Are automatic plate readers legal? (1 Viewer)

[NCCommish]

I could be misremembering but didn't an officer used to need a reason to run a tag? Of course machine running every tag it reads isn't discriminatory or doing it to get a woman's address. I guess my opinion requires some more information on how much info the cop can acquire. As far as public info goes what site do you use to run tags? I'd love to check it out.

www.walkuptocarandlookatsticker.com

As mentioned some states don't have stickers. Further that is a lot less than running a tag.

 

[rockaction]

Read this article from 2011 on tag readers in DC.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/license-plate-readers-a-useful-tool-for-police-comes-with-privacy-concerns/2011/11/18/gIQAuEApcN_print.html

Good read. There are definitely law enforcement benefits to these cameras, but the ease with which massive amounts of private data (mostly in the form of movement tracking) is handed over to police departments -- and their lack of safeguards with this data -- is deeply troubling to me.

Also, I noted a very cavalier attitude toward privacy concerns by the law enforcement guys quoted within the article you posted.

 

[NCCommish]

Read this article from 2011 on tag readers in DC.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/license-plate-readers-a-useful-tool-for-police-comes-with-privacy-concerns/2011/11/18/gIQAuEApcN_print.html

Good read. There are definitely law enforcement benefits to these cameras, but the ease with which massive amounts of private data (mostly in the form of movement tracking) is handed over to police departments -- and their lack of safeguards with this data -- is deeply troubling to me.

Also, I noted a very cavalier attitude toward privacy concerns by the law enforcement guys quoted within the article you posted.

Yeah there are some very worrisome things there.

 

[IvanKaramazov]

Read this article from 2011 on tag readers in DC.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/license-plate-readers-a-useful-tool-for-police-comes-with-privacy-concerns/2011/11/18/gIQAuEApcN_print.html

Good read. There are definitely law enforcement benefits to these cameras, but the ease with which massive amounts of private data (mostly in the form of movement tracking) is handed over to police departments -- and their lack of safeguards with this data -- is deeply troubling to me.

Also, I noted a very cavalier attitude toward privacy concerns by the law enforcement guys quoted within the article you posted.

I'm usually sympathetic to arguments like these, but I have a hard time getting worked up over the fact that some cop might be running my plate when I drive by. Why should I care that he knows what time I come to work in the morning? I can't conceive that my life is interesting enough for anybody to snoop on.

 

[comfortably numb]

Read this article from 2011 on tag readers in DC.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/license-plate-readers-a-useful-tool-for-police-comes-with-privacy-concerns/2011/11/18/gIQAuEApcN_print.html

Good read. There are definitely law enforcement benefits to these cameras, but the ease with which massive amounts of private data (mostly in the form of movement tracking) is handed over to police departments -- and their lack of safeguards with this data -- is deeply troubling to me.

Also, I noted a very cavalier attitude toward privacy concerns by the law enforcement guys quoted within the article you posted.

I'm usually sympathetic to arguments like these, but I have a hard time getting worked up over the fact that some cop might be running my plate when I drive by. Why should I care that he knows what time I come to work in the morning? I can't conceive that my life is interesting enough for anybody to snoop on.

Right,

I just hope people who are all worried about invasion of privacy aren't the same people "checking in" every 25 min on facebook.

 

[rockaction]

Read this article from 2011 on tag readers in DC.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/license-plate-readers-a-useful-tool-for-police-comes-with-privacy-concerns/2011/11/18/gIQAuEApcN_print.html

Good read. There are definitely law enforcement benefits to these cameras, but the ease with which massive amounts of private data (mostly in the form of movement tracking) is handed over to police departments -- and their lack of safeguards with this data -- is deeply troubling to me.

Also, I noted a very cavalier attitude toward privacy concerns by the law enforcement guys quoted within the article you posted.

I'm usually sympathetic to arguments like these, but I have a hard time getting worked up over the fact that some cop might be running my plate when I drive by. Why should I care that he knows what time I come to work in the morning? I can't conceive that my life is interesting enough for anybody to snoop on.

On a general level, people are going to have differing views about what should constitute worrisome intrusions of privacy and are going to draw that line in different places.

I personally subscribe to a reasonable expectation of privacy, even in public. There is an expectation of anonymity, that while not legally accepted, has been argued many times by civil libertarians on both the left and right. The Ralph Nader stalking case is a very famous one, and illustrates the potential issues with foregoing our expectations of privacy, even when in public. Whether this is inevitable with modern technology is another thing. Some have suggested that private citizens acquire technology to track police and politician comings and goings, just to see, in layman's terms, how the like it and react.

But to your point, my problem stems from the issue that we haven't even sorted out in what way this massive amount data is to be used. The article Steady posted to quotes a guy who is the head of the plate reader program, and even he's asking what should be done with the information. He doesn't know how it is to be used. It illustrates not just a cavalier attitude about massive amounts of data many people might consider sensitive, it illustrates exactly how little debate about this has been had.

From the article: “It never stops,” said Capt. Kevin Reardon, who runs Arlington County’s plate reader program. “It just gobbles up tag information. One of the big questions is, what do we do with the information?”

 

[GregR]

I see absolutely nothing wrong with TLEF's larger sentiment about feeling that this is an erosion of privacy. Just because something is legal by an extended analogy doesn't make it right.

I'm a little surprised by the responses in this thread. These plate readers aren't just being used to run plates. They're also, and I think admittedly, being used to track movements of private individuals. Police departments have gone so far as to attach GPS trackers on the undersides of vehicles, a practice barely overturned by the Supreme Court. Our privacy erodes daily. I'd like to think that a debate about this is in the offing, as I don't see a surveillance state as a state that fosters much patriotism on my end.

If you want the public engaged in that debate, you have to phrase the issue for them in a way they will relate to.

For example... can these tag readers be used to take d### pictures of the driver?

 

[NCCommish]

Read this article from 2011 on tag readers in DC.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/license-plate-readers-a-useful-tool-for-police-comes-with-privacy-concerns/2011/11/18/gIQAuEApcN_print.html

Good read. There are definitely law enforcement benefits to these cameras, but the ease with which massive amounts of private data (mostly in the form of movement tracking) is handed over to police departments -- and their lack of safeguards with this data -- is deeply troubling to me.

Also, I noted a very cavalier attitude toward privacy concerns by the law enforcement guys quoted within the article you posted.

I'm usually sympathetic to arguments like these, but I have a hard time getting worked up over the fact that some cop might be running my plate when I drive by. Why should I care that he knows what time I come to work in the morning? I can't conceive that my life is interesting enough for anybody to snoop on.

Right,

I just hope people who are all worried about invasion of privacy aren't the same people "checking in" every 25 min on facebook.

I don't use Facebook, I don't tweet. I don't check in. etc. To me this pervasive collection of information about my movements is reminiscent of what were supposedly fighting in the Soviets. Are my movements interesting today? Maybe not. But what if I were to get active in a cause the government didn't care for? Well then they might be a lot more interesting and right there for anyone to grab apparently.

 

[NCCommish]

Not often RA and I agree. But he is dead on here. The technology is far outpacing the thinking about it. And we need to get on that.

 

[comfortably numb]

Not often RA and I agree. But he is dead on here. The technology is far outpacing the thinking about it. And we need to get on that.

I get what you are saying but we are a few years away from our every moved being tracked in one way or another.

License Plate readers are far down the list after cell phone, computer tracking and public surveillance.

This is our new world.

A lot of good came come of this information and as always a lot of evil can come of it as well.

 

[Maurile Tremblay]

As technological stuff gets cheaper, there will be way more surveillance, in the sense of recording everything with cameras, and I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing.

I currently support having police officers wear cameras to record all their interactions with civilians. It protects both the cops and the people they interact with from being falsely accused of assaulting each other.

There will come a time in the not-too-distant future when probably everybody will wear cameras (almost) all the time. It's a good way to establish an alibi so that you can't be falsely accused of robbing a bank or whatever, and also a good way to identify and catch wrongdoers such as purse-snatchers, pick-pockets, muggers, et al. You'd have to constantly stream/upload to the cloud so that a mugger can't just steal your camera to destroy the evidence.

What I would want to protect against is the government (or anybody else) having access to your uploads without a warrant -- a real warrant, not the kind the NSA gets. If you're accused of robbing a bank on a certain day and time, you don't have to produce your recording from the relevant period, but if you don't, the jury can make a negative inference against you. You should have the right to encrypt your uploads, though, without the government having a key.

I don't want to get too far off on a tangent ... I'm just saying that running license plates seems pretty trivial compared to the sort of privacy issues that are coming once everything that happens in public is recorded by everybody.

 

[msommer]

I see absolutely nothing wrong with TLEF's larger sentiment about feeling that this is an erosion of privacy. Just because something is legal by an extended analogy doesn't make it right.

I'm a little surprised by the responses in this thread. These plate readers aren't just being used to run plates. They're also, and I think admittedly, being used to track movements of private individuals. Police departments have gone so far as to attach GPS trackers on the undersides of vehicles, a practice barely overturned by the Supreme Court. Our privacy erodes daily. I'd like to think that a debate about this is in the offing, as I don't see a surveillance state as a state that fosters much patriotism on my end.

So, the automatic plate readers are placing gps trackers on cars?

Or are you taking this as an opportunity to rant about police in general abusing their powers?

 

[STEADYMOBBIN 22]

Not often RA and I agree. But he is dead on here. The technology is far outpacing the thinking about it. And we need to get on that.

I get what you are saying but we are a few years away from our every moved being tracked in one way or another.

License Plate readers are far down the list after cell phone, computer tracking and public surveillance.

This is our new world.

A lot of good came come of this information and as always a lot of evil can come of it as well.

We are there already. Look, I'm certainly no prepper but if you think everybody's personal information in the hands of the most powerful government in the entire world won't eventually get misused then the meek have truly inherited the earth.

Every day we read the most outlandish stories of miss use and abuse of power and you don't think that's going to come to framing or setting people up? You've got a government entity with all the information and all the cards and we are supposed to believe they were going to be able to defend ourselves?

 

[msommer]

From the article: “It never stops,” said Capt. Kevin Reardon, who runs Arlington County’s plate reader program. “It just gobbles up tag information. One of the big questions is, what do we do with the information?”

Maybe try not storing it would be a good start

 

[rockaction]

I see absolutely nothing wrong with TLEF's larger sentiment about feeling that this is an erosion of privacy. Just because something is legal by an extended analogy doesn't make it right.

I'm a little surprised by the responses in this thread. These plate readers aren't just being used to run plates. They're also, and I think admittedly, being used to track movements of private individuals. Police departments have gone so far as to attach GPS trackers on the undersides of vehicles, a practice barely overturned by the Supreme Court. Our privacy erodes daily. I'd like to think that a debate about this is in the offing, as I don't see a surveillance state as a state that fosters much patriotism on my end.

So, the automatic plate readers are placing gps trackers on cars?

Or are you taking this as an opportunity to rant about police in general abusing their powers?

I guess if it sounded rant-like, then make the most of it.

I'm likely to go on a police rant at times, admittedly.

Really, though, my point was that if we don't have a debate about each incremental step like this one, law enforcement writ large will keep increasing and pushing the boundaries of information gathering. Those of us concerned about privacy have to advocate for ourselves against it, because they're certainly not voluntarily backing off. See Supreme Court cases like Kyllo, Jones, etc.

 

[rockaction]

I see absolutely nothing wrong with TLEF's larger sentiment about feeling that this is an erosion of privacy. Just because something is legal by an extended analogy doesn't make it right.

I'm a little surprised by the responses in this thread. These plate readers aren't just being used to run plates. They're also, and I think admittedly, being used to track movements of private individuals. Police departments have gone so far as to attach GPS trackers on the undersides of vehicles, a practice barely overturned by the Supreme Court. Our privacy erodes daily. I'd like to think that a debate about this is in the offing, as I don't see a surveillance state as a state that fosters much patriotism on my end.

If you want the public engaged in that debate, you have to phrase the issue for them in a way they will relate to.

For example... can these tag readers be used to take d### pictures of the driver?

I'm watching Oliver now and it's eerie how close this is to my argument. I didn't get what you were talking about at first, nor the referent, but I'm watching it now.

Holy crow.

 

[Wrigley]

Remember when we were a free society

 

[johnnycakes]

Be sure to write "Bull#### Money Grab" on the ticket.

 

[FUBAR]

Remember when we were a free society

no. but you're a lot older.