Do you drive a car in the greater Los Angeles Metropolitan area?

[MrScorpio]

Do you drive a car in the greater Los Angeles Metropolitan area? According to the L.A. Police Department and L.A. Sheriff’s Department, your car is part of a vast criminal investigation.

Electronic Frontier Foundation
By Jennifer Lynch
March 20, 2014

The Freedom of Information Act is not the only law the public can use to obtain records from the government. Most states have similar laws for accessing documents on the state and local levels. Here in California, EFF is using the California Public Records Act to learn what new technologies local law enforcement agencies are using and whether these technologies violate our rights.

The agencies took a novel approach in the briefs they filed in EFF and the ACLU of Southern California’s California Public Records Act lawsuit seeking a week’s worth of Automatic License Plate Reader (ALPR) data. They have argued that “All [license plate] data is investigatory.” The fact that it may never be associated with a specific crime doesn’t matter.

This argument is completely counter to our criminal justice system, in which we assume law enforcement will not conduct an investigation unless there are some indicia of criminal activity. In fact, the Fourth Amendment was added to the U.S. Constitution exactly to prevent law enforcement from conducting mass, suspicionless investigations under “general warrants” that targeted no specific person or place and never expired.

ALPR systems operate in just this way. The cameras are not triggered by any suspicion of criminal wrongdoing; instead, they automatically and indiscriminately photograph all license plates (and cars) that come into view. This happens without an officer targeting a specific vehicle and without any level of criminal suspicion. The ALPR system immediately extracts the key data from the image—the plate number and time, date and location where it was captured—and runs that data against various hotlists. At the instant the plate is photographed not even the computer system itself—let alone the officer in the squad car—knows whether the plate is linked to criminal activity.

Read more at http://thefreethoughtproject.com/los-angeles-cops-argue-cars-la-investigation/#LUfkEeFc815mrER6.99

[Wilms]

1. LAPD and the L.A. Sheriff’s Department should be part of a vast criminal investigation. n/t

[treestar]

2. We have several intersections with red light cameras

I got caught at one and posted at DU it was like big brother. Mostly I was scolded for running the red light. Nobody was worried about it then.

This sounds the same. It is out in public. If a police officer was stationed at the corner writing down plates, he could do it. It's plain view.

If we really thought government was so intrusive doing that, why not object to the plates themselves? They are just for law enforcement's convenience.

[villager]

4. Uh, no, an officer cannot write down that many license plates that fast, standing on a busy LA ...

...corner.

Nor could the plates be put through databases that fast even if he or she was taking down (the occasional) number.

[villager]

3. Gotta love that lack of a 4th Amendment that "both" parties support!

[JJChambers]

5. Huh?

Since when is a government issued license plate protected by the 4th?? I expect eventually license plates will be equipped with RFID-like chips.

[villager]

6. Huh?

Since when does government issue of an ID mean that movements associated with that ID can peremptorily be collected without a warrant, with no probably cause?

[JJChambers]

8. Good question!

The answer is, when the data isn't collected pursuant to an unreasonable search or seizure. As license plates are displayed publicly and the data wasn't collected pursuant to a search or seizure, the 4th does not apply.

If the police illegally entered your closed garage to access the license plate information, there would be a 4th issue, for example. But in this case the data is captured from the public view.

[villager]

10. Bad answer!

So you're one of those "because the data can be captured, it should be" apologistswho therefore think nothing of your online activities -- in public spheres -- being collected and collated, too.

Since you clearly don't mind being tracked -- since you even celebrate it! -- please give your calendar for all of April to the police, to both make it easier for them, and since you "have nothing to hide."

[JJChambers]

12. Swing and a miss

Your initial objection cited the 4th amendment. I explained why this isn't a 4th amendment issue. Now you're trying to change the issue.

[villager]

15. Indeed, you've struck out

It's 4th Amendment, because it's an unreasonable, warrantless intrusion into our movements and activities. The Founders were trying to protect against the very intrusions you've appallingly taken to this thread to celebrate.

You are free to keep apologizing for it, however, and celebrate its continued erosion in our digital era as you bask in the totalitarian comforts of that amendment "no longer applying" to us.

[JJChambers]

17. Oh, thank you!!!

I didn't realize that the 4th amendment's protection covers "unreasonable, warrantless intrusion" into our "movements and activities." I always thought the text read: "The right of the people to be secure" from "unreasonable searches and seizures [...]."

[villager]

18. Oh, you are welcome!!!

"Unreasonable searches" indeed, as understood in the 21st century.

You keep enjoying that 19th century of yours, however.

[JJChambers]

24. Search

Governmental action must contravene an individual's actual, subjective expectation of privacy
Expectation of privacy must be reasonable, in the sense that society in general would recognize it as such
To meet the first part of the test, the person from whom the information was obtained must demonstrate that they, in fact, had an actual, subjective expectation that the evidence obtained would not be available to the public. In other words, the person asserting that a search was conducted must show that they kept the evidence in a manner designed to ensure its privacy.

The first part of the test is related to the notion "in plain view". If a person did not undertake reasonable efforts to conceal something from a casual observer (as opposed to a snoop), then no subjective expectation of privacy is assumed.[14]

The second part of the test is analyzed objectively: would society at large deem a person's expectation of privacy to be reasonable? If it is plain that a person did not keep the evidence at issue in a private place, then no search is required to uncover the evidence. For example, there is generally no search when police officers look through garbage because a reasonable person would not expect that items placed in the garbage would necessarily remain private.[15] An individual has no legitimate expectation of privacy in information provided to third parties. In Smith v. Maryland, 442 U.S. 735 (1979), the Supreme Court held individuals have no "legitimate expectation of privacy" regarding the telephone numbers they dial because they knowingly give that information to telephone companies when they dial a number.[16] Therefore there is no search where officers monitor what phone numbers an individual dials,[17] although the Congress has enacted laws that restrict such monitoring. The Supreme Court has also ruled that there is no objectively reasonable expectation of privacy (and thus no search) when officers hovering in a helicopter 400 feet above a suspect's house conduct surveillance.[18] The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit held in 2010 that users did have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the contents of their e-mail in United States v. Warshak, although no other court of appeals has followed suit.[19]

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_expectation_of_privacy


Now you know how to determine if something is a search or not. I eagerly await your attempt to explain how driving down a public street with a prominently and publicly displayed license plate is actually private.

[villager]

30. Probable cause

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.

"We now know that we have in this country an intelligence community that views the Fourth Amendment as a dead letter, and that barely even bothers to structure any of its systems around the notions the Fourth Amendment embodies. We now know that we are all spied on relentlessly and without ceasing, irrespective of whether there is probable cause – or even reasonable suspicion – to suspect us of any crime.

"The police departments of large cities are increasingly complicit in this system, and rapidly advancing technologies make it easier and easier for them to track us. Prosecutors, lacking any meaningful accountability, see hackers, technologists, journalists and dissidents as especially frightening, and use vague laws to criminalize ordinary and Constitutionally protected behavior. The leadership of both political parties is bound up in this system, both as its creators and also its victims. The prospects for meaningful federal reform of actual surveillance practices are remote, though less remote than they were before June.

"What, then, can we do?

"We cannot stop data being collected. We may or may not be able to prevent data on you from being systematized across government to discern patterns of suspicious behavior. But we do believe that we can stop that data from being used to deprive people arbitrarily of their freedom. "

http://warrantless.org/

[JJChambers]

31. Failure

Again, you have failed to address how an automated license plate reader, collecting license plate information in a public place, qualifies as a search as defined by the courts. Probable cause isn't a factor until you have established that a search or seizure took place. You haven't done that, nor will you be able to.

As I said, I'm all for adding a right to privacy amendment to the constitution. What I'm not for, however, is interest groups attempting to square peg their pet issue into the round 4th amendment hope.

[villager]

32. "Interest groups" -- your bigger failure

in not seeing the special interests you so vociferously defend here -- the elite ones like the intelligence apparatus keeping things in line for the 1%ers -- as an "interest group" with their own sick spin on what should, and should not, be "protected."

That you so willingly carry their water for them is, well, sad and dispiriting.

[JJChambers]

33. I'm carrying water for the constitution

Amend it if we can; protect what we have; acknowledge it's shortcomings; stop trying to twist it into something it isn't.

When you figure out how reading a license plate publicly displayed is a search or seizure as defined by the courts, let me know.

[villager]

34. If by "carrying water" you mean "pissing on it" -- sure!

[JJChambers]

36. That's what I thought

You don't even attempt to discuss the issue. You make a bold titled, but ultimately empty post, to mask the fact that your position is without merit. Reminds me of how right wingers conduct themselves in debates.

Again, if you dare: Explain how reading a license plate displayed publicly on a vehicle constitutes a search or seizure as defined by the court.

Or should I expect another all bark but no bite response?

[JaneyVee]

40. CLASSIC DU SUB-THREAD.

[MADem]

14. There's RFID in your passport, now...

That information is collected far faster than a guy with a pencil writing down your details, too. It's also transmitted at the speed of light.

It's a brave new world. People can be tracked by their cellphone pings.

I know people don't like it, but I can't see the police not using these methods. Face scanning IS in our future routinely, too. Biometrics are the future. Maybe "information hijab" will be the costume of the future...?

[villager]

16. The question is -- do you support this "collection creep" of more and more data on you?

I know there's an RFID chip in my new Passport.

Presumably, that only comes into play when I'm leaving and returning to the country. Rather than being used to collect data on my movements "just because."

An anti-police state hijab may become a near-future necessity.

[JJChambers]

19. I support the constitution

ALPRs aren't unconstitutional; they're not even in the ballpark of unconstitutional. I would support a new amendment, or a revision of the 4th, to add privacy protection and technological acknowledgement language for current and future technologies.

[MADem]

20. I really don't know how I feel about it.

I think pinging a cellphone to find a ten year old in the forest is a great tool.

I think using biometrics to access high security areas is a good thing.

I think biometrics for things like credit cards are way the hell overdue here in USA.

I've lived in DC--do you think all those cameras coming into the city are there just for fun? This has been happening for a long, long time already, and it is beyond the scope of the police.

I don't mind the police watching us if we can watch them back. They should be required to wear a camera for their entire duty time, one that cannot be turned off, and the data must be saved for two years, and longer if there's an incident on their watch.

Keep that passport safe, now--get an envelope to protect it --

http://news.cnet.com/Researchers-E-passports-pose-security-risk/2100-7349_3-6102608.html

[villager]

21. Your "if we can watch them back" paragraph is critical there

And surely you know that that's the part that never happens, right?

You realize the "watching" is only one way -- the powerful, and their armored minions, watching the less-powerful, whenever and however they can?

So that's the existential question for all of us, frankly. Do we support that?

[JJChambers]

25. "Never happens"

Really? Dash cams have been standard for years. Body cams are quickly becoming standard. In a few years, police will have 360 degree camera coverage and the outrage will be over privacy violations from police body cameras.

[villager]

26. Dash cams, of course, are not as pervasive or widely used as data collection on citizens

is, which is my point.

It's funny that your "outrage" is all on behalf of the most powerful segments of society. Whatever possessed you to attempt discussion at a site with "underground" in its title?

[JJChambers]

35. Really?

How many court cases have used evidence from dash cam video to prosecute a citizen? How many court cases have used NSA-style metadata collection to prosecute citizens?

I bet the dash cam usage is orders of magnitude greater.

[MADem]

37. Well, it is happening....see downthread.

http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?id=9395264

[JI7]

23. yes, LA is testing out the cameras on police , hopefully it spreads

[villager]

27. Well, if the cameras help monitor the police to the degree we're being monitored

That may be the only equilibrium -- watching the watchers.

But we already know how much they hate that.

[MADem]

13. There are moves afoot to embed RFID in inspection stickers, so that use of roads can be taxed one

day.

It's not popular, this idea, but it's been on the "talking about it" table for several years now.

[jeff47]

39. Uh.....It's bolted to the outside of your vehicle on a public street.

Really should be no expectation of privacy there.

The program is bad anyway, but it's not a 4th amendment problem.

[villager]

7. Fascinating how fast right wing trollery "it's good for you" posts start cropping up in threads

...like this, now.

[TransitJohn]

9. If you're not doing anything wrong, what's the problem?

[villager]

11. Those precise, mewling apologists have already taken to this thread...

...to celebrate this glorious new capture of public data...

[JI7]

22. i do and it doesn't really worry me , i also support putting more cameras in public places

[villager]

29. "It don't worry me"

[Tikki]

28. An interesting thing happened to us on the way home from a club one night...

My hubby said …'Hold on and look quick" and sure enough two flashes ripped by
our car one after the other on the nearly deserted freeway North of Los Angeles.

It was two Banzai Runners passing us. There is no way we could have gotten their license
plate numbers, we couldn't even tell the autos' make or model. They were just fast, very, very fast.


Tikki

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

38. Oh, joy! More "protection" in a "free" society.

[villager]

41. Many in this thread welcome their masters' further surveillance

And can scarcely understand why anyone would dare object