License plate scanning cameras spread across U.

[Bubbahotep]

License plate scanning cameras spread across U.S. | Tulsa World

Just after midnight on Oct. 26, the stolen Jeep Cherokee that belonged to a university professor who was slain the previous morning passed a camera mounted on a pole. It took the automatic camera less than a second to scan and process the license plate number, discover it in a database and send out an alert to police cars.

A detective spotted the vehicle and chased it, leading to the arrest near downtown Washington of the 18-year-old driver, who is being held in nearby Montgomery County, Md., on auto theft charges and is considered "a person of interest" in the homicide, police said.

The technology used in this case has recently swept the country. Long used in Europe, it is now employed in all 50 states and is also helping to combat the flow of drugs, illegal currency and weapons across the U.S.-Mexico border.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection awarded a contract in October worth as much as $350 million to increase its use along the border, where thousands of license plates are processed by the system every day.

But the technique, which, unlike speed cameras, snaps pictures of all vehicles passing by, worries privacy advocates. Wary of its ability to pinpoint and store the location of vehicles, they worry that innocent people may become easy targets for tracking.

"It's like being forced to walk around with a bar code that a scanner can pick up - except that it's your car," said Lee Tien, senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco, which advocates for consumer and privacy rights.

That much information in one place makes it easy to "connect the dots" and track where a vehicle has been, revealing whether it stopped "at the opera or a strip club," Tien said.

1984, here we come!

These plate scanners can be tapped into any database they have, with criteria being set that we have no say in, or knowledge of.

Now, while some will say this helps people catch the bad guys, I say at what cost to our liberty, anonymity, privacy and autonomy.

These cameras will be installed in more and more ways, so that eventually we'll be monitored by the "eye in the sky" wherever we go.

Fortunately, there are ways around this tech.

PHOTO BLOCKER License Plate Spray, $19.99, Makes Plates Invisible to Cameras! PHOTOBLOCKER, Anti Photoradar, Photo Radar Spray, Red Light Camera Protection, Avoid False Traffic Tickets.

I've already ordered me a can.

 

[allhart]

Napolitano Announces Expansion of Gestapo Zones from Airports to Malls and Hotels

 

[Bubbahotep]

Infowars isn't the best of sources, though I rarely put anything past the thugs we have in office today.

 

[EdwinWillers]

PHOTO BLOCKER License Plate Spray, $19.99, Makes Plates Invisible to Cameras! PHOTOBLOCKER, Anti Photoradar, Photo Radar Spray, Red Light Camera Protection, Avoid False Traffic Tickets.

I've already ordered me a can.

Cool! I gotta get me one too. Do it before they outlaw it...

 

[RedDead1981]

I don't really have a problem with this.

 

[Bubbahotep]

I don't really have a problem with this.

You don't have a problem with an ever-expanding surveillance society where privacy and anonymity are outdated concepts?

 

[RedDead1981]

You don't have a problem with an ever-expanding surveillance society where privacy and anonymity are outdated concepts?

Depends on what the privacy and anonymity are being used for.

 

[Bubbahotep]

Depends on what the privacy and anonymity are being used for.

The thing about liberty is that it applies equally to the good and bad. My 4th Amendment rights are not contingent on what I do under protection of those rights.

 

[Goodtry]

Its not a particularly egregious breach of privacy if you ask me. Besides you don't really have a reasonable expectation of privacy when you're out driving around on public roads anyway.

 

[Bubbahotep]

Its not a particularly egregious breach of privacy if you ask me. Besides you don't really have a reasonable expectation of privacy when you're out driving around on public roads anyway.

There is a reasonable expectation of privacy against this:

"That much information in one place makes it easy to "connect the dots" and track where a vehicle has been, revealing whether it stopped "at the opera or a strip club," Tien said."

By spying in this manner, the government could decipher patterns and habits from monitoring your isolated movements, things that would not happen in public otherwise.

 

[Grizzly]

Here's is what I am truly hoping. I am hoping that once Obama is out of office and a republican is president, that we keep hearing from you guys about civil liberties. Because I have to tell you, when Bush was pushing the Patriot Act down our throats, I didn't hear a peep from you. When Bush expanded presidential powers and wiretapping you guys were backing him up until his belly-button popped out.

Maybe this is something that we can both agree on? Individual liberties??

 

[callmeMurph]

Here's is what I am truly hoping. I am hoping that once Obama is out of office and a republican is president, that we keep hearing from you guys about civil liberties. Because I have to tell you, when Bush was pushing the Patriot Act down our throats, I didn't hear a peep from you. When Bush expanded presidential powers and wiretapping you guys were backing him up until his belly-button popped out.

Maybe this is something that we can both agree on? Individual liberties??

The difference between Bush and Obama is where they choose to waste our money.

 

[Umaro]

The difference between Bush and Obama is where they choose to waste our money.

I think I'd rather have a president waste money taking care of America than waste money killing brown people abroad.

 

[callmeMurph]

I think I'd rather have a president waste money taking care of America than waste money killing brown people abroad.

Let me know when you find one.

 

[Glas Ridire]

Stationary cameras now? Huh. Hereabouts they have been using for a while the same tech mounted on squad car trunks. As the squad car patrols a street the system picks up cars of people with active warrants and flags cars with enough unpaid parking tickets to warrant a boot & there ya have it, warrants served and scoflaws booted.

Granted they make squad cars uglier, but it seems to have more actual law enforcement utility than stationary systems.

 

[Supreme]

I can't remember the bit in 1984 where licence plate scanners brought doom to the populace. Can someone enlighten me?

 

[Corey]

PHOTO BLOCKER License Plate Spray, $19.99, Makes Plates Invisible to Cameras! PHOTOBLOCKER, Anti Photoradar, Photo Radar Spray, Red Light Camera Protection, Avoid False Traffic Tickets.

I've already ordered me a can.

Ugh...you've been ripped off. Watch Mythbusters...

 

[Saving Hawaii]

I can't remember the bit in 1984 where licence plate scanners brought doom to the populace. Can someone enlighten me?

It's on page 198, paragraph 4.

 

[Bubbahotep]

Here's is what I am truly hoping. I am hoping that once Obama is out of office and a republican is president, that we keep hearing from you guys about civil liberties. Because I have to tell you, when Bush was pushing the Patriot Act down our throats, I didn't hear a peep from you. When Bush expanded presidential powers and wiretapping you guys were backing him up until his belly-button popped out.

I'm a libertarian. You don't want to pull that card on me cuz I'll cut ya with it.

And on the flip side, where are all those libs screaming about our liberties when Obama took power? Where were you when they shoved the individual mandate down our throats, or how about when Obama & Co. wanted the backdoor encryption keys to blackberries and such? What about all the outrage over Gitmo? Seems like it just disappeared over night.

Me thinks you might want to address the plank in your collective eyes before dealing with someone else's splinter.

 

[acropolis]

I'm a libertarian. You don't want to pull that card on me cuz I'll cut ya with it.

And on the flip side, where are all those libs screaming about our liberties when Obama took power? Where were you when they shoved the individual mandate down our throats, or how about when Obama & Co. wanted the backdoor encryption keys to blackberries and such? What about all the outrage over Gitmo? Seems like it just disappeared over night.

Me thinks you might want to address the plank in your collective eyes before dealing with someone else's splinter.

There are many people on the left who are concerned and disappointed with what the Obama administration is doing, but they aren't going to seek you out personally to inform you, you actually have to go read what they're writing. Andrew Sullivan is the first that comes to mind, but there are many others out there.