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Plate Readers Abound in DC Area, With Little Regard For Privacy
schwit1 writes "More than 250 cameras in Washington D.C. and its suburbs scan license plates in real time. It's a program that's quietly expanded beyond what anyone had imagined even a few years ago. Some jurisdictions store the information in a large networked database; others retain it only in the memory of each individual reader's computer, then delete it after several weeks as new data overwrite it. A George Mason University study last year found that 37 percent of large police agencies in the United States now use license plate reader technology and that a significant number of other agencies planned to have it by the end of 2011. But the survey found that fewer than 30 percent of the agencies using the tool had researched any legal implications. With virtually no public debate, police agencies have begun storing the information from the cameras, building databases that document the travels of millions of vehicles."
Where I live, there have always been plate readers.
We call them 'Sir'.
They register plates that seem suspicious to them and store them in little black notebooks that they keep 'til retirement, half a century sometimes. They work only 8 hours a day and want wages, uniforms, typing machines, unions, sick time, vacations, retirement money and other stuff the new ones don't need.
The new ones are much cheaper for us taxpayers.
They also know every fucking stolen car's plate by heart and can't be bribed by a doughnut.
When we want to be anonymous, we walk or use a bike and not a car which have had license plates to identify them since the last 100 years.
I guess that this new stuff is definitely eroding the right to drive a car in public that is registered as stolen, used in a robbery, kidnapping or murder.
We can't even use stolen money anymore, since scanning money counting machines were invented.
Even jewellery owners have digital photos of their stolen stuff online in seconds.
It's a hard world for criminals.
they can't land the black robot helicopter on your car if they don't know where you are.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
shake out.
Right now the Supreme Court is considering a case as to whether GPS monitoring of a car constitutes a search in the 4th Amendment sense, i.e. requiring probable cause or a warrant. This is important because one of the key car surveillance cases of the 20th century (Knotts v. United States) upheld beeper surveillance of cars but included dicta stating that "dragnet surveillance" could be debated by the court as a separate matter.
I am currently hopeful that pervasive and intrusive surveillance methods like this will be struck down by the courts, as the third circuit has already expressed doubts regarding historic cell site location data (case name: "In the matter of the application of the United States for an Order directing the provider of a communications service to disclose records to the government," third circuit, 2010). The Third Circuit more or left let magistrate judges make that determinations for themselves.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
The thing about a real panopticon is that every node can see every other node.
Somebody needs to tag all the cop, govt, and elected officials' cars and keep a public database of their movements so that the citizenry can keep exact track of what they're doing. Their home addresses, where their kids go to school, medical records, and bank account information should also be posted.
Let's show them where this road they're on ultimately leads.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Obviously this information is only used to prevent car theft because the car thieves will never think to switch plates. It couldn't have any other use.
Yeah in the UK a bunch of drive throughs like McD use it to check you havent parked up and gone shopping. They anpr your plate in and outbound and if greater than a signposted time has elasped they send you a ticket using the govenment database to get your details.
Whilst not legally enforceable most people pay up
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/watchdog/2010/04/mcdonalds_parking.html
excert below
They usually allow free parking for between 60 and 75 minutes and no return within 90 to 120 minutes.
If you break these strict conditions, your meal could be an unhappy one as Richard Kerr discovered.
On the way to collect his mum from Stansted Airport, Richard picked up a quarter pounder with cheese from McDonalds. When he collected his Mum, she was hungry so they returned to the restaurant about half an hour later.
Charges for repeat custom
Two weeks later, Richard received a demand to pay charges from Met Parking. He had spent a total of just 47 minutes on site but because he had left and then returned within the forbidden 90 minutes, his car was clocked by the camera and he was served a parking charge.
âoeIf youâ(TM)re not doing anything wrong, youâ(TM)re not driving a stolen car, youâ(TM)re not committing a crime,â Alessi said, âoethen you donâ(TM)t have anything to worry about.â
Then officer, you're OK with my recording your making a traffic stop? Or how you choose to break up peaceful protestors? I mean, if you're following your agency's official rules, there should be no problem, right?
Bark less. Wag more.
Why is it when I read something about DC's police force it's some new high tech tool, or a SWAT type tactic, or some other major program to reduce crime? And why is it that it never seems to even make a dent? Every time I've been to DC one of the most noticeable features is the sheer number of police cars, I'm just talking about DC metro cops, that are everywhere. Never mind all the Park Service police, black SUVs, and other law enforcement officials.
How about get rid of the toys and get cops to start walking the beat? Let them get to know the people they're arresting and maybe be a good influence in the neighborhoods during the day, and just maybe you'll see crime drop at night.
Oh, and let people carry. Nothing says "I'm armed and dangerous" like a Glock 9mm on the hip.
"Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."
Professional criminals will get around most security measures. Most criminals are not professional and do not have the wherewithal to switch plates due to either crass stupidity or lack or resources.
Right now the Supreme Court is considering a case as to whether GPS monitoring of a car constitutes a search in the 4th Amendment sense, i.e. requiring probable cause or a warrant.>
That is a very different situation in the legal sense. GPS monitoring requires the authorities to attach a device to your car - so they must trespass onto your private property, and leave the device on your private property. They also track you whether you are on public or private property. Their use will, hopefully, be found to be "unreasonable search and seizure".
Cameras, on the other hand, do not trespass at all - they only record from a public location what is happening on public property. Their use in the UK is certainly settled case law; their use in the USA is pretty much settled law as well.
Except the cops aren't going to put a cop of every corner and write down every plate because it would be way too manpower intensive. And people know that, so they have a reasonable expectation that their movements won't be tracked by the police without any suspicion of wrongdoing. Technology makes casual surveillance so much easier that the cops can and will track your every move in public even if they have absolutely no reason to do so. In other words, technology isn't simply the next generation of something that police are already doing, it allows a much different surveillance approach that is more invasive than what was practical before. The law needs to control that kind of thing in a way that simply wasn't necessary before.
It's not hard to make a fake license plate. There was an article a few years ago about students creating fake plates for their cars (using the license number from a teacher from their school), then driving around town and running through the red-light cameras to rack up tickets for their teacher.
What worries me is the ability to get tickets, or other, more serious violations, based on something that is very easy to spoof. Mad at your neighbor? Run a red light, get him a ticket. Mad at someone who cut you off in traffic? Steal gasoline from a station and get him arrested.
The more these plate-tracking systems are implemented and upheld in courts, the more we will see abuse of such systems.
part of the comment body.
Stop putting your reply into it.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...