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License plate reader searches should require a warrant

andrewpwheeler.com

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Re: License plate reader searches should require a warrant

#231

Post by dnautics »

kentm wrote: post #29
kspacewalk2 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why a police cruiser can sit in a public space (or even a private one) and write down licence plates and descriptions of passers-by with pen and paper, or record everything around them with dashcams and bodycams for later use, but when it comes to cameras on a pole this would require a warrant. Going back through police officers' notes or cruiser dash cam videos and tracking a car's movements by it…

> I don't understand why a police cruiser can sit in a public space (or even a private one) and write down licence plates and descriptions of passers-by with pen and paper, or record everything around them with dashcams and bodycams for later use, but when it comes to cameras on a pole this would require a warrant. Scale actually matters. Things that are generally OK at a small scale become problematic at larger scal…

> Scale actually matters. Things that are generally OK at a small scale become problematic at larger scales. A single police cruiser writing down license plates isn't able to track you in the same way a huge surveillance network is, and the opportunities for abuse are much lower.

Not only this, this a precedented court opinion.

Re: License plate reader searches should require a warrant

#232

Post by FireBeyond »

gs17 wrote: post #173
ewhanley wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you feel similarly if microphones were installed everywhere to record all public conversations for analysis via algorithms? Is that the same as police officers listening to conversation in a public space and taking notes?

That is unfortunately already sort of a thing. A ShotSpotter-recorded conversation was already used as evidence at least twice.

Which is doubly frustrating given that ShotSpotter has been shown in court to have a willingness to "massage" timestamps to assist police arrest their chosen suspect.

Re: License plate reader searches should require a warrant

#233

Post by dnautics »

Xirdus wrote: post #75
eatsyourtacos wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But then scale doesn't actually matter. If you have a problem with something that "everyone does" then you should have a problem with something only a few people do.

It's not about many people vs. few people. It's about a single person doing little with a lot of effort vs. a single person doing an enormous amount with minimal effort.

that is not the case. It is not about effort: The court has ruled that single point of time monitoring is fine, but continuous monitoring (a covertly placed gps tracker, e.g.) is a violation of privacy.

Re: License plate reader searches should require a warrant

#234

Post by AngryData »

WarmWash wrote: post #47
delichon wrote: post #14

This is a hole in the Constitution that would be better patched, at least with statute, better with an amendment. The fourth amendment says The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects... Who is "their" here? In terms of property rights it's the people who own those digital "papers". The individuals who that data is about do no maintain or control that data, and could not destroy…

These cameras are in public, where expectation of privacy has been ruled against a zillion times. Go against this, and filming your kids baseball game becomes a legal nightmare.

By this logic I could track you 24/7 with a squadron of drones flying 4 feet above you watching your every movement including through all your windows.

Re: License plate reader searches should require a warrant

#235

Post by atmavatar »

kspacewalk2 wrote: post #6
cmiles8 wrote: post #3

Either it needs a warrant or it’s fully open and people can start creating websites showing the movements of local politicians. This middle ground that municipalities try to carve out where it’s fully open to police without a warrant but not subject to FOIL laws doesn’t appear tenable for much longer. There’s been too many cases of police officers stalking exes, poking around the data for fun and such so it’s clear p…

I don't understand why a police cruiser can sit in a public space (or even a private one) and write down licence plates and descriptions of passers-by with pen and paper, or record everything around them with dashcams and bodycams for later use, but when it comes to cameras on a pole this would require a warrant. Going back through police officers' notes or cruiser dash cam videos and tracking a car's movements by it…

The way these surveillance systems work, a better analogy is one where everyone has a police officer following them around. And, if that were to happen today, you could take that police officer to court for harassment/stalking. Similarly, were the police to attach a GPS tracker to you or your vehicle without a warrant, there's already legal precedent that it's a Fourth Amendment violation.

You have to look at this from a systems point of view. Yes, flock cameras individually only capture their immediate surroundings, but the emergent behavior of the system is a means to follow someone around wherever they go, which is already a no-no in our legal system without at least securing a warrant to do so. And, even securing a warrant for one individual does not give you the right to include everyone in an area, commonly referred to and struck down as dragnet surveillance.

Flock systems and their siblings are wrong and should not be tolerated.

Re: License plate reader searches should require a warrant

#236

Post by skinfaxi »

hnav wrote: post #218
encoderer wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it doesn’t track. In his example, observing license plates is perfectly legal without a warrant. Looking in your phone is not. These are not at all alike.

Then it should be legal for citizens to deploy their own network that allows anybody to track any license plate?

Is there a law against that?

Re: License plate reader searches should require a warrant

#237

Post by cindyllm »

eff4ever wrote: post #205
kspacewalk2 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why a police cruiser can sit in a public space (or even a private one) and write down licence plates and descriptions of passers-by with pen and paper, or record everything around them with dashcams and bodycams for later use, but when it comes to cameras on a pole this would require a warrant. Going back through police officers' notes or cruiser dash cam videos and tracking a car's movements by it…

American law leans heavily on "reasonableness". The Fourth Amendment bans only unreasonable searches, and the threshold question is whether someone had an expectation of privacy that society is prepared to recognize as reasonable. That standard is contextual by design (what is reasonable to expect is partly technological, but partly societal and cultural). The "difference in degree" you mention is precisely what is b…

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Re: License plate reader searches should require a warrant

#239

Post by TaLiTr »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #9
kspacewalk2 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why a police cruiser can sit in a public space (or even a private one) and write down licence plates and descriptions of passers-by with pen and paper, or record everything around them with dashcams and bodycams for later use, but when it comes to cameras on a pole this would require a warrant. Going back through police officers' notes or cruiser dash cam videos and tracking a car's movements by it…

License plates are public property.

In Canada, video footage that personally identifies me is considered personal information. This includes the license plate number.

Re: License plate reader searches should require a warrant

#240

Post by deaton »

fluidcruft wrote: post #126
kentm wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't understand why a police cruiser can sit in a public space (or even a private one) and write down licence plates and descriptions of passers-by with pen and paper, or record everything around them with dashcams and bodycams for later use, but when it comes to cameras on a pole this would require a warrant. Scale actually matters. Things that are generally OK at a small scale become problematic at larger scal…

Scale is more about efficiency and cost, though. Plenty of people want more policemen patrolling the streets.

Sure, I'd love to have more policemen around, but I don't want large automated blanket surveillance network tracking the positions of everyone everywhere. There is a huge difference.
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