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A California mall operator is sharing license plate tracking data with ICE

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Re: A California mall operator is sharing license plate tracking data with ICE

#51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> abolishing your immigration agency Nobody in this thread has proposed abolishing ICE. It is a non-mainstream political movement entirely unrelated to this thread.

a reorganization and less political administration couldn't hurt though. Some checks and balances maybe to ensure all choices they make are ethical, and move in a more humane direction... (though, I think we could deal w/ open borders if we had a national sales tax to capture taxes off their grocery/restaurant/etc use.

Then they'd all be contributing to the bottom line, the only reason people hate them being here in the first place right? Nobody wants a freeloader, so let's make it so anyone living here can't be one.

Re: A California mall operator is sharing license plate tracking data with ICE

#52
post #50
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s your point? All sorts of public information is not shared en masse with law enforcement. I’m not trying to argue that this is somehow illegal . This company isn’t committing a crime, they’re just assholes.

I don’t think reporting criminals to the police makes one an asshole. If you want open borders that’s fine. We have a congress and they can legally pass that policy. Write your representative and senators or something.

They’re not reporting criminals, they’re reporting everyone.

This has nothing to do with open borders. Why would you even bring that up?

Re: A California mall operator is sharing license plate tracking data with ICE

#53
post #31

This article takes a distinctly negative tone towards this practice. What’s the problem here? License plate data is public information, it’s the same as if a person standing on the street saw your plate and told someone else. There should not be any expectation of privacy in regard to one’s license plate or the location of its sighting.

The US Supreme Court just made the distinction, when ruling that access to a cellular telephone carrier's location data for a particular subscriber required a warrant (and hence a showing of probable cause): The Government’s position fails to contend with the seismic shifts in digital technology that made possible the tracking of not only Carpenter’s location but also everyone else’s, not for a short period but for y…

Too bad this didn't come up, when the supreme court was more liberal, now it'd surely be shot down. (applying the similar scenario to the license plates)

Re: A California mall operator is sharing license plate tracking data with ICE

#54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> abolishing your immigration agency Nobody in this thread has proposed abolishing ICE. It is a non-mainstream political movement entirely unrelated to this thread.

And abolishing ICE (or what ICE has become) actually isn't that radical. It was created as part of the Homeland Security Act in 2002 as part of the (over)reaction to 9/11 .

Before that, customs and immigration concerns were handled perfectly well by the United States Customs Service (in the Treasury Department) and the Immigration and Naturalization Service (Department of Justice.)

What is new with ICE is the militaristic "hunt them down" approach to immigration enforcement while pushing back on due process for offenders (which they mostly get away with because these people are poor non-citizens). Suggesting we do away with that is not that radical -- it's actually quite civilized and a return to much more humane pre-9/11 norms.

Re: A California mall operator is sharing license plate tracking data with ICE

#55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would also settle for some California legislation that would kill Vigilant’s business model.

It might be time for a group of tech people to write some initiatives to limit these kind of business models. This kind of behavior should be pretty simple to get Californians to vote for.

The hard thing would be getting enough signatures on the ballot, that costs a million bucks usually. Of course that can be powerful, consider the recent surprising rush for privacy policy legislation.

Re: A California mall operator is sharing license plate tracking data with ICE

#56
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I go to gun shows and I've never seen it. What is your proof?

Let me google that for you: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wsj.com/amp/articles/gun-sh...

Now can you Google the difference between a gun show and a mall for the commenter as well?

Re: A California mall operator is sharing license plate tracking data with ICE

#57
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There should not be any expectation of privacy in regard to one’s license plate or the location of its sighting The Supreme Court has continuously recognized the difference between manual and sustained, remote and automated tracking, even in public spaces [1]. The "seismic shifts in digital technology" we are presently undergoing require vigilance to be maintained in respect of the Bill of Rights. [1] http://www.sc…

ALPR is not manual or sustained. It's a one-time photo of a vehicle at a specific location & time. The DPPA [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driver%27s_Privacy_Protection_... ] already restricts who has the ability to convert from plate to actual personal information.

ALPR vans endlessly trawl public and private parking lots and streets, recording your presence and movements and just waiting for you to show up in their database with an unpaid parking ticket so they can boot or tow your car.

Some of the higher-tier services use ALPR cameras that map plates to GPS coordinates. Property ownership is public information so you can narrow down the owner of a vehicle's plate based on where they're parked overnight. You can deduce where the owner works by tracking where it's parked between 9 and 6. You can deduce who the owner's associates are by tracking who he tends to park near when not at home or work.

The beauty of it is how well it scales. One van can patrol your neighborhood. Another can patrol the mall. Another can drive around and through your office park. Another might catch you simply driving down the road. It's like having spies everywhere, and they're all feeding their observations back to a central database to build a broader profile...which they later sell to law enforcement upon request.

(Or you can make like Vincent Asaro and just give a cop buddy the plate number of the car that cut you off and have your post-roadrage firebomb run expedited. DPPA sure helped that guy!)

If that's not sustained surveillance then please explain your understanding of the concept.

Re: A California mall operator is sharing license plate tracking data with ICE

#58
post #44
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First time illegal border crossing is a misdemeanor. Should people have their children forcibly separated from them and shipped to detention centers for a speeding ticket? Jaywalking? Drunk in public? Inflicting cruelty on innocent children is not a reasonable deterrent in a civilized society that has any intention of being moral or just.

Pretty sure if you’re drunk in public with your kids and get arrested you will in fact be forcibly separated. Also this is a great example of static thinking, because it completely ignores dynamic effects. Ban family separation, how humane! Second order effect: incentivize bringing children when committing crimes. A sane and compassionate, as well as moral and just, society doesn’t want to encourage bring your kids t…

I think they were pointing out that you typically get issued a summons in lieu of arrest for misdemeanors.

Re: A California mall operator is sharing license plate tracking data with ICE

#59

To me the issue here is that this data is collected in the first place. It seems wrong to me that private corporations are tracking my every move.

Then don't go on to their private property to conduct business?

Re: A California mall operator is sharing license plate tracking data with ICE

#60
post #49

This article takes a distinctly negative tone towards this practice. What’s the problem here? License plate data is public information, it’s the same as if a person standing on the street saw your plate and told someone else. There should not be any expectation of privacy in regard to one’s license plate or the location of its sighting.

Let’s say we’re neighbors. I keep a close watch on your house, and every time you come and go I phone the local police and tell them, “OceanKing just got home” or whatever. Would you be ok with that?

Malls are privately owned property, if you don't like it don't go to them.
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