrade citizen!

Re:this is long lost

The issue isn't the reading of license plates. If they were to do that, scan for the tags of interest (stolen, wanted, etc.) and then immediateley and automatically discard all of the non-matches, then I would have no problem with it. Assuming all of those steps could be independently verified at any time of course.

The issue is the systematic reading and databasing of *all* license plates with a timestamp and geotag and storing that data indefinitely. It may not be illegal. But it should be - as part of the often claimed, but non-existent right to privacy. The state has no business tracking the whereabouts of law abiding citizens - it's rife for abuse at many levels.

Re:Driving is not a right!

Exactly. That's why we should have checkpoints at major crossings into and out of cities or across state lines. You want the privelege of driving? Well give us a cheek swab for DNA and a rapid drug/alcohol test while were at it. We'll catch a lot more felons that way.

Also, why the hell don't they have x-ray scanners like they use to find drugs in trucks in Afghanistan. I mean, it's not really a search if they don't open your trunk, and besides driving is a privilege to begin with. I'm sure they'd find illegal weapons down south a lot of illegal aliens that way.

Face it, a police state is the only way for lawful people to be safe from the scumbags. So call your Congressmen and demand road checkpoints with DNA matching, instant drug/alcohol testing, and x-ray scanning. Because driving is a privilege and not a right.

Re:Driving is not a right!

Driving is a Right, not a privilege.

"Personal liberty, or the Right to enjoyment of life and liberty, is one of the fundamental or natural Rights, which has been protected by its inclusion as a guarantee in the various constitutions, which is not derived from, or dependent on, the U.S. Constitution, which may not be submitted to a vote and may not depend on the outcome of an election. It is one of the most sacred and valuable Rights, as sacred as the Right to private property...and is regarded as inalienable." 16 C.J.S., Constitutional Law, Sect.202, p.987.

"Personal liberty largely consists of the Right of locomotion -- to go where and when one pleases -- only so far restrained as the Rights of others may make it necessary for the welfare of all other citizens. The Right of the Citizen to travel upon the public highways and to transport his property thereon, by horse drawn carriage, wagon, or automobile, is not a mere privilege which may be permitted or prohibited at will, but the common Right which he has under his Right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Under this Constitutional guarantee one may, therefore, under normal conditions, travel at his inclination along the public highways or in public places, and while conducting himself in an orderly and decent manner, neither interfering with nor disturbing another's Rights, he will be protected, not only in his person, but in his safe conduct." II Am.Jur. (1st) Constitutional Law, Sect.329, p.1135.

http://teamliberty.net/id18.html [teamliberty.net]

People who claim that driving isn't a right are usually parents or Divers Ed teachers trying to control teenagers. Sorry, those of use who understand what freedom means don't buy your sorry argument.

To Jack Boot Lovers: Shut up.

The biggest problem here is that cops are quite often worse than the criminals they hunt. That and the crime ring the have going with the lower court judges and prosecutors. I am FAR less concerned with my car being stolen than I am about being targeted by the police AGAIN. They will make your life hell and if you stand up to them they will stomp on you.

They say a conservative is a liberal that hasn't been mugged yet and that a liberal is a conservative that hasn't been beaten up by the police yet. However, the sad reality is that most of us harmless people are constantly juggling which criminal is more dangerous. Well, check your pain and suffering count sometime and I think you'll find that government criminals have your average thief and mugger beat by a long shot.

If the police were generally a bunch of guys who really lived to protect and serve and defend the rights of the community, it'd be great. They're not though. A few are, but they're the exception to the bullies or even the average types that have felt the taint of authority and let it go to their heads.

I don't think the ACLU is some bastion of greatness--their stand on gun rights is asinine--but just because something makes it easier to "catch criminals" doesn't mean it's a "good thing" and it doesn't even mean it's going to protect anyone.

Oh yeah, one more thing:

"Let's roll back though. These are license plates. Plates that are government issue, on highways that are government funded (yes by the taxes of the people, but government funded) and a device that is government controlled. So where's the problem?"

I'd say the government issued plates are the first problem. And yeah, the roads are government funded, but who owns the government? They're PUBLIC roads, NOT government roads. They're MY roads as a tenant in common. Why in the hell do I have to ask my SERVANT pretty please to use MY roads and get a plate from them? And roads get paid for if you use them. For the time being gas taxes do a good job of being a fair user fee. The more you use, the more you pay.

I might not have the same expectation of privacy on road as I do in my house, just as there's a big difference between a PUBLIC room like a living room and my bedroom. However, I don't want a camera on every street corner and all my movements tracked just because it might catch a few car thieves. It's just not worth it. Especially given the direction it WILL go and HAS historically gone. Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. It will ALWAYS be used by whoever is in power to suppress opposition.