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The Rapid Rise of License Plate Readers
An anonymous reader writes "Today, tens of thousands of license plate readers (LPRs) are being used by law enforcement agencies all over the country—practically every week, local media around the country report on some LPR expansion. But the system's unchecked and largely unmonitored use raises significant privacy concerns. License plates, dates, times, and locations of all cars seen are kept in law enforcement databases for months or even years at a time. In the worst case, the New York State Police keeps all of its LPR data indefinitely. No universal standard governs how long data can or should be retained."
I think things are going to have to get a LOT worse (not jsut "a little more..." for most Americans before they get off the couch and cause the destruction of the current order. Unfortunately I don't think that there's enough care out there for any meaningful push back towards a decent state. This means we're going to be stuck on this slow downward spiral for a while now. The worst part is that by the time most Americans wake up, first they will be called hippies and minimized in the media, and then the technology used by the police state will be too advanced for any meaningful change to occur. We will simply all end up being labelled as terrorists or have criminal records for showing up at an anti-whatever rally.
Three days from now?? Thats tomorrow!! ~Peter Griffin
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On the other hand unmarked police cars have been able to follow your car wherever it goes without a warrant, and that was not considered a privacy violation.
Without a warrant, but not without a police-related reason.
In the UK, there was a court case that explained that very well: A police officer claimed to be injured and collected pay without working, but his employer (the police) didn't quite believe him, so they watched his home to see if he was as badly injured as he claimed. He wasn't, it ended up in court, and there was the question whether the police was allowed to do what they did.
Result: While your employer is allowed to check whether you leave your home when you claim you are too sick to work, the police isn't. They have powers/rights that normal people and companies don't have, and with those rights come obligations, so they can't just watch you. However, in this case the police was actually the employer, and as an employer, they can do what other employers can do.