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Judge Allows L.A. Cops To Keep License Plate Reader Data Secret
An anonymous reader writes:
A Los Angeles Superior Court judge has ruled that the Los Angeles Police Department is not required to hand over a week's worth of license plate reader data to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). He cited the potential of compromising criminal investigations and giving (un-charged) criminals the ability to determine whether or not they were being targeted by law enforcement (PDF). The ACLU and the EFF sought the data under the California Public Records Act, but the judge invoked Section 6254(f), "which protects investigatory files." ACLU attorney Peter Bibring notes, "New surveillance techniques may function better if people don't know about them, but that kind of secrecy is inconsistent with democratic policing."
A classic case of, "we know better than you?" Now by LAPD. The only thing that was omitted was, "it's for the children."
Is that police department going to find a new revenue source by selling license plate and location data to somebody else who will correlate and sell location likelihood information to businesses/marketing companies?
Is that police department allowed to tag me in their system even though I wasn't under investigation, but passed their camera? Then, do they get to keep that info forever? What happens if I'm accidentally put on the no-fly list, I mean watch list, I mean...
These guys can't be trusted to type my license plate correctly, now they get permanent location, tracking and correlation? No.
I'm no Luddite, but this stuff and its related capabilities makes me want to go live in the woods. I'm sick of this.
My mom says I'm cool.
NO there isnt. Better to have Liberty than security in this case. I want ot see what the police see, i want to know what the police are doing. We do not hire them to be secretive. ENOUGH with 'state secrets'
Good-bye
You dont hold on to Liberty by viewing every citizen as a murderous stalker.
Good-bye
This is the primary problem with "sweep" methods of collecting data.
There MIGHT be something in the "sweep" that MAY impact a current investigation. Therefore, ALL of the "sweep" must be hidden from the public.
Bullshit. There shouldn't be any difficulty in removing the items relevant to a current investigation. The should already be tagged as such. Then release the rest.
This is a case of "collect EVERYTHING and keep it FOREVER" so that anyone can be backtracked if the cops or politicians decide to do so. Where do you go? When? Why? What do you do there?
Now imagine a cop tracking your daughter to find out where she lives and where she works and which college she goes to and when she leaves for classes.
Do you think your income tax records, water usage, parking ticket record, etc should be publicly available? All of this is data owned by the government. Just because it belongs to the people does not mean that is is not private data and should not be available to the public.
Fine, have an independent oversight board review the records without making them public while keeping the details secret.
I nominate the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) as the independent review boards.
"His name was James Damore."