Minneapolis Police Catalog License Plates and Location Data

tripleevenfall writes "The Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports that Minneapolis police used automated scanning technology to log location data for over 800,000 license plates in June alone, with 4.9 million scans having taken place this year. The data includes the date, time, and location where the plate was seen. Worse, it appears this data is compiled and stored for up to a year and is disclosed to anyone who asks for it."

Comments

Lawsuit

[dmitrygr]

in 3...2...1...

Re:Lawsuit

[Scutter]

And nothing will come of it. The police will continue to do things exactly as they are now, and we'll continue to lose more of our privacy and civil rights every day. Oh, perhaps they'll throw us a bone by making it harder (although not impossible) to obtain their stored data, but the data will still be there. They won't give up that "valuable tool in the War Against Crime" and the courts will side with them, as they always have when this sort of thing comes up.

Start voting for politicians who will protect your rights and stop voting for just whichever idiot happens to be a member of your party.

Re:Lawsuit

[dmitrygr]

> Start voting for politicians who will protect your rights

I'd love to. Show me one

Re:Lawsuit

[Scutter]

> Start voting for politicians who will protect your rights

I'd love to. Show me one

You'll never see one as long as people keep voting for the status quo. When politicians start understanding that we're sick of this crap and that we won't put up with their poor leadership, then they'll start to change and we'll start getting better candidates. That will never happen, though.

Re:Lawsuit

[MightyYar]

Most people don't care about privacy as much as they care about wedge issues. Sad but true.

Re:Lawsuit

[tom17]

You mean LCD.

Re:Lawsuit

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, perhaps they'll throw us a bone by making it harder (although not impossible) to obtain their stored data

We need to go the other way. If the police gather public data, then it needs to be made totally public, searchable by anyone. That way, (a) everyone's aware of exactly what data is being collected, and (b) everyone is equally subject to surveillance, whether they're police, politicians, etc.

Re:Lawsuit

[Dr Damage I]

IMO, judges see themselves as being protectors of the innocent and punishers of the wicked. This is why the gun rights crowd got hammered in United States v. Miller; gangsters trying to get away with their crimes by appealing to the supreme court aren't exactly sympathetic defendants. By contrast, the Heller and McDonald decisions involved defendants carefully chosen as upstanding and law abiding citizens cruelly oppressed by government overstepping its bounds. Or to put it another way, Jack Miller was seen by the judges as an evildoer in need of their punishment whereas Dick Anthony Heller and Otis McDonald were seen by the judges as upstanding citizens in need of their protection.

In most cases and in the absence of binding precedent, IMO, judges all the way up to supreme court level will attempt to craft their decision in such a way as to produce an outcome that punishes the wicked and/or protects the innocent.

Which means the trick to getting a favorable outcome is carefully selecting who challenges the law. Let a slimebag criminal challenge the law first and we're all gonna get screwed in the rush to punish the wicked. Find someone cruelly oppressed by government drunk on its own power, on the other hand, and we've got a much better chance of a favorable outcome.

Re:Lawsuit

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't want the authorities knowing how, when or where I choose to use my wedges, thank you very much.

Re:Lawsuit

[fustakrakich]

I'd love to. Show me one

Is that how it works? Everything has to be spoon fed? How about all of you go out and conscript somebody for office. Give him a secretary, and tell him, like it or not, he's stuck there for a four year term. It's the only way you're going to get an honest one, because you all should know by now that anybody who wants the job should probably be locked up in a padded cell... in a straightjacket.

Re:Lawsuit

[Darkness404]

Except for the fact that the masses aren't sick of this crap though. And they system makes it impossible for any third-party candidate to win.

Ask the average Joe why they are voting for Romney/Obama chances are it is because Obama is worse than Romney or vice versa. No one really -likes- Obama, no one really -likes- Romney. About the only politicians that people actually like are the "long shot" candidates like Ron Paul, Gary Johnson and Jill Stein. Naturally, they have no shot in winning because A) The US election system is based on having a medium sized state government and a tiny federal government, a far cry from the large state governments and colossal federal government we have today B) The American people simply don't care about any real changes they just care about ZOMG ROMNEY DOESN'T SUPPORT GAY MARRAGE! MUST VOTE OBAMA!!!! And ZOMG OBAMA SUPPORTS ABORTION MUST VOTE ROMNEY!!! Rather than any intelligent debate on the real issues.

Re:Lawsuit

[fustakrakich]

So, you're saying that if all the people that really liked, say, Jill Stein for instance, actually voted for her, she wouldn't be allowed to occupy the office? I wish people would put that to the test, because otherwise their complaints are full of shit. How is that the "system's" fault? The system is fine. The problem is operator error. PEBKAC

Re:Lawsuit

[Darkness404]

The system is based on an ideal America which was shattered following the civil war. The idea is that most laws affecting you and me would be passed in local and state elections where there is more impact and more ability for the common man to influence change, along with more ability to vote with your feet. The federal government would be in charge of doing "big picture things" such as tariff rates, wars and foreign affairs. Their impact on the individual would be normally very low. There was competition built in, the states would choose the senate and the masses the house, meaning that laws that threatened state sovereignty would more than likely be blocked by the senate. When it came to the laws people wanted, it could easily be decided by a state by state basis where one industry or product dominated their economy. Also, political parties were minor.

Today we don't have that, senators are directly elected by the masses, the federal government affects people a lot more than the state government does, no state has a single industry anymore, sure, there are a lot of farms in Kansas but there are also huge technology firms (Garmin and Sprint for example).

There are several improvements that the US could do, such as proportional representation by party (like what much of Europe does) to let everyone's voice be heard, especially since a lot of ideas aren't geographically based. And while I'm not sure what the political benefits would be, I would like to see something like Prime Minister's questions done with the US.

Re:Lawsuit

[White Flame]

For starters, exclude everybody with a Rep or Dem next to their name.

Re:Lawsuit

[fustakrakich]

This "ideal America". It actually existed? Despite the Indian wars, slavery, The Aliens and Sedition act, whiskey (and various others) rebellion, etc.? Might be a good idea to reread your history there. It wasn't exactly peaches and cream between the states and the feds then either. All things considered, I feel better off in the here and now. Either way, the "system" cannot prevent us from electing who we wish into office, not until somebody puts a gun to our heads and tells us who to vote for.

Re:Lawsuit

[anagama]

About the only politicians that people actually like are the "long shot" candidates like Ron Paul, Gary Johnson and Jill Stein. Naturally, they have no shot in winning...

It is people constantly worried about winning or losing to the other evil that is the main problem. A third party candidate doesn't have to win to cause a victory for America. All a third party candidate has to do is show the status quo Demoplicans or Republocrats that it is the 1/3 of voters (independents) who decide elections and that they aren't speaking to those voters anymore.

The only way to get there is to make your voice heard by NOT voting for Mr. Brain Cancer (D) or Mr. Ebola (R). If it becomes clear to Mr. Cancer and Democrats that he lost an election because independent liberal minded voters went with Stein instead of him, then the party is going to do something (hopefully beyond mere rhetoric) to try to appeal to those voters. If they don't they'll never be in power again, and that's a mighty incentive.

Here's the key though: you have to be willing to take a short term loss for the long term win.

So for someone like me who is very worried about civil liberties, the worst vote I could make is to vote for Obama because all he has done is make what was radical under GWB, the new normal. If I vote for him, I give Democrats the green light to be even worse. The only way to drive Democrats back to pretending to care about civil rights, is to make it clear that liberal voters abandoned Obama. However, if I use my protest vote for Romney, it will be heard by the Democrats as a suggestion to be even more neo-con than they are currently acting. That option is as bad as voting for Obama. And of course, not voting would just lump me in with the apathetic so it would gain me nothing.

That leaves me with one rational vote: Jill Stein. She is strong on civil liberties and on the ballot. It's actually a very plain choice for anyone who thought GWB's policies were evil and doesn't think those same polices become magical and sparkly fine merely because Obama practices them. All those policies liberals hate will just get worse under Obama, but if he loses, there will, at least hopefully, be some pushback.

A conservative could come up with a similar analysis to vote Buddy Roemer or whoever (fwiw, I've heard him speak and I like him too, I just want my vote to be a clear anti-war, anti-police state vote).

Re:Lawsuit

[MrSteveSD]

How about all of you go out and conscript somebody for office.

That system is known as Demarchy.

Re:Lawsuit

[penix1]

IF they actually have "no shot" at winning, the reason is because idiots like you keep saying so. Ron Paul is an excellent example of this effect.

You just proved his point. Ron Paul has exactly zero chance of winning an election outside of one of the established parties which is why he is running as a republican.

Re:Lawsuit

[Firethorn]

I'd argue that there are plenty of voters who actually like their candidates, but the 'no one really' comment is merely an exaggeration - Obama, Bush, and Clinton weren't elected because 51% of the population thought he was the best candidate. Realistically, a statistically insignificant number of people is going to believe that their candidate is the 'most optimal choice', but a lot of people are voting for somebody they agree with barely half the time because they perceive the other guy as being even worse.

So when somebody goes to the polls and pulls the lever for Romney when they'd really prefer Ron Paul, they're voting for the 'least worst' candidate they think has a chance.

As a 'moderate libertarian', I'm the type where in preference polls I tend to hit about 40% for both candidates... Huh, this is new, in the 'selectsmart' test I scored 52% for Obama, 39% for Romney. I'll note that in previous tests I normally agreed with Ron Paul(48%) the most. Eh, I had been leaning Obama recently anyways, in the sense that I've seen nothing that suggests Romney would 'do better'.

2nd Opinion: 75% Ron Paul, 60% Obama, 51% Romney.

Given those results, I'd say that a candidate I could vote for without 'holding my nose' would have to at least be in the 70-80% range, average. I say this because Ron Paul is still hold the nose at 62%. Obama(57) clearly leads Romney(45), but not overwhelmingly.

Re:Lawsuit

[Uberbah]

No. People care about their own privacy plenty. It's that they are fed misdirection (don't you want law enforcement to catch pedos?) and a lack of other options (both parties for the Patriot Act, NDAA, etc).

Re:Lawsuit

[Stirling Newberry]

There's something called the 14th Amendment which established a new relationship between citizen and states and citizen and Federal Government. One of the reasons that libertarians are going nowhere is because it doesn't take too long to hear the "Lincoln was a war criminal" meme, and along with several other phrases which were very popular among say, Dixiecrats, in 1972. States do not have monetary policy and their economies are not large enough to stabilize at our current level of trade. Left to their own devices states such as Florida and Rhode Island would do to their economies what Ireland and Spain did: throw open the doors to financial speculation, and then fall when it collapses, or what Italy and California have already done: create large untaxed economies and still insist on having horizontal transfers of wealth.

There is a reason for the victory of muscular federalism between 1855 and 1945, not just in the United States, but globally. That reason is that markets, not borders, define a state interest. This is a reality that many people in the present – while most visibly on the far left and far right, just as pervasively in the suburbanite middle – do not want to grasp. If the national economy fails, then all of the small carve outs that people grab for their locality are unsustainable and unaffordable.

Re:Lawsuit

[ubrgeek]

Not sure you picked the right examples: I'd say gay rights and abortion more than just touch on privacy issues. For example, look at Associate Justice Blackmun's disenting comments in Bowers v. Hardwick.

I think the problem is that most people don't see the link between things like that case and the government's downslide away from respecting our privacy. There should (in a magical world filled with puppy tears and unicorn farts) be a direct correlation where every time a government entity loses a case that deals with some aspect of privacy it acts as a wakeup call reminding them the issue is actually Privacy - with a capital P - with respect to Our Right To It Everywhere, vice privacy - with a lowercase p - with our right to it as it relates to that one particular instance.

Re:Lawsuit

[canadian_right]

The USA constitution doesn't give Americans any rights. The USA constitution says you already have all those rights, plus any we didn't think to write down, and reminds the government to NOT abridge any of these rights that you already have simply because you are a human being.

Driving is not a right because the law says it is so dangerous that you need to be licensed to do it.

Re:Lawsuit

[Firethorn]

That's basically the argument that has carefully NOT been brought before the supreme court. By the Miller decision, one can argue that a military pattern M-4, much less it's semi-automatic variants, are MORE deserving of constitutional protection than weapons not militarily useful - such as your 10/22, black powder guns, hunting rifles, and such. As such, the NFA in most of it's entirety would be unconstitutional, much less the closing of the automatic weapon registry.

They recently asked Scalia about the issue, specifically about hand held missiles. He danced around a bit, but it seems that he, by default, seperates 'arms' and 'ordinance' as 'arms' being something the single soldier can carry and use, are at least semi-commonly issued to such.

My personal line - is it equivalent to what our soldiers are individually issued for use? If so, then it has to be legal for 'the people'. Whether it's a single shot musket or a futuristic laser gun. I'll even go so far as to say that an 'arm' is typically not single use, which would rule out most RPGs, grenades, and such.

Currently, that would be the M-16/4 line of weapons, short barreled shotguns(issued to breach teams a lot), 9mm semi-automatic handguns, etc... The 'milita' isn't expected to be able to show up with 100% conforming weapons, and they can provide a good test-bed of alternative arms, so I'll include PDWs(personal defense weapons like the FN-90), which give potential combatants more firepower in an easier to control platform than handguns, but still maintain a fairly small profile compared to an assault rifle. Along with that, I'll allow alternatives. The Beretta 9mm is the US Service pistol, but the Brits use a Browning or Sig in the same role while the Germans use an H&K USP. US Special forces often use .45ACP, and .40S&W is about the most common police cartridge(where they use pistols more than the military). The FBI wanted to use 10mm, but found it too powerful for some agents. So I'd provide protection for any 'high power semi-automatic handgun', with 'high power' being anything 'roughly' between 9mm Parabellum and 10mm Auto in power range(.45 is fat and slow, about the same as .40S&W, less powerful than 10mm). Rifles would be an even wider range - anything between .223 and .50 BMG, automatic to bolt.

Re:Lawsuit

[kheldan]

If that turns out to truly be the case then I'm happy I'm a throwback in that regard.

Disclosed to anyone who asks for it?

[Anonymous Coward]

So I could request and get this data? Sounds like it could be fun to play with.

Log the Minneapolis Police

[ZipK]

Someone should log the Minneapolis police; somehow I think they'd object.

Re:Log the Minneapolis Police

[girlintraining]

Someone should log the Minneapolis police; somehow I think they'd object.

Actually, in Minnesota, you can be charged with a felony for giving people any warning of an upcoming speed trap. You can also be charged with one for providing information about the police' whereabouts. The first thing authority does whenever it violates your privacy is exempt itself from similar treatment. This is how you periodically hear about an off-duty police officer in plain clothes getting into a fight with someone -- even if they were the aggressor, and even if they fail to identify themselves as a police officer, the other person still goes to jail for many years for striking an officer. Or that case of how a man accidentally bumped into the President in a crowd, while waiting to shake his hand, and was then carried away by the Secret Service and held without a trial for several months because he "made a physical threat against the President."

Government agents can abuse whomever they want, whenever they want, for as long as they want. And you will take it, Citizen, or things will get even worse for you... as well as your family and friends.

Nice bias, burying legitimate usage instances

[vandelais]

for comparing records against stolen vehicle, missing persons, wanted criminals, and revoked license reports.

Re:Nice bias, burying legitimate usage instances

[knapkin]

Granted you did point out a legitimate bias as the lean is that all capture of license plates is bad (something I'm admittedly on the fence about).

For me the real problem is the logging and storing. For each of the legitimate use cases you outlined, there should be no need to store license plates for anyone to whom those use cases do not apply.

For instance, let's just look at the stolen vehicle use case. As soon as the license plate number is processed (i.e. the image processing software has done it's job and associated an actual number to the image), a query is made against stolen vehicles. If the license plate is not for a stolen vehicle, the image and logs are deleted. You may argue that 12-24 hours of activity are needed, so I could see a data log that is that long being legitimate since it might take a day or so to notice that your car is missing.

A similar process could be applied to each use case you outlined. I would be interested in use cases you can identify that make a year's worth of logs sound legit.

Re:Nice bias, burying legitimate usage instances

[Darkness404]

Right, and we also should do ID checks every 3 blocks, after all, it would allow to search for:

Missing persons, wanted criminals, "illegal" immigrants, kidnapping victims, terrorists, etc.

Just because there are possible legitimate uses for the police to deploy such technologies doesn't mean the benefits outweigh the clear privacy violations. Do you also really believe that all the PATRIOT act does is protect us from terrorists?

Re:Nice bias, burying legitimate usage instances

[zerro]

In some places, like Texas, probable cause isnt really needed if they want to search your persons. There are many loopholes in the law that leave the decision to "arrest" a suspect of seemingly trivial, non-violent offenses (such as jaywalking, or running a stop sign) up to the officer. Purportedly for safety, the officer may search your persons/property and of course hope you didn't have something incriminating on you. (Tip: don't hold on to your friend's "electronic cigarette" for him)

Re:Nice bias, burying legitimate usage instances

[nurb432]

"...he who gives up liberty..." bla bla bla.. Go look it up.

How to fix this

[mbone]

Step 1 : Request data on every member of the City Council (or whatever the local government equivalent is).
Step 2 : Find out who's "daily routine" includes frequent trips to a local strip club, and who is spending the night at locations not their home.
Step 3 : Publish anonymously in wikileaks.
Step 4 : Watch this policy change amazingly fast.

Re:How to fix this

[Professr3]

The only change would be that City Council records are excised automatically from the database, and requesting any such information about City Council members will become a felony.

Slashdot hypocrisy

[Anonymous Coward]

So, when people get stopped by the police for taking pictures in public, everyone rages against the police. When the police take pictures in public, everyone rages against the police.

YOU CAN'T HAVE IT BOTH WAYS. Either it's okay to take these pictures and do what you like with them, or it's not. Stop looking at everything the police do as bad and evil and inherently abusive, and treat all instances of an issue the same.

Re:Slashdot hypocrisy

[SydShamino]

Sure you can. The police are public officers working a job for which they are empowered with the ability to detain and arrest. The public are exercising their rights to move freely and with relative anonymity through their own state.

These are drastically different scenarios and it's perfectly reasonable to allow constant surveillance of one (where the people have been entrusted with abusable rights) and not the other.

Mod parent interesting

[Mr 44]

This is apparently the logic that actual police use.

Re:Mod parent interesting

[codepunk]

No it is exactly the logic that all govt organizations use.

Re:This is what police do

[Darkness404]

Says someone who has most likely never actually looked outside of the US or Europe. There are plenty of places that are quite safe despite having very little or no police presence. You look at the biggest causes of violence in the world and the answer is simple: the state. Look at the drug cartels, do you really think that drug cartels would exist if the drugs they were selling were legal? Of course not. Nearly all organized crime exists because of the state prohibiting the sale of goods where there is an inelastic demand.

It is perfectly possible to have harmony and peace without having a police state.

Is this legal for citizens to do?

[DeadboltX]

Can I put a camera on my front yard that records license plates, and then feed that into a computer system that creates similar logs?.

Can I put a camera on the roof of my business to do this?

Can Starbucks or McDonalds put a camera on top of every store location and track vehicles nationwide?

Re:Is this legal for citizens to do?

[pentalive]

There is the story of the major supermarket chain that sent someone over to the competitors to record license plates. Then used the information to send out extra coupon flyers.

At least it's open

[dirk]

While I think it's a shit policy and would prefer that they don't do it, I do have to say I do like the fact that it is open to anyone. To me, if law enforcement is gathering this type of information, it should be available to anyone. That way, we can keep track of the police and politicians as well as they keep track of us. The same things goes for public "safety" cameras. While I would prefer to not have any, if they are going to do them, they should be open to anyone to be able to watch.

Re:This is what police do

[Darkness404]

Exactly.

Although, I have to say this is more true for the Americas and Europe than the rest of the world. A good chunk of the police in what the west are fond of calling the "third world" actually have morals and want to help people.

Much better plan

[SuperKendall]

1) Put up your own license scanner for the same roads the official ones are on.

2) Gather data for a year.

3) Download the official list, and see who they deleted...

NOW you have something juicy.

Relevant Seattle Police Case

[Frosty Piss]

The Seattle Police recently lost a lawsuit concerning access to Dash Cam video and related information about retention...

See here: http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=40238