A Bipartisan Amendment Would End Police License Plate Tracking Nationwide (wired.com)
- Reference: 0183319174
- News link: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/05/22/0553205/a-bipartisan-amendment-would-end-police-license-plate-tracking-nationwide
- Source link: https://www.wired.com/story/a-bipartisan-amendment-would-end-police-license-plate-tracking-nationwide/
> US lawmakers plan to introduce an amendment Thursday at a House committee markup hearing that would [1]prohibit any recipient of federal highway funding from using automated license plate readers for any purpose other than tolling -- a sweeping restriction that, if adopted, would bring an immediate end to state and local ALPR programs across the United States. The amendment, obtained first by WIRED, is sponsored by Representative Scott Perry, a Pennsylvania Republican and Freedom Caucus member, and Representative Jesus "Chuy" Garcia, an Illinois progressive whose state has [2]become a flash point in the national fight over ALPR misuse.
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> The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee will mark up the underlying bill -- a $580 billion, five-year reauthorization of federal surface transportation programs -- at 10 am ET on Thursday. The amendment runs a single sentence: "A recipient of assistance under Title 23, United States Code, may not use automated license plate readers for any purpose other than tolling." The amendment is brief, but its reach would be vast. Title 23 funds roughly a quarter of all public road mileage in the US, including most state and county arteries and many city streets where ALPR cameras are becoming ubiquitous. Conditioning that funding on a ban of the technology would, in practical effect, force any state, county, or municipality that takes federal highway money (essentially all of them) to either remove the cameras or restructure their use around tolling alone.
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> The amendment's cosponsors, Perry and Garcia, represent opposite ends of the House's ideological spectrum but converge on a surveillance concern that has gathered momentum in legislatures and city halls across the US as ALPR networks have quietly become a pervasive layer of American road infrastructure. ALPR cameras -- mounted on poles, overpasses, traffic signals, and police cruisers -- photograph every passing license plate, log times and locations, and feed data into searchable databases shared across agencies and jurisdictions. [...] Privacy advocates have long warned that the aggregation of license plate data amounts to a de facto warrantless tracking system. New York University School of Law's Brennan Center for Justice has documented the integration of ALPR feeds into police data-fusion systems that combine plate data with surveillance and social media monitoring. And the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights nonprofit, has documented a range of police misuse, including the past targeting of mosques and the disproportionate deployment of the technology in low-income neighborhoods.
Earlier this week, 404 Media reviewed FBI procurement records that reveal the agency is [3]seeking up to $36 million for nationwide access to ALPR data , which could let it query vehicle movements across the U.S. and its territories through a commercial database.
[1] https://www.wired.com/story/a-bipartisan-amendment-would-end-police-license-plate-tracking-nationwide/
[2] https://abc7chicago.com/post/raging-debate-around-use-license-plate-readers-flock-cameras-are-advancing-safety-violating-privacy/18758580/
[3] https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/05/18/1952255/fbi-wants-to-buy-nationwide-access-to-license-plate-readers
Loopholes? (Score:2)
Are they assuming most law enforcement and civic jurisdictions doing this are receiving federal funds? The ban would have to extend to prohibiting contracting with third parties who don't themselves receive federal funding.
Re: (Score:2)
Another loophole is to outsource to private contractors. The state/city/municipality still gets their sweet delicious federal funding, and their private contractor does the dirty work of running the license plate readers.
Another loophole is to feign ignorance. Most states and cities operate under the protocol of "if we're not caught, then it's not illegal" (of course, this only applies to THEM not to YOU). So they can keep doing surveillance, but clandestine. And just never use it as admissible evidence
Re: (Score:2)
> So they can keep doing surveillance, but clandestine.
Solar-powered LPR cameras ain't exactly inconspicuous.
This would be amazing, and therefore cannot stand (Score:3)
There's no way this ends up happening because it would be a wonderful thing for our rights, and 'murica doesn't do that kind of thing any more.
I think I know how this came to be (Score:2)
I can imagine that Representative Perry and Representative Chuy were both approached by FBI agents for their cars being parked outside a hotel that was a known spot for escorts to meet their Johns...
Enema of the State (Score:2)
I look forward to the implementation of 1-million dollar "tolls" that the FBI is willing to waive if you just let them put a laser-mapping GPS up your butt.
Mixed feelings (Score:3)
We've had a marked increase of these fixed license plate readers popping up all over my community (~30,000 pop) supposedly for the purpose of catching kidnappers. I know of at least 4 between my house and my office (7 miles).
That is absolutely a noble cause and according to grok there are roughly 2000 per year in my state. However it also notes that less than 4% of those "not family disputes" related, and the stereotypical abduction is only several hundred a year country-wide.
Which means that's a rather large expense (liberty, and dollars) for an extremely rare event. Which also means that can't possibly be the real reason for these fixed plate readers that are popping up all over South Western Virginia.
20 years ago when it required a human in the loop watching traffic camera feeds looking for a specific vehicle/plate it seemed reasonable limit of the technology that kept the privacy aspect somewhat in check.
But now with AI vision, each plate can be detected a location/time stamped and stored for decades. Given police historical access to every vehicle that ever passed one of these readers for all of time; Someone robs a 7-Eleven and only knows the guy was in a red truck... now every red truck that was ever picked up by a reader in town within 30 minutes of said robbery is a person of interest.
Re: (Score:2)
One thing you could do is leave the scanners in place, but make it illegal to store the data except on a list of license plates of interest. Of course, that list would have to be carefully curated, in good faith. Suuuuure it will be.
Re: (Score:2)
There is a crowd sourced map showing Flock cameras. [1]https://deflock.org/ [deflock.org]
[1] https://deflock.org/
The Tao of Abundance vs the Law (Score:2)
We may need to tinker with individual laws -- but the bigger picture is as in my sig: "The biggest challenge of the 21st century is the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity."
The results from whatever the laws will likely remain problematical as long as we have a political mythology built around scarcity while we also have super-powerful computers which could be used for universal surveillance or all sorts of other problematical -- or beneficial -- thin
Re: Thank you (Score:2)
We have caught kidnappers before we had license plate readers. In my state my cellphone buzzes whenever the cops want to crowd source human powered license plate readers.
Re: (Score:2)
> Nice to know I can make a clear shot across state lines with no interference.
Oh piss off with your "think of the children" nonsense. If you're so worried about your daughter there are countless ways to help keep her safe that don't involve the government warrantlessly tracking the entire population. Teaching her how to properly knee someone in the groin is far more effective anyway.