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."

Comments

And they're going to lose..

[Anonymous Coward]

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..

[Secret Rabbit]

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..

[Cassius Corodes]

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..

[cbreaker]

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..

[bocaJWho]

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..

[nhstar]

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.

Re:ACLU Wrong Again

[Wavicle]

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:explain to me

[Le Marteau]

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:You know what? FUCK the ACLU.

[background image]

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...

Re:The Constitution

[neomunk]

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.