ACLU Protests Police Scanning License Plates 821
dustman81 writes "The ACLU is objecting to the practice of police in Springdale, Ohio using an automated license-plate scanner on patrol cars to locate stolen vehicles or those whose owners are wanted on felony warrants. The scanner can read 900 license plates an hour traveling at highway speeds. So far, the scanner has located 95 stolen cars and helped locate 111 wanted felons. The locations of the license plates scanned are tagged with GPS data. All matches are stored (with no expiration date given) and can be brought up later and cross-referenced on a map. If the plate is wanted, the times and locations of where it was scanned can be referenced. The Springdale police department hopes to begin using the system soon to locate misdemeanor suspects. This system is also in use in British Columbia."
And they're going to lose.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And they're going to lose.. (Score:5, Insightful)
If the idea is "innocent until guilty", then the innocent ought to be given the *rights* of an innocent man, not just have lip-service paid to it. One of those rights is not to be constantly under surveillance by police - in that respect it's very similar to having to produce "papers" at checkpoints, and having the checkpoint-cop record your movement for later use. The 4th amendment may be what they're thinking is being infringed - is it reasonable for the cops to be constantly checking your details, or should there be some level of expected result before they are allowed to do so ?
Simon.
No right not to be noticed in public ... (Score:3, Insightful)
No one is under surveilance since the are not being followed nor is their private space being violated. Random encounters in public is not surveillance.
No, it is very different. You are not s
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No, your department of motor vehicle regulations probably prohibit obscuring your license plate at any time. Also driving itself is not a right, it is a privelage. Your car would be an "effect" in the 4th ammendment context so searching the interior of your car would involve a right.
Most likely. H
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Puzzling... (Score:3, Insightful)
Are they somehow inherently more trustworthy? Do people think they don't share that information with government when demanded?
This isn't terribly different, imho.
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You know, the same government that has already been through things like racial profiling stops, things like that.
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The problem is that rather than officials being free to inspect anyone who is acting suspciously (with problems with that basic concept aside), they are virtually not allowed to inspect an islamic person who is acting suspiciously.
It all boils down to the bizarre act of giving peo
Re:And they're going to lose.. (Score:5, Insightful)
I researched these systems not too long ago and the article I read had the officer dumping the data at the end of his shift. Data storage time was minimal and not part of some huge consolidated "Skynet" (to borrow another poster's appropriate term). Indeed this simply speeds up what an officer normally does - even though they aren't supposed to do it while moving. However in this case the data is apparently being kept for an extended period of time. How bad could this get? Could it be made part of public record? Will we eventually be able to look it up in Google? Bad enough I get a speeding ticket and the court date can be found posted on Google. (yes, seriously) Seems to me an argument could be made that this is "public record" too. So, maybe one day I go for a new job and my apps are rejected without my knowledge because someone looked me up and found that my car was "seen" at a local strip joint. Or abortion clinic. Or Church\Mosque. Sounds far fetched but considering some of the mashups with Google's mapping service already I wouldn't be so sure. The "predator" ones are a pretty good example of this - especially when you find out some of the crap that can get you onto those lists and how hard it is to have a mistake removed...
Drop the data storage requirement or limit it to a SHORT period of time such that thefts could be tracked down and I'm okay with it. Watching the pseudo-Science of CSI where they can pull up a database of damned near anything to catch a thief is kewl and all but no I don't really want to live in a society where it's really that simple for Joe-Blow officer to pull up so much information on me. My reasoning being that I've met a few cops I wouldn't trust to help me across the street much less be trusted with that level of potential data access. It would only take one bad one to really make a mess and I'm quite sure there's far more than one out there...
Take a look at how this has been deployed in Canada. I saw one picture of a highway overpass when I researched this a few months ago that was capable of reading every single tag that passed by it - for 8 lanes of traffic. Realize that this need not be just something put on an officer's car, it can be stationary units setup discreetly all over a city. Now store that data for ever more and yeah I start to get creeped out about it. IMO this slope is indeed a bit slippery. Do "we" really trust these folks to be the custodians of this data?
P.S. Take a close look at the way things have been going in the U.K. to include speed cameras and cameras on street corners. They went so far as to propose banning GPS units that could store user input landmarks at one point because they were being used to warn of speed cameras. (lol) Sorry but the U.K. is exactly where I do *not* want to be in ten years.
Re:And they're going to lose.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Imagine a world where jaywalking gets you automatically direct-withdrawal fines from your bank account? And how about when your credit score goes down because you took a right-on-red where you weren't supposed to, therefore marking you as "risky?"
I don't think those things are very far fetched. They don't just use these new systems to catch offenders; they store the data and can use it against you at any time for the rest of your life. It'll be awesome to be rejected for a job because I was tracked walking around NYC on a day I called in sick, 10 years ago.
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I don't think those things are very far fetched.
In which case I believe that you are a little bit paranoid. Do you use a credit card? They can trace your movements based on your expenses. Do you own property or pay taxes? Guess how much information those two facts give to the 'system'. Do you have a passport? Gosh, they could use that to track your movements across national boundaries. Don't tell me that you must have a cell phone, because you do realise they know where you are - or where your cell phone is - anyway, don't you? That's not much d
Re:And they're going to lose.. (Score:5, Insightful)
When it's too late IOW.
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Re:And they're going to lose.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Quite right - what I'm hoping that the ACLU will establish with this suit is strict procedures of when this information can be used. Searching should be entirely automated against the license plates of fellons and against license plates of stollen cars. Searching would also be valuable at the request of citizens, as it may help them prove an aliby - or just remember one:
Trailer Park Joe: Shucks officer, I don't remember where I was three weeks ago, why don't you just run my license plate through that database of your.
Officer: Your car was seen at Billy Bob's Bar at 10:26PM
Joe: Oh yeah, now that I think about it, I'm there every night - I was just too drunk to remember.
What the system should not be used for, is so the new police Lt. can check up on where his girlfriend's car was seen last night. If he does, he should be straight out of a job.
Finally, citizens should be able to request that their data be removed. As beneficial as the data can be to its citizens, the government has no right to keep tabs on them at all time. A provision to allow for the removal of that information insures that this program is in line with similar privacy laws, which allow citizens to have their criminal record as a minor destroyed, or allows them to have the records of a DNA test destroyed imediately after the test has been completed.
With the above provisions, the program is more mundane than OnStar. Yes, it can get you in some shit if you are doing something wrong, but more likely it will help you out when you're already in a tight situation.
Re:And they're going to lose.. (Score:4, Interesting)
Imagine you live in Virginia in 2007.
In Virginia, you now get civil _AND_ criminal charges against you for running a red light or speeding. The civil stuff comes in fines starting around $1,000 payable in 3 payments which are independant of the criminal charges. If you don't have the cash handy, then you are sent to collections, your credit gets screwed, and I would imagine that they then do the same tricks they have for years like not telling you that your registration is expired on your car, so it lapses and then you are subject to having your car impounded on the spot w/o a court appearance or legal represntation whatsoever.
I'M SICK AND FUCKING TIRED OF DRIVING BEING A CRIME.
To be clear, I don't want to drive. Its dangerous both physically and legally. I'm a pretty boring guy, but driving on the US highways is a very risky behavior.
Another true story. I drove a "stolen" car for somewhere between 1 and 2 years without knowing it. When I was in highschool, I did a stupid highschool thing and took off for a weekend. My dumbass father reported my car (registered in his name) as stolen, and never reported it as unstolen. I went to renew my plates or something at DMV, and they told me that they couldn't because my car was reported stolen.
Now, imagine if this scanning thing was in place, and I got pulled over? I would guess that a number of "stolen" vehicles are driven by their owners.
Now, with the people with warrants. I mean, how tough is it to find these people just by looking? Don't you have to show 10 forms of ID to do anything? Also, most stolen cars are not driven as is outside of joy rides.
As a citizen, I don't feel more comfortable or safe having the police scan license plates. I feel less safe and comfortable.
Re:And they're going to lose.. (Score:4, Informative)
E.g.: 2007 Virginia DOT Report Shows Red Light Cameras Increase Accidents [thenewspaper.com]
Re:And they're going to lose.. (Score:5, Insightful)
That's not what racial profiling is. What you're describing is a situation where the cops are (or should be) looking for someone who committed a crime who fits a particular description, and of course race is part of that description. I don't think anyone objects to that. Racial profiling is when cops harass people of a particular race when no crime has been committed, just because they think people of that race might be criminals.
Not racial profiling: "Suspect is a white male, approximately 50 years of age
Racial profiling: "What're you doing driving around in this neighborhood this time of night, whitey?"
Don't tell me you can't see the difference.
Re:And they're going to lose.. (Score:4, Insightful)
What happened to probable cause? That's definitely racial profiling.
I've been profiled before. I was a teenager with long hair, and the cop demanded to search my car because I was speeding. "You must be hiding something" he said to me. I even signed the consent form to search (I had nothing to hide).
That is not what I call good police work. That ruined my trust in the police. "To serve and protect" my ass...the cop car in Transformers had it right - "To punish and enslave"
Yeah, racial profiling works like this -- (Score:3, Informative)
Just after dark, going out for some food with my baby in my wife's lap. Illegal, I know. (A pox on insurance companies.) Dangerous? Maybe, but then cars are dangerous machines. If they're going to make laws against putting children in cars with restraints, they migh
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I can well understand why the cop didn't think your story seemed likely. Few people are that stupid when their life is at stake.
Re:Yeah, racial profiling works like this -- (Score:5, Interesting)
People should be allowed to go about their legitimate business without regard to time, place, coat, pants, slanty eyes, skin color, reported need for pharmaceuticals or food. It isn't your place - or the cops - to judge why she needed her meds suddenly; there are all kinds of situations that can come up, ranging from not having the money to stock them up in advance, to prescriptions that force refills to happen at the end of a supply that may be fully depleted, to spilling a bottle down a drain, to your kid getting into the medicine closet and feeding them to your goldfish, and so on, ad infinitum.
I live in a rural area (Glasgow, Montana) with a diabetic; she uses a med called "Byetta" that has, at most, one extra shot left when the prescription is refillable. More common diabetes drugs don't work for her any longer, though they used to. She really needs this; without it, her blood sugars reach for the 400's, which is just plain no good. The only local source for the med - the only place that has been willing to carry it, since it is moderately expensive, about $225 per monthly refill - is the local Pamida. I convinced them by paying in advance for a years worth of prescriptions. One time, they simply didn't receive it, though they had ordered it. I drove her to Billings, 300 miles from here, to get that med. We bought it at an all-night pharmacy. It wasn't about money. I have lots of money. It wasn't about stupidity. I'm a reasonably smart fellow, and she's smarter than I am. It wasn't about planning. The prescription is specific, and it isn't an option to get extra. We bought it late at night because it's a five hour drive and we learned the Pamida didn't have it after 5 pm, and the fastest I could get to Billings was five hours. Part of the reason for that is mommy speeding laws. There are four very small towns between here and there, and it used to be that the parts of the trip between the towns could be made legally and safely at 95 MPH; I'd have been there with daylight to spare. In a car that is well designed to handle those speeds. This time, I couldn't do that, because some minion of Montana's legislative mommy core might have stopped us and put her at even greater risk. Does that piss me off? Yes, and you have no idea just how much.
What am I doing about it? I am in the process of getting my pilot's license, and as soon as I have it, I'll buy a plane. That'll put Billings a lot closer in time. Luckily, I'm in a financial position where I can do that simply because I want to, I can dedicate the time required, and I'm capable of learning to fly one. What about people who don't command the inherent and developed resources I do? Should they be subject to opinions like yours? "Attempted suicide"? "Stupid"?
When police actually protect you from an intentional assault, or stop someone they know to have done same because they have probable cause and a warrant, they're doing the jobs that naturally arise for such a role in any society. When they take on the role of mommy, second guessing safe traffic maneuvers, coercing you to wear seatbelts, concerning themselves with which seat your kid is in, worrying about what you're smoking, wearing, buying, saying or doing with a consenting, informed and competent partner... they're the enemy of the citizens. No less than that.
Rules? Doesn't matter if they're following the rules or not; There's an underlying social rationale for having police, and being your mommy isn't it. AT&T's's minions were just following the government's instructions when they tapped people's phones without warrants, too. When bad government makes bad rules, following them is no act of public service, and it is not "ok." A good cop is looking for direct threats from one source against another. Watching residences for people breaking windows and doors; looking for accidents; stopping altercations, that sort of thing. Y
Re:And they're going to lose.. (Score:5, Insightful)
ArcherB, be careful of loving authority too much. Whether the slope is slippery is less important than the fact that the slope trends downward.
Re:And they're going to lose.. (Score:4, Insightful)
and maybe you don't realize that right now there is a crack addicted satan worshiping left wing muslim scientologist waiting in the shadows to molest and murder your family and the only thing keeping you safe at night are police with the freedom to search and interrogate whomever they please.
Re:And they're going to lose.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And they're going to lose.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't think that argument will get you far (Score:4, Interesting)
Of course this resolves down to a case of the public being monitored vs. an agency serving the public being monitored, so they're not directly comparable. But you made the comparison, I didn't. I think a pretty good argument could be made that the police should be monitored in this way while the general public shouldn't.
Re:And they're going to lose.. (Score:4, Interesting)
True, a future step is to analyze moving patterns with AI, recognize deviations from normal and preemtively bring criminals to justice before they commit crimes.
Recently, I received a questionaire from the police department to check out citizen's concerns. The language which was used in the questionaire was interesting: Repeated uses of "arresting criminals" - or similar as valuation item: not -> very important. Appeared to me they were suspecting "criminals" undiscriminately behind every bush. Looks to me one needs a certain training and frame of mind to see things in that way.
Re:And they're going to lose.. (Score:4, Insightful)
But after all, if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.
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And if I'm walking on the street an officer can see me... but if I'm not doing anything wrong... I've got nothing to fear, right?
Sorry, cars = walking around in public. The information has always been there, and they could have recorded it if they liked. So it's nothing new.
It is about automating it. (Score:4, Interesting)
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/conductunbecoming/ [nwsource.com]
Yes, a cop on the street can follow you around and record where you go and when. But you would be able to see him doing that. You would know.
More importantly, the cop would have to skip other crimes to pursue you.
And the Gatling gun wasn't anything new compared to the musket. Yet it certainly changed land warfare.
Sometimes increasing the speed of an action does change the situation. And automating data collection on people NOT accused of a crime does change the situation.
Re:It is about automating it. (Score:5, Interesting)
By automating the surveillance of people who are not suspected of any crime.
Nope. As long as it's one cop following one person and the person can see the cop, it doesn't matter.
What changes is when the cops can automatically track people who are not suspected of any crime.
That's why I gave the example of the Gatling Gun. And it did change the situation.
Therefore, automating a process DOES change the situation.
It should. Because automating it allows for more abuse of they system. And cops DO abuse the system.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/conductunbecoming/ [nwsource.com]
If I am not suspected of any crime, why do you support surveilling me?
Fascism begins when the efficiency of the Government becomes more important than the Rights of the People.
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The Rights of the People are not what is written in some document. There are NATURAL rights.
For example, I doubt I could find a document that says you have the right to breathe freely. Yet I suspect you would argue that you do.
You must understand that codification of members of of a group does not modify the group itself.
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Though sometimes additional laws are passed making the "enhanced activity" illegal. For instance, internet hunting. It's illegal to hunt over the internet in some states even though the computer is just letting me do more of it or do it faster.
In your view, it would be perfectly acceptable to have every 10 ft a pole with chemical and radiological detectors, video and sound (with disclaim
Re:And they're going to lose.. (Score:5, Informative)
On that point, consider yourself pwned. [findlaw.com]
Re:Mechanical interpretation of the Fourth (Score:3, Insightful)
The relevant question as far as the Fourth Amendment is concerned, is whether the increased surveillance constitutes a search. Because your Fourth Amendment rights aren't forfeited when you leave your house. Ordinarily a policeman can conduct ordinary surveillance of plates on a public road- within human ability- which is one of the parameters under which the legislature and the courts defined the limits of police surveillance.
The end of our rights? (Score:5, Insightful)
As to the fast scan of all cars that the vehicle passes, personally, I am trying to figure out why the ACLU is fighting that. For the life of me, I would think that it makes things safer since it allows police to drive and observe other issues rather than pay heavy attention to cars.
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Storing the data has some uses though. what if it is 12 hours before you discover your car is stolen? With the stored info they may be able to quickly figure out where the thieves went with the car. Also this may be useful in the case of kidnapping, if they can figure out a license plate number after the report. While I think there should be an expiration date, I think there are some very good reasons
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Today, it was cool to be cruising up and down the mall showing off your car to attract eligible young ladies. Tomorrow, after the oil runs out, all those people cruising up and down the mall become retrospectively guilty of various emissions breaches, and crimes against the environment. Or maybe it turns out that the mall was also a favourite gathering spot for the scapegoat religious
Re:And they're going to lose.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, and you'd be a creep for doing it.
Probably because people don't want the police getting too accustomed to acting like creeps all the time.
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It takes time to do those things and people to see it's done even with a friggin' Cray. Orwell had an interesting vision, but it's not logistically possible.
Re:And they're going to lose.. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Yeah, deleted after a while. Like, scan it, then immediately look it up in a hash table, and if the plate doesn't match that of a stolen car, fugitive, or someone with an outstanding warrant, then delete it right then and there, before it's written to any form of non-volatile storage.
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It does not say whether or not that is the case, the key phrase in your quotes is is "All matches". Are they talking about a match with a wanted plate, or does "match" mean the device was able to read the plate.
It's impossible to distinguish between "OMG 1984!" and "Hey they found my car!" from what is written in TFA.
Re:And they're going to lose.. (Score:5, Insightful)
My initial reaction was "that sounds neat" but by the time I got through even just the summary, it was obvious that creating a database of everyone's travel patterns is not the right way to run the system. Perhaps 10 years hence, you take a different route to work for whatever reason, later that night you get a knock on your door and then: "Sorry to bother you Mr. Jones but we see you deviated from your usual route. Care to explain?" 10 years after that, you have to file travel plans. "Papers please." Yeah, call me a nutter.
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I don't protest the use of it. It's just technology, and it will get used. For beneficial to the public applications like cap
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Re:And they're going to lose.. (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem i see here is that this is a small attack on our liberty from all sides. Imagine in the future the government makes some really asinine illegal, like burning an American flag. They make it a crime but to appease the people who want it to be legal they make it a tiny tiny offense, a slap on the wrist. What they don't make clear is that anyone who is wanted for this crime is probably going to be arrested on their way to work causing serious hardship.
Also view this police practice in light of the ridiculous war on drugs we have. Marijuana for person use is not a serious crime but that is where i see this tactic being used in the future. Overzealous cops trying to make a career for themselves with no care for the greater good of society will vigorously pursue average peaceful citizens. Their property will be seized for to pay for the inertia of the police force. Too many people's careers are involved in policing small things for this is lighten up.
Re:And they're going to lose.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Sample 1,000 people who've had their liberty severely curtailed by some scofflaw, and see if they don't think this is a jolly good idea.
Sounds like we have a trade-off between the government and the thugs, with only a blurry line separating.
And yet, we are supposed to feel like government intereference with health care and retirement is somehow good.
Re:And they're going to lose.. (Score:5, Insightful)
I've found those that truly hate me for my freedom, and they live right in my own country. Flag-waving Freedom-hating To-Scared-to-Live simpletons who want daddy government to protect them from their own shadows.
Re:And they're going to lose.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Okay, it seems to be far-stretched... but 50 years ago, would anyone have imagined that everywhere they go in New York City or in London that they're always on camera?
If this system is grabbing felons and stolen cars, all the power to them! Once they've determinded that they've grabbed someone, and the court process has occurred, dump the data. If Joe Trooper has sat for 5 hours filming car-plates and has found exactly zero offenders, drop the data... there's no need to keep it.
The Constitution (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you saying it is only liberals that care about the U.S. Constitution with its "thing" against warrantless search and seizures? The ACLU will try to make the government follow the constitution at all costs!
Would you rather some of those rights be amended?
Re:The Constitution (Score:5, Insightful)
After all, how is the president supposed to protect us from terrists if he's being held back by that "goddam piece of paper"?
That's right, you give up a little liberty for a little security, but don't come crying when you lose both, after all you've had the warning for over 200 years.
One final note, this whole plate scanning system will see many fascist government officials trying to pass laws allowing access to more and more databases and associated cross-references. For example, how long will it be before they start using it to decide who to pull over as being a 'high-potential criminal' or some such obnoxiousness because they are on probation/parole, or were once convicted of a felony. How about when they start linking in the crime-rates statistics from the census office and check your address? When they add in economic factors? (what the hell you doin in the well-to-do neighborhood boy, get your poor ass outta here)
I'm a tinfoil hat wearing loony, right? Okay then, what criteria do they use to put someone on a terrorist watchlist, or a no-fly list? Oh, you don't know do you. No, you don't, because they won't tell you. Won't even tell you what can get you on a blacklist. Brought to you by the same people that scan the plates.
I just don't understand why people have so much blind trust for other people with shiny badges on their shirts. Really now, I've had good encounters with police, I've had bad encounters with police. Some police were intelligent thoughtful people, some were drooling fucktards with guns. They are just people like you and me, some good, some bad, mostly just self-centered-kind-vaguely-good-if-its-not-to-muc
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Number two, until the Left starts taking the Second Amendment, Ninth Amendment, and Tenth Amendment seriously, I'm not going to take their pious declarations of uniquely tender love for the Bill of Rights seriously.
-ccm
If you RTFA (Score:5, Insightful)
So what they are doing is creating a database of where all cars have been, whether they belong to the guilty or the innocent. When I read the summary I thought, "Wow, the ACLU has crossed the line here"; which made me suspicious, usually when folks want to vilify the ACLU they leave out key facts like this one. Read the article, this tidbit is buried in the second to last paragraph and is likely key to the ACLU's concerns.
While technically its not doing anything that crosses a line, noting plates and locations of cars in the public, technology is enabling some very concerning capabilities that need to be addressed. Distrust of the government isn't just a liberal thing, its an American thing.
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Because even now a policeman might remember seeing a red dodge charger in a driveway last week that was a associated with a crime today.
The end result tho is them tracking us 24/7- no privacy.
And in all likelyhood policemen and government officials will have something in the law so their own tags are immunized from this process. Just like it turns out all of our local government officials do not pay tolls in their private vehicles recently.
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Good? (Score:3, Interesting)
If you had any idea of how many laws are on the books you would realize it isn't possible to do ANYTHING without breaking some law. Also you KNOW that you have cut little corners each day and probably more serious corners when you were younger. Maybe you step out of the marked crosswalk before reaching the curb. (jaywalking $75) Possibly you dropped your receipt when you were trying to put it in your pocket. (littering $1000) Did you ever do something like egging a car when you were a kid? (we us
ACLU Wrong Again (Score:4, Insightful)
You're out on the open road. You have no reasonable expectation of privacy. No civil right is being violated, IMO.
Is this another example of us basically having less and less privacy when we leave our homes? Yes? Are our movements being recorded more and more and is it getting annoying? Yes? But claim that the police recording license plates on the open highway is unconstitutional? Can't side with you.
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Re:ACLU Wrong Again (Score:4, Insightful)
If you're out in a public place, overtly displaying identifiable information, there's no law saying I cannot record that. And let's face it, if you're a law abiding citizen, you're in more danger from the databases being kept by private credit reporting agencies than the ones being kept by law enforcement agencies.
- Greg
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You could set up such a camera in the USA. In many parts of Europe, it would be illegal. Even if you were allowed yo set up the camera in the first place, in Europe personal information is owned by that person, irrespective of who collects it. You would need the permission of everyone passing by to collect and store the information, and you would also need to provide a mechanism for people to find out what information you are storing on them and a mechanism for them to correct errors in the database. T
Re:ACLU Wrong Again (Score:5, Insightful)
The police have no legitimate interest in tracking the driving patterns of people who have not committed a crime and are not under suspicion of having committed a crime.
This is the sort of database that is ripe for use for illegal and unconstitutional purposes:
* Have you been making too many trips to the anti-war rally? Oh, sorry, we're going to have to deny you entrance to this political forum for, uh, 'security' reasons.
* Oh, thank you for your job application... oh dear, it seems you were parked for a while at the planned parenthood, we don't hire your type.
Re:ACLU Wrong Again (Score:4, Insightful)
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
I think that a surveillance system which magnifies normal abilities beyond anything humanly achievable must, by definition, raise questions of being an unreasonable search and seizure. If it is not reasonable to expect a person or an affordable group of people to achieve the same results, then it should be considered an unreasonable search.
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Big fuckin' difference.
Re:Yes and No (Score:4, Interesting)
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Mine says, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved for the States respectively, or to the people." Unfortunately it doesn't tell us how to tell what's reserved for the respective states and what's reserved to the people.
In other words, the FBI might be limited by your argument (as if! Given the "commerce clause" overreach reading, [wikipedia.org] everything that might
Re:Coulda Shoulda Woulda (Score:4, Insightful)
That may be the fucking stupidest thing ever said.
Don't see how the ACLU can win this one (Score:2)
Plates are openly displayed in a public place (roadways) and cops can (and have been for some time) easily run plates one at a time. The system just automates the process and unsettlingly keeps indefinite logs that can be mined for nefarious purposes and track our every move, but lately the courts haven't seemed to mind as long as they sell it as protecting families from perverts and drunks. My paranoia doesn't like this at all--they might start doing obnoxious things like pulling me over for no reason ot
Misleading summery (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Misleading summery (Score:4, Insightful)
Sorry. If you read the article to the very end you find this:
Kind of dumb that they put this information at the END of the article instead of in the headline. I thought there was not a problem until I got to the very end of the article. Still not sure it's illegal on technical grounds, but definitely not right for them to be tracking innocent people this way.
Problem? (Score:2, Insightful)
You know what? FUCK the ACLU. (Score:4, Funny)
If I was a cop on the hot auto squad, I'd cross-correlate owners reporting stolen vehicles with ACLU members - and I'd shitcan their cases.
Re:You know what? FUCK the ACLU. (Score:5, Funny)
Mod parent up: "+1 unintentionally insightful" for accidentally proving the ACLU's point...
Information wants to be free, right? (Score:3, Interesting)
Thank You ACLU. (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes they caught 111 felons but that could be done without logging the innocent people.
I see this as another instance of IT vendors riding over the rights of citizens in their endless goal to make a buck.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
What about the cases where the car passed by before it was in the database as stolen/owned by a felon? If you only stored the matches and threw away the rest of the data, you lose the ability to immediately act to capture someone the minute they enter the list. Think of the situation where someone commits a felony, then flees the area. By the time the crime is reported and they enter the database, they're long gone, but
Great system, good lawsuit (Score:3, Insightful)
Well what's the big deal? So what if a government goon knows who my friends are, how often we hang out, which political meetings I attend, whether I attend narcotics anonymous meetings or see a psichiatrist, how often I buy liquor or go to sex shops, etc. I'm nobody important, just a working stiff like everyone else. And this is all small-potatoes stuff anyhow.
But it's precisely because I'm nobody important that it isn't a big deal to me. I don't have to worry about retribution after I leak an important story about wrongdoing at my company or government agency to the media. I'm not a journalist trying to protect the confidentiality of my sources. I'm not a candidate running for office and having all my movements for the past thirty years scrutinized by the establishment party. I'm not an undercover officer or overzealous district attorney worried about being outed or targetted by the mob. These people do important work, and it's important to protect them.
The best way to prevent the database from being abused is not to build it. You can still find criminals and stolen cars, and use the system to fight crime. But citizens who haven't done anything wrong shouldn't be tracked everywhere they go, since it might be used against them for political reasons.
Surprised at the description of this system. (Score:5, Insightful)
I implemented a system that does basically this, as custom development for a police department in a small American city. It's worked fantastically well, but they had a lot of specific restrictions.
Examples:
They didn't want fully automated scanning, because apparently it causes all sorts of legal troubles if you run some plates (undercovers, celebrities, people who are later stalked/attacked).
Also, they didn't want to geotag the searches (even though all of the data was available) because they specifically didn't want to build a database of people's locations outside their duties.
And lastly, they didn't want permanent data storage of *anything*. They wanted two years, to comply with various regulations and to allow time for investigation into abuses, but no more. After that, they wanted it gone forever.
As such, I find it very surprising that a police department would even have interest in building a tool that is so incredibly ripe for abuse, when it is likely to open them to all sorts of litigation, as evidenced by the ACLU lawsuit.
And as to the tools who claim the ACLU is just interested in freeing criminals, I'd remind you that the ACLU simply cares about rights, even though sometimes that's unpopular. They're willing to fight to let you quote the Bible in your yearbook [aclu.org], to prevent 13 year olds from being arrested for writing on their desks [aclu.org] and as this article notes, they are also against recorded surveillance of innocent drivers.
It's telling that nearly all of the right-wingers in this thread have distorted the ACLU's actual complaint (that surveillance databases are being built against innocent drivers) and have replaced it with a claim that somehow the ACLU is against running plates altogether or direct claims that the ACLU is pro-criminal.
Re:Surprised at the description of this system. (Score:4, Insightful)
Today, the battle is between authoritarianism and liberty, and the ACLU is firmly on the side of the latter. It's not a problem that the authoritarians are masquerading as the party of conservative thought and traditional values, when in fact they support neither. Today, being on the left means simply being against authoritarianism, and for basic human rights. The ACLU having a left-leaning bias is laudable, not lamentable.
In BC, they purge data after three months (Score:4, Informative)
Not a 4th Amendment Issue (Score:3, Informative)
That might make the ACLU's case. (Score:3, Interesting)
The expectation of privacy is why it's illegal in Michigan (not sure if it's local or national) to use directional microphones to pick up conversations, even in public places, when there is no obvious listener within normal hearing range.
DO ordinary citizens have an expectation t
Goldmine for divorce lawyers (Score:3, Interesting)
Hey, wait -- she can do the same to me!
Harsh punishments as a deterrent (Score:5, Interesting)
But part of the deterrence theory of punishment is premised on the fact that law enforcement can't catch all the criminals. To make up for the fact that there will always be Joe Robber or Tina Car-Thief who gets away with something, the hope is that they will be deterred from breaking the law in fear of receiving the harsh punishment.
The whole punishment-as-deterrent system will become quite warped however, when cops across the nation can cruise around scanning hundreds of license plates and arrest X number more felons than before. As law enforcement is armed with new technology, do the punishments ever decrease despite law enforcement being more effective in catching the bad guys?
To take this thought to the extreme: if police suddenly developed new drug-detecting technology that could scan people's surrounding air-mass as they walked out in public and determine with certainty whether they were carrying illegal drugs, should we still retain the harsh sentences that many states do for simple drug possession?
Re:explain to me (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh, of course! If I have nothing to hide, then I have nothing to worry about, right?
What if I become a person of interest to my spouse during divorce proceedings? Then the database potentially becomes a tool to punish me, not for something illegal I may have done, but for something immoral. Great, so giving right of review of our morality to the police is good why?
Re:explain to me (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:explain to me (Score:5, Insightful)
You actually believe that? That getting from point A to point B in the way society has designed it (i.e. by driving) is a PRIVILEGE? Welcome to the police state, I guess, where doing anything except breathing requires governmental permission.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Constitutes UNREASONABLE search (duh!) (Score:4, Informative)
*Every* license plate that is scanned gets saved and downloaded onto PCs at Police HQ. Then when a warrant is issued on you later on, they can go back into the database and pull up *everywhere your car has been* before you did anything wrong. The article clearly states this.
This is not just storing the location and plates of criminals, because the cross-checking isn't done in real time, it is done when the data is downloaded later. The article clearly states this.
This is not targeted surveillance of criminals with the 'innocent plates' discarded in real time (which I would agree would be perfectly fine). This is creating a massive database of where every car in that part of Ohio is, with no time limit on when the data expires, and no limit on who can access the data.
Papers, please, comrade citizen!
Re:this is long lost (Score:4, Insightful)
The issue is the systematic reading and databasing of *all* license plates with a timestamp and geotag and storing that data indefinitely. It may not be illegal. But it should be - as part of the often claimed, but non-existent right to privacy. The state has no business tracking the whereabouts of law abiding citizens - it's rife for abuse at many levels.
Re:Driving is not a right! (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, why the hell don't they have x-ray scanners like they use to find drugs in trucks in Afghanistan. I mean, it's not really a search if they don't open your trunk, and besides driving is a privilege to begin with. I'm sure they'd find illegal weapons down south a lot of illegal aliens that way.
Face it, a police state is the only way for lawful people to be safe from the scumbags. So call your Congressmen and demand road checkpoints with DNA matching, instant drug/alcohol testing, and x-ray scanning. Because driving is a privilege and not a right.
Re:Driving is not a right! (Score:4, Informative)
"Personal liberty, or the Right to enjoyment of life and liberty, is one of the fundamental or natural Rights, which has been protected by its inclusion as a guarantee in the various constitutions, which is not derived from, or dependent on, the U.S. Constitution, which may not be submitted to a vote and may not depend on the outcome of an election. It is one of the most sacred and valuable Rights, as sacred as the Right to private property...and is regarded as inalienable." 16 C.J.S., Constitutional Law, Sect.202, p.987.
"Personal liberty largely consists of the Right of locomotion -- to go where and when one pleases -- only so far restrained as the Rights of others may make it necessary for the welfare of all other citizens. The Right of the Citizen to travel upon the public highways and to transport his property thereon, by horse drawn carriage, wagon, or automobile, is not a mere privilege which may be permitted or prohibited at will, but the common Right which he has under his Right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Under this Constitutional guarantee one may, therefore, under normal conditions, travel at his inclination along the public highways or in public places, and while conducting himself in an orderly and decent manner, neither interfering with nor disturbing another's Rights, he will be protected, not only in his person, but in his safe conduct." II Am.Jur. (1st) Constitutional Law, Sect.329, p.1135.
http://teamliberty.net/id18.html [teamliberty.net]
People who claim that driving isn't a right are usually parents or Divers Ed teachers trying to control teenagers. Sorry, those of use who understand what freedom means don't buy your sorry argument.
Not more money (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
To Jack Boot Lovers: Shut up. (Score:4, Informative)
They say a conservative is a liberal that hasn't been mugged yet and that a liberal is a conservative that hasn't been beaten up by the police yet. However, the sad reality is that most of us harmless people are constantly juggling which criminal is more dangerous. Well, check your pain and suffering count sometime and I think you'll find that government criminals have your average thief and mugger beat by a long shot.
If the police were generally a bunch of guys who really lived to protect and serve and defend the rights of the community, it'd be great. They're not though. A few are, but they're the exception to the bullies or even the average types that have felt the taint of authority and let it go to their heads.
I don't think the ACLU is some bastion of greatness--their stand on gun rights is asinine--but just because something makes it easier to "catch criminals" doesn't mean it's a "good thing" and it doesn't even mean it's going to protect anyone.
Oh yeah, one more thing:
"Let's roll back though. These are license plates. Plates that are government issue, on highways that are government funded (yes by the taxes of the people, but government funded) and a device that is government controlled. So where's the problem?"
I'd say the government issued plates are the first problem. And yeah, the roads are government funded, but who owns the government? They're PUBLIC roads, NOT government roads. They're MY roads as a tenant in common. Why in the hell do I have to ask my SERVANT pretty please to use MY roads and get a plate from them? And roads get paid for if you use them. For the time being gas taxes do a good job of being a fair user fee. The more you use, the more you pay.
I might not have the same expectation of privacy on road as I do in my house, just as there's a big difference between a PUBLIC room like a living room and my bedroom. However, I don't want a camera on every street corner and all my movements tracked just because it might catch a few car thieves. It's just not worth it. Especially given the direction it WILL go and HAS historically gone. Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. It will ALWAYS be used by whoever is in power to suppress opposition.
Re:Go away ACLU (Score:4, Informative)
Hardly. The ACLU is in fact protecting the law abiding, hard working, common citizen and their civil liberties. The very same civil liberties that the founding fathers fought so hard to establish. There's no excuse for the government to keep a list of law abiding citizens whereabouts indefinitely.
Totalitarian states often have less crime and are "safer" for those who follow the rules. Perhaps you would be more interested in that sort of government.