DHS Wants Access To License-plate Tracking System, Again

schwit1 writes: The Department of Homeland Security is seeking bids from companies able to provide law enforcement officials with access to a national license-plate tracking system — a year after canceling a similar solicitation over privacy issues. The reversal comes after officials said they had determined they could address concerns raised by civil liberties advocates and lawmakers about the prospect of the department's gaining widespread access, without warrants, to a system that holds billions of records that reveal drivers' whereabouts. "If this goes forward, DHS will have warrantless access to location information going back at least five years about virtually every adult driver in the U.S., and sometimes to their image as well," said Gregory T. Nojeim, senior counsel for the Center for Democracy & Technology. ... The largest commercial database is owned by Vigilant Solutions, which as of last fall had more than 2.5 billion records. Its database grows by 2.7 million records a day.

Comments

Repetition Bores People

[Needs2BeSaid]

They will keep asking, over and over, forever. The "people" will get bored with the requests, less and less of them will voice their opinions. DHS will win in the end. The United States Government is nothing if not extremely patient and very persistent.

this isn't going to make you safe.

[nimbius]

The vision of homeland security is to ensure a homeland that is safe, secure, and resilient against terrorism and other hazards.

License plate tracking wouldnt have stopped the shoe bomber, the Aurora theatre shootings, the Arizona shooting of Gabrielle Giffords, the fort hood shooting, the innumerable school shootings in america, or the standoff at the Cliven Bundy ranch. a License plate tracking system wouldnt keep the average american safe, but the plutocracy? yes. License plate tracking systems allow you to monitor and track activists and protestors that organize around your government for systemic changes to policies and processes you benefit from disproportionately. Why, a plate tracking system could prevent proper media coverage of the next Fergusson shooting or even identify, proactively, members of the media that should be prevented from ever accessing the state. A plate tracking system would allow the government to create a plutocratically sanctioned whitelist of vehicles allowed to enter or leave DC. It would serve well to blacklist occupy protestors from financial areas, and regulate their entrance and exit to and from parks. It could also be used to collect citations and build cases against potential activists.

Re:this isn't going to make you safe.

[tristes_tigres]

"Not being government they are probably safer" ?

What an astonishingly ignorant statement. Billions of corporate propaganda clearly have had profound effect on Americans.

Corporation is by design and law fascist, top-down hierarchical organization that is unaccountable to public, and forbidden by law to have any motivation except profit motive. That is safer than however flawed and limited checks-and-balances of the government?

What could possibly go wrong?

[Geoffrey.landis]

A system that tracks the whereabouts of every American (or at least, every one with a car), and saves the data for five years...
This story needs the tag "what could possibly go wrong"?

Re:What could possibly go wrong?

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's the scary thing:

The system ALREADY EXISTS.

The article is about the DHS asking for access to the system from private companies that are already recording that data.

Instead, it is seeking bids from companies that already gather the data to say how much they would charge to grant access to law enforcement officers at Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a DHS agency. ...

The largest commercial database is owned by Vigilant Solutions, which as of last fall had more than 2.5 billion records. Its database grows by 2.7 million records a day.

DHS officials say Vigilant’s database, to which some field offices have had access on a subscription basis, has proved valuable in solving years-old cases.

So, yeah. You're already being spied on. Fortunately, for now, it's only in the hands of private businesses who sell it to anyone who's willing to pay. Or is that really all that fortunate?

the next Kickstarter project

[turkeydance]

the old 007 rotating-license-plate