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