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ACLU Study Says Police Cameras Create Database of Our Movements

Posted by samzenpus on from the somebody's-watching-me dept.

puddingebola writes "The ACLU has published a study saying the widespread use of police and traffic cameras has made it possible to track individual's movements, even across multiple jurisdictions. From the article, 'While the Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that a judge's approval is needed to use GPS to track a car, networks of plate scanners allow police effectively to track a driver's location, sometimes several times every day, with few legal restrictions. The ACLU says the scanners are assembling a "single, high-resolution image of our lives." "There's just a fundamental question of whether we're going to live in a society where these dragnet surveillance systems become routine," said Catherine Crump, a staff attorney with the organization. The group is proposing that police departments immediately delete any records of cars not linked to any crime.'"

26 of 154 comments (clear)

  1. Well, yeah by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is the backstory that hasn't been covered. It's not about the NSA or Google or Microsoft.

    It's about Moore's Law and optical fiber and storage densities and the Internet.

    Soon it will be about robotics and AI.

    1. Re:Well, yeah by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 3, Interesting

      "This is the backstory that hasn't been covered."

      In this state it is illegal for police to look up your license plate unless they have at least "reasonable suspicion" that there has been either a crime (or traffic violation). They have to record their reason(s) for looking up information in the police database system.

      That is not to say they never do it improperly. But when they have been caught, they were not just given a slap on the wrist. One cop a few years back was caught using the police data system to look up information on his girlfriend. He is no longer a policeman. (Not the only such case, either.)

  2. the answer is yes, we will by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "There's just a fundamental question of whether we're going to live in a society where these dragnet surveillance systems become routine," said Catherine Crump

    The answer is yes, we will, because not enough people care. Just as many people in the USA are in favor of these programs to "keep us safe from the omg terrorists!" as oppose them, according to many polls.

    Hell the media hasn't even been talking about the issues, they've been playing up the celeb angle.

    Our society is trending towards a total surveillance state, and people don't care enough to do anything about it. They'll keep voting for the same two parties.

    1. Re:the answer is yes, we will by RabidReindeer · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "There's just a fundamental question of whether we're going to live in a society where these dragnet surveillance systems become routine," said Catherine Crump

      The answer is yes, we will, because not enough people care. Just as many people in the USA are in favor of these programs to "keep us safe from the omg terrorists!" as oppose them, according to many polls.

      Hell the media hasn't even been talking about the issues, they've been playing up the celeb angle.

      Our society is trending towards a total surveillance state, and people don't care enough to do anything about it. They'll keep voting for the same two parties.

      We aren't merely surveilled, however, we're self-surveilling. In addition to government cameras everywhere, people put up webcams, buy into Google Street View, post their entire lives on Facebook, etc., etc., etc.

      This isn't entirely a bad thing. Not all of the Boston Bombing images came from government cameras, for example. Enough people get enough benefit from "Fishbowl Society" that I don't think it likely that we'll get that genie back in the bottle.

      But if we can't turn back to more private times, we need to at least establish some acceptable rules for what we have. Asymmetric intelligence (a la NSA) is a threat to liberty. Basic human dignity requires that we be circumspect about what we share. And general data, such as traffic cams and telephone records should have very strict rules about both access and retention. You shouldn't be able to simply march in, wave a flag with an eagle on it saying "National Security" and be able to plunder at will.

    2. Re:the answer is yes, we will by bondsbw · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You shouldn't be able to simply march in, wave a flag with an eagle on it saying "National Security" and be able to plunder at will.

      There was a time when the 9th Amendment to the US Constitution meant something... such as the ability to simply say "No" to the federal government.

      --
      All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
    3. Re:the answer is yes, we will by argStyopa · · Score: 3, Informative

      That ended when politicians recognized that building a giant nanny state would require more and more federal control, and about half the US demographic agrees that's the goal of federal government.

      Madison nailed it:
      "It has been said, by way of objection to a bill of rights....that in the Federal Government they are unnecessary, because the powers are enumerated, and it follows, that all that are not granted by the constitution are retained; that the constitution is a bill of powers, the great residuum being the rights of the people; and, therefore, a bill of rights cannot be so necessary as if the residuum was thrown into the hands of the Government. I admit that these arguments are not entirely without foundation, but they are not as conclusive to the extent it has been proposed. It is true the powers of the general government are circumscribed; they are directed to particular objects; but even if government keeps within those limits, it has certain discretionary powers with respect to the means, which may admit of abuse. "

      --
      -Styopa
    4. Re:the answer is yes, we will by cusco · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Here in Seattle the traffic cameras are available for anyone to look at on the Dept. of Transportation web site, to check traffic. One day my wife and my niece were going to the mall, and out of curiosity I decided to look at the intervening traffic cams. Because of the timing of the stoplights I was able to see them on 4 of the 6 cameras between home and the mall. That was seven or eight years ago, there are a lot more cameras available to look at now.

      --
      "Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
    5. Re:the answer is yes, we will by RabidReindeer · · Score: 4, Interesting

      That ended when politicians recognized that building a giant nanny state would require more and more federal control, and about half the US demographic agrees that's the goal of federal government.

      Duckspeak Fail.

      A "Nanny State" is one that limits your freedom "for your own good". A Police State is one that limits your freedom for its own good.

      Yes, I know that we're supposed to be submitting to this whole deal "because it keeps us safe from the big bad evil terrorists".

      But consider who one of the the biggest proponents of Prism is: Dick Cheney. If he's your ideal of a Nanny, you're kinkier than most of us, I think.

  3. Turn the tables... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Create network of private cameras and open source distributed back end. Collect and record all the data, make it available for anyone, and add OpenStreetMap style metadata editing. Then users can flag vehicles of interest, like those owned by Law Enforcement, politicians, lawyers. If dragnets are really constitutional, then nobody should mind, right?

    1. Re:Turn the tables... by spacepimp · · Score: 4, Insightful

      ... Then get flagged as a terror threat for monitoring police activity and obstructing justice. They may want to question you about a few of your most recent Google searches about "Open Source Software" as well, just to kick you in the nuts a little harder.

    2. Re:Turn the tables... by mbone · · Score: 4, Informative

      Status: This quotation has not been found in any of the writings of Thomas Jefferson.

    3. Re:Turn the tables... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      "My new hobby is making up Jefferson quotes." -Mark Twain

  4. Yes they can do that, but are they? by Nyder · · Score: 4, Insightful

    While the capabilities to do this are there, can the local police stations afford it? Or would they outsource it to the NSA (who in turn outsources to a private contractor) so they can claim they are not doing it?

    If this is the future we are looking forward to, maybe it is a time for transparency in the local governments & police. Let's face it, while this has some good uses, the ability to easily abuse it is way too high. And it will be abused because that is what we humans do when we have no oversight (sometimes even when we do).

    If we want to still have freedoms in America, we have to change the way our government works. We have to reign in the abuse of power that happens at all levels. Give no one total power and make sure there is always oversight.

    --
    Be seeing you...
    1. Re:Yes they can do that, but are they? by cold+fjord · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The federal government has been making grants to local police departments that allow them buy the equipment. There is no way the NSA is going to get involved, they are all about signals intelligence, not the Department of Motor Vehicles.

      It should be much easier to get the city or county council, or maybe the state, to regulate this than trying to do it through the federal government. After all, police departments in the US are local jurisdiction except for the relatively small state police agencies.

      --
      much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
    2. Re:Yes they can do that, but are they? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      It's getting cheaper all the time. It's exactly what's going on in London, with the massive array of CCTV cameras there, but they quite refuse to share the data with citizens for tracking personal or non-political crime (such as personal assault or stolen luggage).

      Been there, done that, got tracked and questioned about my presence at an anarchist rally. But the same network was left unused for tracking who stole my luggage or smashed my car windows.

    3. Re:Yes they can do that, but are they? by hawguy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      1. NSA's mission, to the exclusion of nearly everything else, is FOREIGN signals intelligence. I know you think they're doing a lot of other things, but they're not. They would never get involved in anything like this. (I realize you may have been making the comment tongue-in-cheek.) If ANY federal agency would be involved, it would be the FBI -- and they are, in fact, because they're the ones who keep the national databases that many state, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies use.

      But isn't the NSA sucking up data on *every* phone call (whether its an overseas call or purely domestic) "just in case" it involves a foreigner? Why wouldn't they also want to suck up data from every police camera "just in case" it tracks a car driven by a foreigner? Even terrorists know that phones can be tracked, so if the NSA really is tracking terrorists why wouldn't they want to be able to track them by license plate even if they leave the phone at home?

  5. that explains something that happened to me by therealkevinkretz · · Score: 3, Interesting

    A couple of years ago, I was driving behind a cop who initially appeared interested in the car ahead of him. That car prepared to make a left turn, and the officer signaled the same, and after I passed them (at about 35-40MPH) within two or three seconds he disengaged from the other guy and came after me, lights flashing.

    Turns out my registration had expired, which is what he told me he pulled me over for. No way possible he could have visually read my plate and run it in the time he had - so I wondered if there were license-plate reading cameras in some LEO vehicles, then dismissed the idea as silly. Now it doesn't sound so far-fetched. Anyone have any direct knowledge of systems like this?

    1. Re:that explains something that happened to me by P-niiice · · Score: 4, Informative

      They exist, and can scan 10000 plates an hour, if I remember correctly. The police here in GA sometimes sit by the road at highway interchanges and scan plates, and pull over car with expired plates. Where you used to get away with renewing your registration at the end of the month, you can now be caught one day after your birthday.

    2. Re:that explains something that happened to me by cold+fjord · · Score: 4, Informative

      There are scanners that can be mounted on the police cars. The ones I know of are about the size of a box of breakfast cereal. From what I've seen there are at least 2 of them mounted, it might be as many as 4. They are mounted on the trunk and possibly hood, pointing at about a 45 degree angle from the direction of travel to the left and right, so that is 2 rear left and right, and possibly 2 front left and right. They can scan while they are driving and check thousands of plates per hour. I expect that they keep the police cars with those scanners moving all day if they can to scan as much as they can.

      This video is informative.
      Police License Plate Scanner

      --
      much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
    3. Re:that explains something that happened to me by anmre · · Score: 5, Interesting

      My father-in-law recently went on a police "ride-a-long" (we live in Virginia Beach, VA). He said that in between responding to domestic disturbance calls, the majority of the time was spent driving around scanning license plates. Prior to that, he didn't even know the police had the capability, much less the desire to track innocent folks. One particular incident occured that night when they pulled up to a vehicle that came up stolen. The cop pulled the guy over, handcuffed him and put him in the back seat. The guy was upset, and for good reason, which would only become clear some minutes later. He was the owner of the car which had previously been reported as stolen, but had not been cleared in the database after it was returned to him.

    4. Re:that explains something that happened to me by plover · · Score: 4, Interesting

      They were even featured on one of those "reality" TV shows a few months back, as I vaguely recall. A private towing company installed it in a vehicle, loaded up a database of deadbeats, then trolled public parking lots and shopping center lots looking for cars to repossess. When they found one, they quickly dragged it away and claimed a bounty.

      --
      John
  6. 1984 by randomErr · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Right wing nut jobs have been screaming about this for decades. Municipalities keep putting these cameras and phone taps in place in the name of safety, both personal and the unnamed war (crime, terrorism, even poverty.) Unfortunately these measures don't stop crime. At best they help find the person(s) who did the deed a little faster.

    If you say we need more cameras, need I remind you of the Boston bombing. It was a low tech pressure cooker bomb in backpack that easily got past heighten surveillance at a marathon. How many days did it take to find the people who did it? It was people that found them, not cameras.

    Technology in the wrong hands leads to Orwell's nightmare and the direction of the Nazi nationalism before World War II. Good governments can handle this kind of power. But we've seen major abuses of this kind of power from Bush senior through to Obama's drones in our government. Governments, especial large ones, easily get corrupted or hung up on political correctness so they keep getting re-elected. Stop watching every move I make if I'm not doing anything wrong.

    I'll end this rant with two quotes/cliches:

    * With great power comes great responsibility
    * Just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean you're wrong.

    --
    You say things that offend me and I can deal with it. Can you?
    1. Re:1984 by khallow · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Good governments can handle this kind of power.

      Even if that were true, good governments don't stay good. This is also the sort of power that can make a government go bad. It gives them too much power over the citizenry.

    2. Re:1984 by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Actually, the "right wing" nut jobs I know, are paranoid as the OWS crowd is. Pointing to the Right Wingers is probably not a good idea except in your twisted view of the world.

      And being an accused "Right wing" nut job myself, I can assure you, that I have HUGE problems with this kind of monitoring of citizens. The problem, as I see it, isn't the "Right wing nutjobs" or the "leftwing nut jobs" it is those people in the middle that want a functioning society with the least amount of hassles who see expired license plates and pulling people for stolen (but returned) cars as acceptable exchange of liberty for security.

      The problem is, the Leftwing and Righwing Nut jobs won't get together on subjects like this until it is too late. So, in summary, stop targeting people that might actually be on your side with broad strokes of the paint brush. I'll join you in protesting the police state we're in.

      As a side note, did you protest against the shutting down of Boston via martial law during the man hunt for single wounded man? Or how about Big Bear Lake when the cop went on a shooting spree? We live in a police state, but that is what people want.They want big government to take care of them.

      --
      Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
  7. Local coordination not terribly likely by beamin · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I manage IT for a small city whose police department has two patrol vehicles equipped with LPRs. Officers download an updated hotlist of expired and stolen plates daily to the PCs in those cars and have the LPR software running while they patrol and answer calls. Our official policy is to let data expire from the PCs after 40 days. While the software has the optional capability to centrally gather reads and archive them, we've never bothered to implement it. The only inquiry we've had regarding plate reads in the last three years was from the NYCLU, wanting to know our data handling policies.

    That's not to say that there isn't a very creepy Orwellian aspect to the proliferation of this technology. With enough zealots in the right places, this stuff is odious.

  8. Re:Quantity has a quality all its own? by ScottCooperDotNet · · Score: 4, Insightful

    When the police manually trail someone, they usually have a reasonable suspicion to do so. When police electronically trail everyone, regardless of even a hint of crime, that becomes a system ripe for abuse.

    In ethics, not everything is a 1 or a 0.