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Massachusetts Plans To Keep Track of Where Your Car Has Been
Attila Dimedici writes "Massachusetts wants to establish a database with the information gathered by license plate scanners installed in police cars. The scanners will scan license plates of every car the police vehicle passes and transmit that information (along with the location) to a database that will be made available to various government agencies. The data wil be kept indefinitely."
Fascism.
... of making a reasonable and thoughtful comment. Instead, I'm going to just say "fuck you Massachusetts," because that's really all they deserve.
You know what else would get suspended and uninsured drivers off the roads? BANNING CARS!
"Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free or the home of the slave?"
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I don't know how many states are doing this now, but they also under at least SOME circumstances share with the feds as well. Vermont I KNOW for certain has had this for some time, though far from all PDs have the equipment yet. They're way ahead of the civil rights people on this one, and their official line is you're in public, you don't have a right to privacy in public, and "oh we keep it all secure and only accessible under controlled conditions" which of course means every intel agency in the govt has it of course...
Truthfully though, this stuff is inevitable, the issue is the sneaky way they're kind of sliding into it. There was NO debate on this at all in our state.
"Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem." -- Jefferson
The fact that police cars have cameras which can identify license plates and flag any vehicles with violations will make the roads safer. Storing that information along with location and date/time information for an indefinite period doesn't help anything. You know, for the citizens at least.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
You know what else would get suspended and uninsured drivers off the roads? BANNING CARS!
Yup that would do it. I totally agree with the sentiment as well.
Cite?
I think the problem rests in old case law, developed when automation like this was just science fiction, that anything not on private property is fair game. We need a new legal concept of "public but ephemeral" that applies to information that is normally soon forgotten like who was in a parking lot a week ago. Any collection of ephemeral data that occurs without a warrant should itself expire within a short period of time as well should be distribution limited - i.e. no sending it off to another database at the FBI that is exempt.
That may still be too much of a slippery slope, because once its collected there will always be pressure to extend the retention and expand the distribution. All it would take is one kid getting kidnapped and the license plate data expiring a day before the cops thought to look at it and voila, ready-made emotional argument to push for doubling retention time.
In Florida, the cops download a list of license plates of interest and only check scanned plates against the list instead of uploading everything they scan to a database. I'm not too happy with that either because I don't think that requiring a driver to regularly prove their innocence is valid, even if it is done passively, but at least it is miles better than what Massachusetts is planning.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
I'd like to propose a new line of designer license plate, the CAPTCHA-plate. You heard it here first, folks.
I've been thinking about having an SQL injection bumper sticker made. I would do it in reflective material and OCR friendly font. I think just a simple ');-- immediately to the left of the plate should do.
No reason to do this. As a Massachusetts resident this is totally unwarranted.
"No reason to do this. As a fucking US citizen this is totally unwarranted."
FTFY.
Should we fight Google driving around doing the same thing while we're at it?
You kill the cops while they're standing at the doughnut counter, then torch their car.
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
Try voting the bastards out. It's hard, but a lot less bloody.
Only to be replaced by bastards. It's a never ending cycle. A lose lose situation. Pretty sad.
Guess I won't be helping out with that after school reading program in that bad neighborhood.
Often (usually?) uninsured drivers are uninsured because they have demonstrated that they are unsafe drivers, and therefore can't get insurance for a reasonable price (or at all).
That is only a matter of time. States like this didn't outlaw radar-detectors before they impeded the revenue stream.
Anything you do to piss off a cop will not work out well for yourself.
If you make his sensor go off because of a sticker then prepare to be investigated for interfering in police business or some other horseshit.
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
By a very large majority in both houses. They have a supermajority in the House, and there are only a few token Republicans in the Senate.
Note that this kicks in not long after a Democrat takes the governorship, making the MA government absolutely dominated by Democrats. The only way Republicans have any influence is to get something the Democrats did declared unconstitutional in state court.
So your metaphor needs changing to reflect the reality of what exceptions would be. It's more likely the Democrats would be specifically tracking Republicans to catch them at gay bath houses.
I know most folks are going to run up the "holy crap it's Big Brother!" flag... but I don't know if I really care or not.
You will care. But only when it's too late to do anything about it.
The time to stop rolling down a slippery slope is at the top, not at the bottom when you're smashed and broken after running into a brick wall.
I agree, in general, though there is room to quibble about whether the gap in the law is best sourced to "old case law" or to the fact that the Constitution itself doesn't consider the issue of public ephemeral data.
Alternatively, you could retain the data indefinitely, but require a warrant for the search of the historical data, specifying the search parameters and providing the cause justifying the search. This would give non-current public ephemeral data similar protection to traditional private data, while at the same time not destroying the data itself. Since the data can be searched with a warrant issued with cause, this eliminates the risk of mandated destruction destroying evidence that could have solved a crime -- and thus eliminates the opportunity for exploiting that as the basis for lobbying for extension in the "casual search" window for the data.
I work with dozens of police organizations that use license plate readers. They are extremely effective and even a small fleet of cars can easily gather thousands upon tens of thousands of license plates a day in their jurisdiction. Tracking people via this technology is a scary thing to think about because it would be extremely effective. I disagree with their use in regular police operations, so this database is just plain crazy in my mind. This should be fought against by anyone who values the small amount of privacy we have left in this country.
I can't stress enough how crazy this would be if this happened and started getting adopted outside of MA. This would be one of the worst invasions of privacy ever. There is already enough tracking that goes on with the toll passes (EZ-Pass, Sun Pass, etc) in all the states that have them as well as all the cameras that are up everywhere in most major cities. But that should be expected, as you are voluntarily signing up for the convenience of speedier tolls and most of the camera systems are used to help detect crimes (such as ShotSpotter hearing gun shots and dispatching police). But if you choose to not have any kind of electronic pass or GPS in your car, there should be a reasonable expectation of privacy.
"I hope you know how very lucky you are to know me, because I am so incredibly incredible."
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.
Just how do you confront a video recorder? How do you prove it hasn't been altered? How to you prove the date/time is accurate? How do you prove who was driving?
Can they go back and issue citations for expired registrations based upon these recordings? For how long? What about parking citations?
Will the videos be available via FOIA requests? If so, what's to stop a stalker, spouse, or other individual from using these in civil cases, or even for extortion? What happens when the preacher's/politician's car is spotted parked near an "adult video store", strip club, etc.? Even if they're "not available" via FOIA requests, people are corruptible and someone will get their hands on videos that they can use for criminal purposes.
There are just too many unanswered questions. While they might be able to make a case for keeping the recordings for 3-6 months, anything longer just presents too much potential for misuse/abuse, and even those short periods will allow the unscrupulous the opportunity to steal videos that they can use to blackmail others.
Note to Massachusetts' politicians: Such videos will be used against you at some point. Count on it. If you don't care about the privacy of the citizens, at least think of your self interest before voting for this.
make imaginary.friends COUNT=100 VISIBLE=false
Try voting the bastards out. It's hard, but a lot less bloody.
Only to be replaced by bastards. It's a never ending cycle. A lose lose situation. Pretty sad.
Because only a bastard would devote their life to politics for the sake of power... it's a fundamental flaw in the system. I think it was Arthur C. Clarke who suggested rule by conscription - but that's bad for business because it's less predictable, at least with the present system you get a chance to know the bastard before they rise to a significant level of power.
If we're going to have this level of accountability to government, they should have twice the level of accountability to us - public databases exposing their movements (30 days delayed for "safety" of the tracked), income sources and spending destinations down to the penny, voting record, meetings with other politicians (easily generated from the movement tracker), and family and friends' business profiles, all exposed on a tablet interface in the voting booth as well as the internet.
When they start holding the citizenry to a higher level of accountability than they hold themselves, they're asking for revolution.
Notice how much fun we would have if citizens reported the locations of all the police cars and speed traps? But no, they get to track us, where I'm sure "for a fee" the media can snoop to find out if the pastor went to the atheist rally or something.
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In Texas, for example, it is officially recognized that at least 21% of vehicles are uninsured, but that more than half of all car accidents involve at least 1 uninsured driver. If you have insurance, there is a very good chance the car that hit you does not.
shouldn't you expect everything you do in public to be potentially monitored?
no. and you are stupid if you have already *assumed* this. dammit!
maybe its a generational thing. I'm in my 50's and I grew up with 'anonymity' and the freedom to travel and just *be* and not be disturbed if you are not bothering anyone. now, innocent or not, you are tracked and monitored and scanned at every chance.
people my age grew up in a country where all that we do now is what we said of 'those godless commies in russia'. so much of what I remember being told -as a kid - how different we are and what made us different; people don't say those things anymore. we don't compare ourselves to such-and-such a country and say we are the good guys, hands down. not unless we compare ourselves to the worst of the worst and that's not a very useful comparison for a world power, now, is it?
in just ONE generation, so much has been lost? this makes me incredibly sad. and that people of your age (I'm assuming, correct me if I'm wrong) are happy to accept google's CEO saying that privacy is dead. or[well], was that the oracle guy? I forget which power-happy CEO said that, but I don't care if jesus christ came down on mount high and said it - I will never agree that privacy is worth handing over and submitting for public inspection. just because there is tech ability to do X does not mean its ok to just plow ahead and say 'lets just TRY this and see'. no, some people can see this is already a bad idea and we don't need to try this out!
you don't realize what you give up. once its gone, its gone. you are asking society to fundamentally change and live in glass houses. people have varying degrees of 'their space' but you are all for pushing this limit, aren't you?
I think you are making a huge mistake simply giving in and accepting the conclusion that they feed you. there are varying degrees of information and privacy and its certainly not an all-or-nothing affair.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Already in practice here. Patrol cars are being outfitted with 4-6 camera systems facing different directions. Reading is done via IR and works in the dark. The CHP, county sheriffs, and now local PDs are getting them. The system records: the IR image of the plate, the OCR reading of the plate, a visual picture of the plate, a visual picture of the car, GPS coordinates, geo-located address from the coordinates, and a timestamp. Additionally, there are stand alone plate readers being installed along busy roads and intersections that slurp in this data. Also, plate readers hit everyone crossing the border.
All this is placed in a database searchable state wide and with the Feds. I've long thought people are gonna freak when they truly understand how widespread this is. In a good single 10 hour shift I can read 5,000+ plates.
For what its worth, I've personally solved crimes with this. We are talking from kidnappings to robberies to homicides. It's widely used and the extent of its usefulness can't be overstated.
Is it legal? It certainly doesn't violate the letter of the law, but arguably violates the spirit.
IAAC (I am a cop).