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San Jose May Put License Plate Scanners On Garbage Trucks
An anonymous reader writes: It's bad enough that some places have outfitted their police vehicles with automated license plate scanners, but now the city of San Jose may take it one step further. They're considering a proposal to install plate readers on their fleet of garbage trucks. This would give them the ability to blanket virtually every street in the city with scans once a week. San Jose officials made this proposal ostensibly to fight car theft, but privacy activists have been quick to point out the unintended consequences. ACLU attorney Chris Conley said, "If it's collected repeatedly over a long period of time, it can reveal intimate data about you like attending a religious service or a gay bar. People have a right to live their lives without constantly being monitored by the government." City councilman Johnny Khamis dismissed such criticism: "This is a public street. You're not expecting privacy on a public street."
So, if fighting car theft is the reason, will they agree up front to abandon the effort if a significant drop in car theft is not realized? I betcha not.
"...City councilman Johnny Khamis dismissed such criticism: "This is a public street. You're not expecting privacy on a public street."
Really Johnny?
So you won't mind if I just set up this webcam on the public street outside of your home and feed that stream to the internet, right?
Or perhaps we'll find some volunteers to follow you and your family around day and night as you drive around. That won't seem creepy or invasive at all, I'm sure. And after all, we're just driving around on public streets, right?
Sometimes I really wonder what the hell it would take to get these morons to wake about privacy and how it feels to be monitored day and night.
Are they thefts or just people reporting their car is stolen when they woke up in the morning and discovered that all the cars on the street had been towed.
There is a big difference between recording the activities of an on-duty police officer and tracking the movements of citizens.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
I grew up here, I can explain why the city council is seeking this.
A few years back the city implemented huge cuts to it's police department in salary and benefits. Before the cuts, we had 1400 officers (not bad for a city of a million people) After the cuts our police has dropped as low as 700 officers.
With a reduction in the number of officers we have, bay area criminals have taken it as a "Vacancy" sign to do business here. Every type of crime has shot up. Violent crimes, we're a magnet for package theft, prostitution runs rampant, with one spot having as many as 50 girls walking one particular street corner, and car theft.
San Jose just voted to restore some of the pay last week, but it still won't be anywhere near 2010 levels. Cops continue to leave.
So now San Jose is in a situation of having to make due with what they have. Cops won't even consider this place for a job any more. Since they can't get another 700 officers to replace the ones lost, they're leveraging technology to fill the gap. Myself, and many other residents welcome any effort to clean up the streets.
I believe some courts (not sure if it's SCotUS) have either ruled or commented that there's a significant difference between "no (individual) expectation of privacy" and "no expectation not to be wholesale surveiled using automation." The councilman quoted in the article must not have heard this - or is banking that his audience hadn't.