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Malls In California Are Sending License Plate Information To ICE (theweek.com)
Presto Vivace shares a report from The Week with the caption, "And they wonder why some of us prefer to shop online." From the report: Surveillance systems at more than 46 malls in California are capturing license plate information that is fed to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Electronic Frontier Foundation reported Tuesday. One company, Irvine Company Retail Properties, operates malls all over the state using a security network called Vigilant Solutions. Vigilant shares data with hundreds of law enforcement agencies, insurance companies, and debt collectors -- including ICE, which signed a contract with the security company earlier this year, reports The Verge. "[Irvine Company] is putting not only immigrants at risk, but invading the privacy of its customers by allowing a third-party to hold onto their data indefinitely," EFF wrote in its report, urging the chain of malls to stop providing information to ICE.
Since malls are dying, I guess the problem will eventually solve itself. Thanks Amazon.
When you're a legal citizen, and then they inevitably also forward your data to a 3rd party consumer data broker to monetize it and track you without your consent, then that is an invasion of privacy.
Here to the US.
Tell that to the Native Americans. I think they would have agreed with you and you wouldn't be here either.
No good deed goes unpunished.
Ummm Yes it is invading privacy.
License Plates, and other ID, are meant to verify that you are who you say you are, and that such tools and devices are under the the laws and regulations of the particular state. They are not meant for tracking. If something is up like someone is wanted or a car is reported stolen, then we could put an alert for that ID and if it is found to be reported. However this is tracking everyone to see if they are up to something.
The government doesn't need to know where I am shopping, my political view. Because they are tracking innocent citizens. Because we are all Innocent unless are proven guilty. This warentless tracking is wrong.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
This. The government is required to have a warrant to track your whereabouts. This is well established through cases such as United States v. Jones 132 S.Ct. 945 (2012) where police tried to surreptitiously attach a GPS tracker to someone's car without a warrant, and Carpenter v. United States 16-402 S.Ct 585 (2017) which established that police require a warrant to obtain cellphone tower records.
My wife is an immigrant, is she at risk?
Yes.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The car license plate does not identify the person driving the car, only the registered owner.
People are not being tracked, the cars are.
It is perfectly legal for authorities to follow you around with a notebook.
Unless "authorities" have a reason to suspect you're committing a crime, the act of following us around with a notebook is police harassment. Note that the standard USED to be Probable Cause (as specified in the Constitution), but our Supreme Court has chipped away at our Constitution and redefined the requirement to be, "Reasonable Suspicion".
I don't understand this trend in America of throwing away our rights to police. Police misconduct is rampant, and too many people are encouraging and enabling it. I can understand not wanting to be the one to personally challenge an edge case when confronting police; but we have a very safe, very effective way to collectively shape our police via collective public opinion. Never before in all of human history has our country given us ordinary citizens the megaphone that is the Internet. We need to use it as a tool to reduce police misconduct, not condone it.
So they come here, work jobs that simply do not pay their taxes, so that they undercut the legal workers, including other immigrants.
Seems like that's a problem caused by greedy, unethical employers. A hike in the minimum wage coupled with real efforts to prosecute employers who break immigration law would be a much more effective solution.
There's a big difference between being seen in public and being tracked, which is what's happening here. Law Enforcement is required to get a court order to track you, but this subverts that.
Just another day in Paradise
What really boggles my mind is the same people complaining and protesting about police misconduct one day are complaining and protesting to make sure only police have firearms the next.
From a legal perspective, that's not true. Article IV of the Constitution is considered to protect your right to travel freely, and you can't have a right to travel freely if you are being tracked, because there are places that would inherently be embarrassing if you were widely known to have traveled there.
The law has always recognized a difference between merely seeing that someone is in a place and tracking that person for a year to see where he or she goes. The latter, if surveillance is on an ongoing basis, is likely to cross the "reasonable" line and require a warrant (United States v. Jones). A license tracking system appears to be a prima facie attempt to sidestep that warrant requirement, and as such, is legally problematic.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Bullshit.
They aren't selling the fact of a license plate number (that is the state owned information). They are selling the fact that I was at the Southridge Mall in SouthCity from 1 to 4pm on Tuesday, and that I am a regular customer there spending an average of 3 hours a week at the mall over the course of a year.
Does it matter to anyone? I dunno.
But it damn well IS MY INFORMATION.
It doesn't put immigrants at risk. Immigrants have green cards, or visas, and are allowed to be here. It puts criminals at risk of having to avail themselves of the justice system, since they broke our immigration laws.
Happy to clear that up for everyone.
Good post and deserves to be up-voted.
I'd like to point out an additional reason why we don't want to live in a world where we are constantly tracked and monitored. Everyone eventually screws up and does something illegal; frequently without even knowing that what we do is technically illegal. They throw something away that is supposed to be disposed of in a specific manner. They don't realize that a certain document needs to be filed. They perform an act that, seems socially normal, but is actually illegal.
No one wants to live in a police state where everyone is a criminal- or has something over their head. I guarantee there is not an adult in this country that has never broken a law (even if unwittingly). When everyone is a criminal- authorities get to pick and choose who to arrest. This is what happened in the Soviet Union where they would make obscure laws just to have an excuse to arrest people.
When everyone is under surveillance, everyone is a watched criminal- and big brother gets to pick which people pay for their crimes and which don't.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
and after they finish with the illegals, then you may be in the next group they come for.
I have a friend who is a strong 2nd amendment supporter and gun owner. But he's *finally* realising that the scenario where right wing police show up and confiscate his guns after a major right wing person is shot is a realistic possibility.
Mr. Trump, for example, has already shown he's willing to set aside the rule of law and a love for dictators who don't have 2nd amendment issues.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
The fact is that a vehicle with a license plate was in a public place during specific times. You don't have a reasonable expectation of privacy is such a public place.
Until this decade, I damn well did. Until the latter half of this decade, I damn well did. While it was possible to track me and everyone else in that public place sooner, it cost too much, so no one did. Now it's so cheap, any asshole can do it, and every asshole is doing it and that's not ok. I expect to be able to move around in a public place in relative anonymity, without being tracked by tens or hundreds or thousands of random jackoffs like you. And this is completely reasonable.