License-plate readers let police collect millions of records on drivers

CIRO ^ | 6/26/13 | Ali Winston

[GreyHoundSailor]

I just carry around a bucket of mud - works just as well.

[foxpro2]

ping

[lightman]

Just last month a homicide in my PA county was solved thanks to LPRs deployed by the Missouri State Patrol—got a hit on the fugitive’s vehicle and now he is awaiting extradition.

[kiryandil]

That anecdote will make Big Brother's jackboot much softer when it's hammering my face in...

[Talisker]

I'm still wondering why one needs "licenses" for themselves and their vehicles to peaceably travel from place to place. I thought wars were fought and won over this.

They were fought, they were won, and you don't need a license to drive. Per the vehicle code, only commercial vehicles and drivers need licenses.

Of course, the government can (and will) presume you are a commercial driver. And presume, and presume and presume and presume...

[TaMoDee]

These “special cams” are NOT part of the CalTrans Traffic Cam system. The cams I commented about are SPY cams.

[Still Thinking]

Figures that would be something Satan-in-a-wheelchair would come up with.

[zeugma]

I want a portable EMP

[OneWingedShark]

Can they be jammed or thwarted?

Print out a picture of the license plate of your local city-hall assemblyman, affix printout to your plates via cellophane-tape, done.

[FreedomPoster]

Try not having a license to drive the next time you get pulled over or are involved in a crash. Let us know how that goes.

[appalachian_dweller]

>> I-10 and I-15 have cameras mounted on poles in the Center Divide from LA to the state borders of NV an AZ. These cameras are not Traffic Cams. <<

They’re here in VA too along I-81.

[af_vet_rr]

It's gotten a little more attention this month:

Fox: Driving somewhere? There's a government record of that

CBS: Study: Government Tracking Movement of Every Vehicle with License Plate

ACLU: Police Documents on License Plate Scanners Reveal Mass Tracking

Chances are, your local or state police departments have photographs of your car in their files, noting where you were driving on a particular day, even if you never did anything wrong.

Using automated scanners, law enforcement agencies across the country have amassed millions of digital records on the location and movement of every vehicle with a license plate, according to a study published Wednesday by the American Civil Liberties Union. Affixed to police cars, bridges or buildings, the scanners capture images of passing or parked vehicles and note their location, uploading that information into police databases. Departments keep the records for weeks or years, sometimes indefinitely.

As the technology becomes cheaper and more ubiquitous, and federal grants focus on aiding local terrorist detection, even small police agencies are able to deploy more sophisticated surveillance systems. While the Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that a judge’s approval is needed to track a car with GPS, networks of plate scanners allow police effectively to track a driver’s location, sometimes several times every day, with few legal restrictions.

Law enforcement officials also point out that the technology is legal in most cases, automating a practice that’s been done for years.

The ACLU found that only five states have laws governing license plate readers. New Hampshire, for example, bans the technology except in narrow circumstances, while Maine and Arkansas limit how long plate information can be stored.

“There’s no expectation of privacy” for a vehicle driving on a public road or parked in a public place, said Lt. Bill Hedgpeth, a spokesman for the Mesquite Police Department in Texas, which has records stretching back to 2008, although the city plans next month to begin deleting files older than two years. “It’s just a vehicle. It’s just a license plate.”

They have them all over the place in Texas, and nobody seems to care.

[IamConservative]

Meanwhile, my neighbors have had out of state plates on their cars for over 3 years.

[IamConservative]

You can defeat these cameras by spraying a coat of flat clear over the entire plate. Not discernible by the naked eye, but it prevents the reflective qualities of the lettering from triggering the camera.

[LibWhacker]

Thanks for the update. If the Framers had had a crystal ball and could've looked into the future, they would've worded the 4th Amendment differently because it's obvious their concerns were not about unwarranted searches and seizures, per se, but about an all-powerful government sticking its nose into every aspect of the lives of its citizens, monitoring them on a constant fishing expedition for wrongdoing when there was no reason to suspect it. Privacy was a huge concern for them.

But you'd never know that when you hear these high-school dropouts today droning on about there being no expectation of privacy when a person is in public. WRONG! There is an expectation of privacy any time it comes to governmental intrusion into the lives of its law-abiding citizens, monitoring their every move, peeking under their clothes at the airport, peering through the walls of their homes with Big Brother's hi-tech vans that prowl their neighborhoods.

The generation that fought and won WWII for us was great, but not the greatest. The greatest was the generation of Washington and Jefferson. We need them again. But what do we have instead? A generation of mush heads.