Louisiana Governor Vetoes License Plate Reader Bill, Citing Privacy Concerns

An anonymous reader writes: Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal has vetoed a plan to acquire license plate reading cameras in the state. Law enforcement agencies nationwide use such cameras to scan cars and compare them to a "hot list" of stolen or wanted vehicles. That data is kept for weeks, or even years In some cases. Jindal wrote in a signing statement: "Senate Bill No. 250 would authorize the use of automatic license plate reader camera surveillance programs in various parishes throughout the state. The personal information captured by these cameras, which includes a person’s vehicle location, would be retained in a central database and accessible to not only participating law enforcement agencies but other specified private entities for a period of time regardless of whether or not the system detects that a person is in violation of vehicle insurance requirements. Camera programs such as these that make private information readily available beyond the scope of law enforcement, pose a fundamental risk to personal privacy and create large pools of information belonging to law abiding citizens that unfortunately can be extremely vulnerable to theft or misuse. For these reasons, I have vetoed Senate Bill No. 250 and hereby return it to the Senate."

Comments

too late

[ihtoit]

ANPR (Automatic Numberplate Readers) cameras are already in use practically everywhere, this is just a litmus test as to whether anyone claiming a Constitutional violation might have a case. Asked then answered.

Re:too late

[bws111]

Too late for what? Apparently 'practically everywhere' does not include Louisiana.

Re:too late

[sonamchauhan]

And also, making that information available to specified "private entities".
(probably any entity with enough money to muscle into some named market)

Re:too late

[PopeRatzo]

The problem is not the reading, but the recording.

That's the truth. The ALR automates the process of a cop having to read a license plate, call it in and wait for a response. That's fine.

Of course it can also automate the process of collecting movement data on every driver, but it doesn't seem like having ALRs on police cruisers would be a very good way to do that. Stationary ALRs seem like a much bigger threat to privacy.

Re:too late

[ToasterMonkey]

My little village has had ALR's on police cars parked in the village, outside the PD, for years.

The problem is not the reading, but the recording. If the ALR is on the police car, and it immediately beeps when a car drives by that is registered to someone wanted by the police, that is one thing. But recording and indefinitely storing a photo of every passing car is something else entirely.

Anyone could do this, if not now, certainly in ten years. There is really nothing preventing a smartphone in a GPS mount from doing this, though I can't think of any benefit to someone doing it.

I don't understand the problem. Maybe I will someday, because there doesn't seem to be a practical way to avoid this. It's like taking pictures or video in public. Is the answer to have maximum data retention laws? That apply to every level of government... only?

Re:too late

[John.Banister]

I think the problem isn't the photography so much as the photography in combination with having a database of who owns which license plate. With the combination, then you have people's vehicle trip metadata, and the problem is much like the problem with having their phone call metadata.

People might be able to protect themselves a little bit by having the vehicle owned by a trust (especially if the trust owned vehicles for several different people), but that would be an extra burden and could have serious shortcomings if joint owners of the trust decide they don't like one another anymore.

Re:too late

[davester666]

There are already private companies doing this, and selling access to the data to the gov't and anybody else who stumps up a couple of bucks.

Re: too late

[Anonymous Coward]

Police have stationary ALRs. They don't talk about them in the same way they don't talk about Stingray devices. That's for the same reason too: They don't want you to know what they do because you, the citizen, might actually object to it.

The use of both is disgusting and should be outlawed because cops prove over and over again they can't be trusted with this stuff.

Re:too late

[sumdumass]

Repossession companies use this a lot. You can take static locations (the cam car was sitting still ) and narrow down the likely location of an asset to within about ten or twenty minutes of searching.

The real problem is with who has access to the info. The repo companies will generally only be able to identify vehicles they are actively looking for. But just like a general warrant which the fourth amendment was addressing, you can build a significant circumstantial case against someone or expose personal information for malicious reasons. For instance, suppose you logged taking some friends home after a few drinks. Some businesses get robbed in that area but they get robbed all the time because it is a bad area. A year later, you help the campaign of some local politician trying to unseat the longstanding mayor and all the sudden you are being investigated for connections to those robberies. You forgot you were even in the area and after proclaiming how preposterous the investigation is, the cam data makes you appear to be lying. Or even worse, suppose you saw a shrink after the loss of a loved one and the cam data shows you in the parking lot of the shrink. You are running for office and now it's revealed that you have mental issues.

Re:too late

[ihtoit]

one word:

PATRIOT.

Thank you, come again.

Re:too late

[chilenexus]

If you associate the patrol car's location at the time it is scanning with the mobile ALR, what's the difference between that and having a network of stationary ALRs? The invasion of privacy comes when the data isn't immediately discarded if it doesn't get a hit for taking action on the spot. Because you know if they store the data it is only a matter of time before it is either sold to private entities to get the police/city/state more money, or that someone hacks their system and gets access to the data. This just may be the first thing I've heard of Jindal doing that doesn't make me want to scream "Douchebag!" at him.

Re:too late

[Immerman]

How about reasonable maximum data retention laws that apply to *everyone*, government, industry, and private individuals alike?

Probably with a "loophole" that data may be retained about individuals who explicitly consent to it, but opt-in cannot be mandatory for public institutions, nor can refusal to opt in be grounds for denial of services or introduction of bureaucratic runaround. That should let gMail continue to store your old emails.

Re:too late

[sjames]

It remains a huge problem. Done manually, a cop can only call in so many plates in a day. Done automatically, every car that he is behind for any length of time gets called in.

If GPS data is added to the plate scans, a single car moving around will provide more useful data than a fixed reader and will be harder to evade.

Re:too late

[PopeRatzo]

It remains a huge problem. Done manually, a cop can only call in so many plates in a day. Done automatically, every car that he is behind for any length of time gets called in.

If GPS data is added to the plate scans, a single car moving around will provide more useful data than a fixed reader and will be harder to evade.

Your license plate number is public. It's a visible identifier. I don't have a problem with every plate getting "called in" as long as the data is not stored or misused.

Re:too late

[sjames]

I agree with you there. The only reason I want it more cumbersome is that I do not trust police to actually not store the data or mis-use it to track innocent citizens even if it is actually illegal to do so.

Why would a license plate point to a person

[Ichijo]

...when an IP address does not?

Re:Why would a license plate point to a person

[jargonburn]

...when an IP address does not?

Because multiple cars don't share the same license plate. Besides, even if it's just multiple drivers sharing one car (analogous to multiple users on one computer), the "owner" of the car should only be punished incidentally for crimes/violations committed by other people driving the car.

Re:Why would a license plate point to a person

[SuperKendall]

Because multiple cars don't share the same license plate.

That's a pretty stupid statement given anyone with a screwdriver can render it false in about a minute.

If you ever want to frame someone, go to a mall and find a vehicle with similar make and color... I leave the rest to your imagination.

Re:Why would a license plate point to a person

[I'm New Around Here]

That's a pretty stupid argument as well. Why not have them smash a window out, or puncture the tire while they are committing other felonies at your instigation?

Re:Why would a license plate point to a person

[ChrisMaple]

It's not a stupid argument, people do steal license plates to ease committing other crimes for personal gain. Smashing a window does not involve personal gain.

Re:Why would a license plate point to a person

[I'm New Around Here]

It is a stupid argument, saying that stealing a license plate is equal to two cars sharing it. Theft of physical property is not the same as sharing.

As for the rest of his argument, I am not saying that you can't frame someone by stealing their license plate, I am simply stating that doing so is not sharing the plate between two cars.

Re:Why would a license plate point to a person

[SuperKendall]

Please read what I wrote again, since you apparently did not the first time (or are too stupid to misunderstand my point, unlikely as you have a login). Indeed, your reply was passingly unrelated to anything I said?

For the slow among you: I can take a license plate from someone else's car, put it on mine, and now to all the automated readers I am them. Why look who was close by the bank that was robbed! It wasn't me, it was the OTHER guy in a red Civic. Sucks to be them.

Re:Why would a license plate point to a person

[jargonburn]

That sounds like the car equivalent of a geek with a cantenna...or just a charged laptop.

First, taking someone's license plate isn't sharing it. Literally. They can't use it at the same time as you. However, I'll try not to get bogged down by the nitty-gritty; instead, here's the difference, as I see it: sharing (duplicating and using) your license plate with another vehicle at the same time is unlawful. Sharing your internet connection ISN'T unlawful, though possibly unwise.

Re:Why would a license plate point to a person

[I'm New Around Here]

My point was that stealing a license plate is not sharing a license plate. Computers switch their IP address frequently, so can be considered to share them. Same with software licenses that allow 3 people to use the program at one time, and there are 7 people who borrow and return those licenses.

I can see what you wrote. I can agree that people do steal license plates to hide their tracks. But the previous post was talking about sharing an IP address, not physically stealing another person's computer. Pretending it is the same as stealing license plates is a stupid argument.

Re:Why would a license plate point to a person

[Culture20]

You're using a very tight definition of "sharing", where the main point is that two different cars are capable of using the same license plate which means that the license plate doesn't even point definitively to one vehicle, let alone one person.

Re:Why would a license plate point to a person

[Xiaran]

Sharing is a voluntary act. Stealing your money is not you sharing with me.

Re:Why would a license plate point to a person

[Culture20]

Again, this is a right definition of the verb "to share". The looser definition that the OP used was in the vein of "I'm Michael Jackson, but not *that* Michael Jackson. We just share a name."

Re:Why would a license plate point to a person

[Culture20]

Durned autocorrect. s/right/tight/

Re:Why would a license plate point to a person

[parkinglot777]

Hmm... Isn't a license plate tied to a car VIN in the database? If so, a license plate check will know whether it is attached to the right car even though the car is the same color/model registered to the plate.

Re:Why would a license plate point to a person

[chilenexus]

Are you required to notify the DMV when you get your car painted?

Re:Why would a license plate point to a person

[sjames]

So, one night I steal your plate, affix it to my car, and commit a crime. Either before sun-up or the next night, I put your plate back on your car.

Unfortunately, the camera that spotted a car matching your car's make/model/color and having your license plate on it didn't happen to catch the VIN.

Re:Why would a license plate point to a person

[sjames]

I'm telling you the ship is sinkingh and you are obstinately claiming it doesn't matter because you re-painted the deck chairs.

Re:Why would a license plate point to a person

[sjames]

sharing (duplicating and using) your license plate with another vehicle at the same time is unlawful

It IS, OMG! Robbing the jewelry store is one thing, but I draw the line at unlawfully attaching your tag to my car for the evening to frame you. After all, that's unlawful!

Re:Why would a license plate point to a person

[I'm New Around Here]

No, they are claiming the ship is not sinking at all because they stole the deck chairs from another ship.

Re:Why would a license plate point to a person

[jargonburn]

I will quote my own post, tasteless as that is:

I'll try not to get bogged down by the nitty-gritty

I'm not trying to argue that people don't break the law; however, as a sweeping general statement, could agree that actions that are not unlawful are more likely to be performed by the majority of people than actions that are unlawful?

The reason I think it's important to at least try to maintain privacy with regards to license plates is that they are a matter of public record and, more to the point, we've instated rules that make it much easier to make that identification STICK. This contrasts with IP addresses, which are not a "public record" and the sharing of which is socially acceptable (or in many cases even encouraged)!

Re:Why would a license plate point to a person

[sjames]

I agree there need to be limits on gathering licence plate information. The fact that fraud could be involved only strengthens that point.

But I do not believe that something being unlawful makes it any less likely to happen within the subset of people who are already committing a much more serious crime.

Re:Why would a license plate point to a person

[KGIII]

The end result is the same - is a license plate enough to be beyond a reasonable doubt? Is an IP address, think an open wireless router being utilized by someone on the street, enough evidence to be beyond a reasonable doubt? The first is stolen, the second is debatable, but the end result is the same and is not hard to envision nor a huge leap in the analogy. If I can understand it, and I type things like affect change, then certainly you can understand this. Why be obtuse? The fact that one is stolen physical property is not pertinent to their point and you know this. So, again, why be obtuse?

Re:Why would a license plate point to a person

[Xiaran]

Th usage in that same is a synonym for namesake. If you want to have an argument about license plates I assume you are coming from an American point of view in which case they are usually not duplicated unless illegally. Which does not fit into the meaning of the verb share in the above example.

There are nations where the laws around license plates are somewhat more loose. And I would love discuss that with you if I hadn't stopped actively lost the will to live because of this thread.

Veto-Proof?

[frdmfghtr]

The skeptic in me says he vetoed it as political cover, expecting his veto to be overruled. The article says that the bill "overwhelmingly" passed both Louisiana chambers. This way he can say "I stood up for privacy and against big government" knowing that his veto wasn't going to stop it.

Would he have vetoed it if it barely passed?

Re:Veto-Proof?

[Anonymous Coward]

Jesus Christ cynic much? So pretty much anything he did you would find a way to give him no credit. Look, I'm no fan of Jindal, but he did the right thing and that's all that matters here. Trying to turn this into a negative is nothing but political BS, something we have way too much of in this country.

Re:Veto-Proof?

[ShanghaiBill]

The skeptic in me says he vetoed it as political cover

He is expected to announce his candidacy for President next week. So he is shifting from pandering to Louisiana Republicans, to pandering to a national audience. He has already started sending his policies to Grover Norquist for ideological approval, before he proposes them to the public, or even legislators in his own party.

Re:Veto-Proof?

[mysidia]

The skeptic in me says he vetoed it as political cover, expecting his veto to be overruled.

Eh? A governor's veto has only been overruled twice in the history of the state. Where did you think the support is to overrule this one?

Besides, the politicians are "outraged" and busy trying to build support to overrule Jindal's Veto of HB 42, to give current state retirees an additional cost of living bonus. I doubt if Senate bill 250 is on their radar for an attempted veto override.

They will want to address the governor's privacy concerns.

Re:Veto-Proof?

[bobstreo]

The skeptic in me says he vetoed it as political cover

He is expected to announce his candidacy for President next week. So he is shifting from pandering to Louisiana Republicans, to pandering to a national audience. He has already started sending his policies to Grover Norquist for ideological approval, before he proposes them to the public, or even legislators in his own party.

Call me a cynic but it's more likely he's holding out for some nice juicy campaign contributions from the license plate reading corporations for his election
warchest.

Re:Veto-Proof?

[GLMDesigns]

so, what you're saying is that national republicans are for privacy?

Re:Veto-Proof?

[KGIII]

To be honest, and this is ONLY my observations, it is usually the right-leaning (not right as in correct) folks that I know who argue about invasions of privacy. They still do not mind the government invading for pregnancy or for marriages but they certainly are vocal about the fourth amendment and privacy violations. It is the right-leaning folks that I hear complain about the PATRIOT ACT, FREEDOM ACT, TSA, NSA, etc... The left-leaning are usually just calling them names and ignoring the man behind the curtain. I am, for the record, pretty far left of the Democrat party which is not really salient but should preclude prejudice insisting that I am on the right.

Re:Veto-Proof?

[GLMDesigns]

If that's the case then national Republicans and I have something we agree upon.

Re ab0rtion and g*y marriage - neither of those positions are matters of privacy (at least to it's opponents).

I'm pro-choice but socons consider it to be murder. Plain and simple murder. I'm one of the few people who isn't a social conservative who respects the fact that they are standing up to what they consider to be wrong. If you consider ab0rtion to be murder than you should stand up and try to do something about.

Re gay marriage -- I'm for g*y marriage but that to has nothing to do with privacy. It's the state giving legal privileges where none were given before. For instance opponents of b!gamy and p0lygamy have nothing to do with privacy.

Re TSA and NSA just about all my left-leaning friends are opposed to that as well.

Privacy will soon become a very contentious issue joining together different spectrums of the political world and may very well become a fault line in existing coalitions.

Work filters necessitated the above substitutions.

Re:Veto-Proof?

[frdmfghtr]

The skeptic in me says he vetoed it as political cover, expecting his veto to be overruled.

Eh? A governor's veto has only been overruled twice in the history of the state. Where did you think the support is to overrule this one?

Per the article, the bill passed the state legislator with "overwhelming" support, which tells me that there would be enough support for a veto override; although I have to admit, I didn't look up the actual vote tally and compare it to the vote tally required to override a veto.

Re:Veto-Proof?

[mysidia]

The vote tally supporting a bill is not the same as the number who would continue to support the bill, knowing there is a gubernatorial veto esp. with publicly claimed issues, and support it strongly enough to push for overriding.

Why not use a whitelist

[Anonymous Coward]

Surely they can't be needing to track that many plates? Why not push a whitelist to all the cameras so that they only send data on matches instead of sending all data for all plates found.

Re:Why not use a whitelist

[Anonymous Coward]

Surely they can't be needing to track that many plates? Why not push a whitelist to all the cameras so that they only send data on matches instead of sending all data for all plates found.

Because when your car is stolen in the middle of the night and driven to a chop shop never to see the light of day again, and the theft isn't reported until the owner discovers the car missing the next morning, the police would like to have a clue if it was seen driving somewhere the previous night, and where. Or maybe a bank was robbed and by the time the plate is reported and entered a half hour later it is already ditched in a lot and not driving by any plate readers.

May not be the best answer for libertarians, but it is a reason a whitelist would fail for many legitimate cases.

As much good as I think these things can do

[Snotnose]

I see much more potential for evil. Be nice if they had a 0 day retention policy, then it could be used to find stolen cars. But it's a very small step from scanning a plate, checking it against a database, then discarding the into; , to retaining the data for however long The Powers That Be want it. I flat out do not trust the government anymore, I don't want them tracking everyone's cars 24/7.

Re:As much good as I think these things can do

[disposable60]

It's not just the retention for government purposes, but the access by outside entities (insurance companies, PIs, bounty hunters, stalkers, reporters) that grills my hotdog.

Re:As much good as I think these things can do

[Anonymous Coward]

I see much more potential for evil. Be nice if they had a 0 day retention policy, then it could be used to find stolen cars. But it's a very small step from scanning a plate, checking it against a database, then discarding the into; , to retaining the data for however long The Powers That Be want it. I flat out do not trust the government anymore, I don't want them tracking everyone's cars 24/7.

But that is the whole point of license plate scanners. The police CLAIM they are all about recovering stolen vehicles, but they are LYING. In 2013 Boston claimed that their scanners were for locating stolen vehicles. But when actual data was looked at by the Boston Globe they saw dozens of reports of vehicles being flagged as stolen (one motorcycle was flagged over 59 times), yet no attempts were ever made to recover any of these vehicles. They concluded: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/12/boston-police-indefinitely-suspends-license-plate-reader-program/

“It’s clear that in fact the reason that police departments are using this technology might not actually be the reason that they say they’re using it for,” Crockford added. “We found that in this case they’re not following up on the stolen car hits and to us that says: the only [reason] that it’s being used is to collect huge troves of people’s movements.”

Re:As much good as I think these things can do

[mysidia]

The readers will be cheap..... it's only a matter of time before there are 3rd party agents who roam around operating the readers and catch the data for sale to insurance companies, PIs, and reporters as a subscription service.

They might make an iPhone app where joe consumer can get paid $0.30 for every 1000 unique plates captured.

Re:As much good as I think these things can do

[Bing Tsher E]

A dashcam app plugged into vehicle computers where the driver 'complies' with various conditions in order to get the best insurance rate.

There are already 'Onstar Mandatory' leasing agreements. I heard an ad for one on the radio today.

Re:As much good as I think these things can do

[Jeremi]

If one wanted, one could design a scanner whose only data-output path was an audible tone. You could download a list of license numbers into it (using a unidirectional data transfer, e.g. via a serial port with the device's TX pin removed), and then it would beep if it saw one of the plates in the list, and that's all it would do.

To hack it to output a list of license plates it had scanned that day would both require hardware and software modifications -- not impossible, but inconvenient enough that it's unlikely most police departments would be capable of doing it.

Re:As much good as I think these things can do

[dunkindave]

The readers will be cheap..... it's only a matter of time before there are 3rd party agents who roam around operating the readers and catch the data for sale to insurance companies, PIs, and reporters as a subscription service.

Already done by at least one group.

Re:As much good as I think these things can do

[AmiMoJo]

Privacy only matters when it's the privacy of people with power. So to get privacy for ourselves, we need to violate the privacy of people in power.

Create a low cost ANPR system using a Raspberry Pi and webcam. Sell kits via Kickstarter or whatever so that people can just plug-and-play. Create a database of government vehicles, particularly those used to transport politicians, unmarked police cars etc. Have the nodes upload sightings of those plates to an online database, where anyone can browse a map of government/police vehicles.

Use that as a platform to argue for stricter control of such data from.

Re:As much good as I think these things can do

[dunkindave]

Privacy only matters when it's the privacy of people with power. So to get privacy for ourselves, we need to violate the privacy of people in power.

I think well publicized eavesdropping on important people's calls was a major reason why they made it illegal to listen to cordless phones and cell phones.

How is this considered private data?

[Harlequin80]

Forgive me for being dense. But you are in a public area with a publicly mandated identifier on your publicly registered vehicle. HOW can you have any expectation of privacy? I could understand them banning a car driving around reading the number plates of cars on driveways or other private property but if you a driving on the road I don't understand.

From what I gather as well it is not the recording of the information so much as the method that has been cited as the issue. So if they were to have someone sitting on the road writing your number plate down as your drove by that would be ok but an automated camera is not?

Re:How is this considered private data?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the storage of the data for a relatively undefined period of time and the information being available private concerns not just law enforcement. If the data was checked against the list of stolen (or otherwise of interest) vehicles and you were stopped then and arrested or whatevered at the time the match was made and then the data was deleted it probably would not be a concern at all.

Re:How is this considered private data?

[AHuxley]

It depends on who gets to see the data and why over time.
The political power structure in a city or county may not like protests by unions, human rights groups, peace protesters, people of faith or local bitter clingers out in public.
By collecting all data about transport in the area at the time a of a first amendment event a list of local people can be considered for visits or chat downs by local law enforcement.
Been seen with a DSLR or other HD video like camera on public land? Are you out of state press, a real journalist? Tame local press? A citizen journalist? On some first amendment audit? Doing another FOIA like state public records/open records request?
Just re play the local plate collection as see who was driving or who picked the person of interest up if they walked away.
The consensual contact with local law enforcement can then be shaped from no contact needed to a request to show ID or a more direct chat down until photo ID is "voluntarily" shown.
The other use of well funded cameras locally is to get a nice picture of the passenger and driver on select/the only main road. Add that with cell phone information (stingray) and a nice database can be constructed with federal grants at a very local level.

Re:How is this considered private data?

[Bing Tsher E]

It's a scaling issue. At the economy of scale an automated setup establishes there's way too much data centralized for 'analysis' by undemocratic government agencies. All of the 'big database' issues really are about this. There are so many meta-activities that can be done using the gathered data. If there was a one-hour record retention policy (nothing retained for longer than one hour) people wouldn't be as disturbed about it.

Re:How is this considered private data?

[silas_moeckel]

Conversely how is this different that putting a gate in and going papers please???

Just because it's automated and easier does not make it right.

Re:How is this considered private data?

[Harlequin80]

For a start the fact that the owner of the vehicle may not be the driver. That there may be more than one person in the vehicle. That you are not passing through any kind of gate which implies a prevention of access.

Re:How is this considered private data?

[Harlequin80]

The thing is this data is already collected, from every cctv camera that the state is already operating. It seems strange to single this one device out that is doing what do many other systems are doing already.

Re:How is this considered private data?

[Anonymous Coward]

It is VERY SIMPLE....

It's because you do NOT have a specific individualized warrant based upon probable cause to be surveilling the entire populace. This is guaranteed by the fourth amaendment and by God before that, as innocents against opression, if you so believe.

It is NOT whether you have the RIGHT to observe all random people in public,
but if you have the ETHICAL right to intrude upon someones privacy.
And trust that that "right" of intrusion WILL come to you and AGAINST you someday.
THERFORE you MUST refuse it at ALL COSTS as a "power" of your so called "government".

Re:How is this considered private data?

[misexistentialist]

Just shows that ID plates were a violation of privacy rights from the beginning, the same as the government requiring everyone to wear a name tag, or...wait for it...a yellow star.

Re:How is this considered private data?

[silas_moeckel]

So because it's not as accurate it does not count? No this is just an easier form of papers please and because it's not as obnoxious they get away with it.

If it were facial recognition as well would that bother you? After all they could use it to look for wanted felons, probably sell it for looking for pedophiles to close to a school and expand from there.

Re:How is this considered private data?

[Anonymous Coward]

I am going to create a small, floating robot with video and audio recording capabilities.
I will have that robot follow you around, everywhere you go, when you are in public, recording every transaction, conversation, and action you participate in, as long as you are in public. You may occasionally not see it, but it will be there, secretly following you.
I will not tell you, exactly, what I will do with the data. I will also store it for indeterminate amounts of time.

funny bone

[PineGreen]

Now we've tickled the American's funny bone. They consent to have their rectum examined by google, but when EU wants to stop google they get all pissed off. However, when a government they elected and can unelect every 4 years tries to save some money by using an efficient way of collecting fines, not biometric face scans, but letters and numbers printed in large font for, ehm, vehicle identification, they get all into freedom mode... :)
(And yes, traffic fines in US are just a thinly veiled attempt at taxation, but if you vote republicans that can't raise taxes normally, you still need to bring this money in somehow, that is why I don't really object to paying them and you shouldn't either...)

Re:They both do, in a sense...

[I'm New Around Here]

License plates point to people all the time.

"We have a Ford Tempo with plate number "808TRY". The records show it is owned by Mr Biggle who lives on Maple Drive."
Later, a squad car pulls up at Mr. Biggle's house on Maple Drive.
"Excuse me Mr. Biggle, but is that your Ford Tempo over there?"
"Yes it is."
"Does anyone else drive it?"
"No, I have the only keys."
"Can you come down to the station with us please?"

It might be a bit more complicated than that, but it isn't like the police aren't going to go to a person's house because of "Well, gee, shucks guys, this plate on a specific model of car doesn't exactly point to anyone. We'll just have to wait and hope for more evidence."

Re:The cognitive dissonance ...

[I'm New Around Here]

Then thankfully this bill had to face approval from an Indian.

Re:Nobody cares. You should have nothing to hide.

[ChrisMaple]

It's bad for the same reason that police access to library records is bad: it's too easy to turn innocent actions into apparent evildoing. The library example is easier to demonstrate:

Let's suppose you're an avid reader who likes mysteries, and in a year you've read 100 such books. One day you find yourself in court, and the prosecutor says to you: "Haven't you, in the last year, read 100 books detailing how an innocent person was murdered?"

Don't think something like this couldn't happen to you. There are very few actions that a sufficiently nasty government couldn't use to railroad you; making their job easier is a bad idea.

Re:The cognitive dissonance ...

[ChrisMaple]

Jindal was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to immigrants from India. He is an American.

Re:Really?

[ChrisMaple]

Sir, your car was seen parked on 4th Avenue on May 2nd, within 70 yards of a whorehouse, a crack house, a child molester, an illegal arms dealer, and a chop shop. Confess now or it will go hard on you.

Re:The cognitive dissonance ...

[I'm New Around Here]

My mistake. I thought his family moved here while he was a child.

Car Theft? Puh-lease...

[arthurh3535]

It is immediately suborned by police to verify if you have your car registered correctly or other 'money making' acts.

I was quite surprised to be pulled over by a cop a few years ago and told that my registration was expired. Especially surprising because my car had it's proper stickers and I'd just finished registering it a few weeks prior.

But apparently the local county DMV records that the city PD was using were out of date, so he thought I was using illegal stickers or some crap. So to say that they only use these licence plate readers for catching 'stolen cars' is pretty much a bald faced lie.

They'll use it every which way they can and "catch" all the criminals, damn their privacy.

Re:The cognitive dissonance ...

[YttriumOxide]

As a European socialist, let me be the first to say that the government can keep their goddamn noses out of my private affairs.

Socialism is about making some individual sacrifices for the good of society as a whole (because in the bigger picture, that also benefits each individual); not mindlessly letting the government have complete control over my life.

Re:The cognitive dissonance ...

[Sique]

As an European, I don't understand what you want to say, because an automatic license plate reader would be illegal in most places in Europe anyway. Automaticly compiling a database about the movements of people is mainly illegal as it runs afoul most Data Protection laws.

If you call the ability of the government to put everything into large, databases shared between all government agencies "socialism", then the U.S. is much more socialist than any EU member state. Even the data retention directive had to be pulled after the European High Court called it unconstitutional in 2014.

I don't understand

[nospam007]

If you don't want license plates to be read, don't put them on cars in the first place.

Re:I don't understand

[gnupun]

But what if there's a hit and run, and some bystander witnesses the accident? What if a driver in a sports car speeds away from the cops while breaking the speed limit? There are plenty of such cases where license plates are necessary but these plate readers are abusing this requirement. I guess you can commit crimes openly when you write the laws.

It's time to rewrite the laws: the public has a right to privacy, even in public places. Stop evil, criminal technologies like license plate readers, CCTV cameras on streets, Oregon's GPS car tracking and Google Glass.

Re:I don't understand

[KGIII]

You want to prevent a private company from offering a product for sale? I am not sure that I agree. I hate the very idea of Google Glass and what it could become but I do not want to ban it. I would be okay with restricting some uses of it, I would have to think about the uses carefully before I agreed with them, but I am not a fan of banning them outright and I absolutely abhor what they are capable of doing. If that does not make sense to you then I am not sure how to respond.

Re:I don't understand

[gnupun]

You want to prevent a private company from offering a product for sale? I am not sure that I agree.

Why not? There are plenty of restrictions on the sale of weapons, like guns and you can't buy machine guns or bazookas. These Glass-like products are worse than guns because they can be used way more often.

I hate the very idea of Google Glass and what it could become but I do not want to ban it. I would be okay with restricting some uses of it, I would have to think about the uses carefully before I agreed with them,

The user of Glass (usually a glasshole) does not care about the privacy of others. Cameras were more benign (used mainly for security) before the advent of computers+networking. With networking, you can now permanently store images of people even if these people don't want to. Therefore the age old law of no privacy in public is no longer valid and needs to be revisited. The new laws would set boundaries as to what can and cannot be recorded in public.

Re:I don't understand

[KGIII]

I will go along with that. So long as there is a law in place that allows for the banning of these things (it should be limited in scope and I am not sure about the verbiage but it should also be simple enough to be easily understood and not debatable as well as constitutional) then, by all means, ban away. First to get the law enacted... As it stands I would not support banning them simply because doing so would not be justified in my opinion. As much as I hate them I can not see any reason to ban them within the current regulations. I would almost certainly be for a law that did allow their banning as well as banning of any similar products. That really depends on how it is written and what else it bans.

If I am being recorded, outside and in public, then I should know. I should have a right to know or at least be able to observe what is around me and know that I am being recorded. Certain states have law that prohibit recording of another person without their consent via telephone and, I think, in person. I wonder about the legality there. I also wonder how well the European countries will accept something like this. A lot of privacy laws, especially here in the States, do not do much to protect the people from the people - they are mostly geared towards protecting the people from the government. Methinks that this needs to be reconsidered given the advances made in technology.

But, yes, I hate these things and I do not see them, or their ilk, being beneficial to society as they become more ubiquitous. Sure, they can be used to record incidents of abuse by public officials like the police, that is true. There are so many other ways that we, and the folks in charge, can use them against ourselves/us that I really do not like them. There are few restrictions on what a private citizen or company can do with the data that they gather and regulating that would be a nightmare with today's technology. I do not want to ban them simply because they are icky but I would be in favor of a law that prohibits these types of devices and then banning them.

Then again, it might be an interesting debate to determine if violating one's privacy is a form of assault or is reason to instill fear meaning that those we can defend ourselves physically when we see someone wearing them. I could make a reasonable argument that the violation of my privacy caused me to fear for my physical wellbeing and that is what prompted me to defend myself. I even have a few bucks so I can fight it in court for a while. I doubt that I would win but it would bring attention to the matter.

Re:Really?

[amiga3D]

Seriously? If they're that stupid cameras are the least of the problem.

That Duh Factor

[JimSadler]

The car is displayed on a public road in full view of the world. What the heck definition of privacy includes existence of a situation or object in full view in a public place? Anything that can be viewed in public is not private. We are really over the edge stupid about some common beliefs.

Re:Really?

[JimSadler]

A fact is a fact. In some areas it might be pretty hard not to park sort of close to a whore house. But anyone has the right to observe, collect and report such things. A wife for example might find that the husband is parking quite near every whore house in the entire county. And a newspaper might just print such an item if the person is a minister or public official. So suppose people think I am keeping a data base and that my data base "goes too far" and violates their privacy. So what is the cure? The state comes and demands that I reveal all my computer contents to decide if any privacy laws are being violated based on unfounded suspicions of people in the community. Then where are my privacy rights? And after all my data bases are not displayed where the public can view them. So the cure for an imagined invasion of privacy turns into a very real invasion of my privacy and guess what! When someone is falsely accused there is usually no legal compensation available for the falsely accused person. The girl that falsely cries rape almost never gets the type of prison sentence that the man would get if the rape charge was true. Remember the sports team at Duke that was falsely accused and cost those boys a fortune in legal bills, collapsed their sports team and halted their education for a year or two? Did the girl go to prison? Life without parole would be fair.

I don't beleive it

[AndyKron]

The creationist biologist actually did something good?

Re:ALPR is legal in Europe and already deployed

[Sique]

At those places, you get warned that your license plate gets read and stored if you cross a certain line. If you are eligible to enter the restricted traffic area, you have signed a contract and opted in to have your license plate scanned, and if not, you are not allowed to drive there anyway. You still can choose not to drive there as those places have large parking areas outside, and good public transport.

It's quite different to secretly scan the license plate of everyone and compile a database.

In Reality

[modmans2ndcoming]

He was concerned that the private prison population would drop because of the increased access to location information when attempting to railroad people at trial to keep the prisons full.

Re:The cognitive dissonance ...

[dcw3]

Best rant of the day! +5 Funny

Re:The cognitive dissonance ...

[I'm New Around Here]

Actually, after thinking about it a bit, I don't know why I thought he was born in India. If the Republicans want him to run for the White House, he obviously is a natural born American citizen.

It was weird back in the 1990s when the Republicans wanted to amend the Constitution to allow Swarzeneggar to run for the office. That fetish vanished pretty quick after Arnie won the governorship of California.

Re:They both do, in a sense...

[KGIII]

And yet another person being obtuse intentionally. Let me show you the flaw in your witty plan... They asked if anyone else owned it. In the case of an IP address the answer is that they do not know. Such should also probably be the answer in the case of the automobile but we will ignore that.

You are saying, basically, "His hair is black, this makes it different, and I am unable to understand the analogy because I am daft."

Re:ALPR is legal in Europe and already deployed

[KGIII]

It is hardly secret if we know about it. I still do not agree with it but it is not secret. Additionally, I do not know of any intent to retain the database. I suppose we can assume they are going to but still... The summary, I did not RTFA or look up the bill, says that retention will happen in "some cases." I would be more comfortable assuming those are limited cases where the data is retained for prosecution sake and would be covered by evidence retention regulations.

Re:They both do, in a sense...

[I'm New Around Here]

Honestly, I don't know what you are rambling about, or why to me. I don't care if IP addresses or cars point to people. I just mentioned a case where a car license plate will most certainly point to someone. It might be the right person, it might be the uncle or neighbor of the actual criminal, or it might be totally useless because someone stole and returned the car without the owner knowing. I don't care.

So, please, go chew on someone else's ass. Maybe they'll care.