ACLU: Nearly all drivers tracked by police

Of course I think most Americans including my self think it is a waste of our tax dollars to have the government spy on millions of honest, law abiding Americans just to catch a few criminals.

I certainly don't want to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars a year in taxes to allow pay some cop to spy on me 24/7 and build up a huge dossier to be used against me, just in case the police suspect that I committed a crime.

I also think it is an invasion of my privacy for some jackbooted police thug to spy on me 24/7, just in case I turn out to be a criminal.

Last but not least I also think it is a violation of my 4th and 5th Amendment rights for the government to have the cops following me around 24/7 spying on me, just in case I turn out to be a terrorist.

And I suspect the Founders agree with me, and that is probably what they passed the Bill of Rights to limit the power of the police and government.

Source

ACLU: Nearly all drivers tracked by police

By Anne Flaherty and Calvin Woodward Associated Press Wed Jul 17, 2013 10:28 PM

WASHINGTON — You can drive, but you can’t hide.

A rapidly growing network of police cameras is capturing, storing and sharing data on license plates, making it possible to stitch together people’s movements, whether they are stuck in a commute, making tracks to the beach or up to no good.

For the first time, the number of license-tag captures has reached the millions, according to a study published Wednesday by the American Civil Liberties Union based on information from hundreds of law-enforcement agencies. Departments keep the records for weeks or years, sometimes indefinitely, saying they can be crucial in tracking suspicious cars, aiding drug busts, finding abducted children and more.

Attached to police cars, bridges or buildings — and sometimes merely as an app on a police officer’s smartphone — scanners capture images of passing or parked vehicles and pinpoint their locations, uploading that information into police databases.

Over time, it’s unlikely many vehicles in a covered area escape notice. And with some of the information going into regional databases encompassing multiple jurisdictions, it’s becoming easier to build a record of where someone has been, and when, over a large area.

Law-enforcement agencies in the Valley have used the scanners for years and typically tout them as a way to identify stolen vehicles.

Mesa was the first agency to buy in to the technology, with a $25,000 system the agency purchased in 2005. Police in communities including Peoria, Chandler and Phoenix, as well as the Arizona Department of Public Safety, followed.

Between September 2005 and February 2008, Mesa police used the technology to recover more than $2 million in stolen vehicles. [I guess that is typical police propaganda. Giving us dollar value of vehicles recovered instead of an actual number to make things sound better. If the cops assume a new car costs $50,000 that means the cops only recovered a lousy 40 cars. On the other hand cops tend to over inflate their numbers so maybe they used a value of $100,000 per car recovered meaning they only recovered a stinking 20 cars. When I was a kid and the cops busted somebody with a kilo of marijuana that cost $100, they would inflate the value to $1,600 by saying that kilo could be split into 40 ounce bags which sold for $10 each, giving the kilo a value of $400. Then they would say each ounce bag of weed could be rolled into 40 marijuana cigarettes which could be sold for $1 each inflating a $10 bag of weed to be worth $40, and inflating the value of the $100 kilo to $1,600. I suspect the cops play the same silly games to inflate the value of the stolen vehicles recovered to make themselves look like superhuman heroes.]

The ACLU filed requests with Phoenix, Chandler and the Pinal County Sheriff’s Office, according to documents available on the group’s site.

Chandler police responded to the ACLU’s request about access to the license-plate records with a statement that read, in part, “Members of the auto theft unit are currently the only departmental members who have access to the database.” [Yea, sure!!!! But I suspect the members of the auto theft unit with share their information with any other cop who claims he needs it for any reason to catch bad guys]

Phoenix police retain information on the scanned plates for three years and investigators must go through the auto-theft detail to access the records. There are about 1.9 million plate reads in the system, which include partial plates and duplicates, according to a police spokesman.

Unauthorized access to the records could lead to discipline for a violation of office policy or to criminal charges. [Give me a break. Sure on paper this COULD happen, but I doubt if any cop ever gets punished for breaking the rules. And if they get punished it is rarely more then a slap on the wrist]

While the Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that a judge’s approval is needed to use GPS to track a car, networks of plate scanners allow police effectively to track a driver’s location, sometimes several times every day, with few legal restrictions. The ACLU says the scanners are assembling a “single, high-resolution image of our lives.”

“There’s just a fundamental question of whether we’re going to live in a society where these dragnet surveillance systems become routine,” said Catherine Crump, a staff attorney with the organization. The group is proposing that police departments immediately delete records of cars not linked to any crime. [An even better idea would be to not allow the cops to collect this data!!!!]

Although less thorough than GPS tracking, plate readers can produce some of the same information, the group says, revealing whether someone is frequenting a bar, joining a protest, getting medical or mental help, being unfaithful to a spouse and much more.

In Minneapolis, for example, eight mobile and two fixed cameras captured data on 4.9 million license plates from January to August 2012, the Star Tribune reported. Among those whose movements were recorded: Mayor R.T. Rybak, whose city-owned cars were tracked at 41 locations in a year.

A Star Tribune reporter’s vehicle was tracked seven times in a year, placing him at a friend’s house three times late at night, other times going to and from work — forming a picture of the dates, times and coordinates of his daily routine. Until the city temporarily classified such data late last year, anyone could ask police for a list of when and where a car had been spotted.

As the technology becomes cheaper and more widespread, even small police agencies deploy more sophisticated systems. The federal government has been a willing partner, offering grants to help equip departments, in part as a tool against terrorism.

Law-enforcement officials say the scanners are strikingly efficient. The state of Maryland told the ACLU that troopers could “maintain a normal patrol stance” while capturing up to 7,000 license plate images in a single eight-hour shift.

“At a time of fiscal and budget constraints, we need better assistance for law enforcement,” said Harvey Eisenberg, assistant U.S. attorney in Maryland. [Well if they want to save money, they could stop these surveillance programs which are just jobs programs for cops]

Law-enforcement officials say the technology automates a practice that’s been around 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. The department has records stretching back to 2008, although the city plans next month to begin deleting files older than two years.

In Yonkers, N.Y., just north of New York City’s Bronx, police said retaining the information indefinitely will help detectives solve future crimes. In a statement, the department said it uses license-plate readers as a “reactive investigative tool” that is accessed only if detectives are looking for a particular vehicle in connection with a crime. [Translation - if we think you are a criminal we will use any and all of the data we collect against you]

“These plate readers are not intended nor used to follow the movements of members of the public,” the department said. [What bullsh*t!!! That's the whole purpose of the data - spying on the entire public to find a small number of criminals]

Even so, the records add up quickly. In Jersey City, N.J., for example, the population is 250,000, but the city collected more than 2 million plate images in a year. Because the city keeps records for five years, the ACLU estimates that it has 10 million on file, making it possible for police to plot the movements of most residents, depending upon the number and location of the scanners.

The ACLU study, based on 26,000 pages of responses from 293 police departments and state agencies across the country, found that license-plate scanners produced a small fraction of “hits,” or alerts to police that a suspicious vehicle had been found.

In Maryland, for example, the state reported reading about 29 million plates between January and May of last year. Of that number, about 60,000 — or roughly 1 in every 500 license plates — were suspicious. The main offenses: a suspended or revoked registration, or a violation of the state’s emissions- inspection program, altogether accounting for 97 percent of alerts. [Sounds like most of those are TAX violations - the government wants to spy on us 24/7 to make it easier to shake us down for vehicle registration taxes]

Even so, Eisenberg, the assistant U.S. attorney, said the program has helped authorities track 132 wanted suspects and can make a critical difference in keeping an area safe.

Also, he said, Maryland has rules in place restricting access. Most records are retained for one year, and the state’s privacy policies are reviewed by an independent board, Eisenberg said.

At least in Maryland, “there are checks, and there are balances,” he said.

Republic reporter JJ Hensley contributed to this article.