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ICE is about to start tracking license plates across the US

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Re: ICE is about to start tracking license plates across the US

#131

Post by code_duck »

oculusthrift wrote: post #115
jermaustin1 wrote: post #37

One of my clients does license plate reading and tracking. They have hundreds of tiny customers, and a handful of VERY LARGER customers, so I can say with 100% certainty, there are hundreds of agencies across the USA already doing this. For fun, I tracked my rental car from Georgia to Texas after a vacation a few months back to see how often I hit one of my client's customer's cameras. It was a lot. I saw myself hit…

then why does it take so long to find kidnapped kids when we know the car the perp is in?

They’re probably busy using the data to find drug money or something else that they’re actually interested in.

Re: ICE is about to start tracking license plates across the US

#132

Post by Andrenid »

jermaustin1 wrote: post #37

One of my clients does license plate reading and tracking. They have hundreds of tiny customers, and a handful of VERY LARGER customers, so I can say with 100% certainty, there are hundreds of agencies across the USA already doing this. For fun, I tracked my rental car from Georgia to Texas after a vacation a few months back to see how often I hit one of my client's customer's cameras. It was a lot. I saw myself hit…

What do they do with the data? Is it just for law enforcement to find people, or is there value in the data?

Re: ICE is about to start tracking license plates across the US

#133

Post by syrrim »

doikor wrote: post #113
MAGZine wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Saskatchewan, Canada, they no longer require yearly insurance stickers on plates because the information is automatically checked by plate scanners on cop cars (to the best of my knowledge). The officer will still require proof of registration when pulled over.

We've had this since 1997 for car tax stickers in Finland when they decided it was easier to just install a computer in every cop car that has the db. Same db also has info on insurance and inspections and also the check has been recently made automatic on the camera when previously the officer had to manually enter the plate. I wouldn't be surprised if the data about the scans goes the other way too. Proof of regist…

>Driving a car isn't a right but a privilege so I'm ok with this

That's an interesting perspective. I get it in the sense of safe driving - if you are swerving all about the road, you shouldn't be on the road - but it doesn't work so well for registration and tracking. Bare minimum, people should have a right to get around. So much of what people want to do in their life is beyond walking distance, that some method of transport is necessary to get there. This isn't a political right, but rather a pratical right - something that people need to be able to do to live a full life. At the extreme, house arrest involes banning a person from going anywhere, and is clearly a (perhaps necessary) breach of their rights. In particularly rural areas, banning someone from owning a car would amount to banning them from going anywhere. So I think it makes sense to say someone has a right to own a car.

We ban poor drivers from the road merely because other rights are more important than driving is. For example, my right to safety is more important than your right to drive. If your dangerous driving puts my safety in question, than you should be taken off the road. However, if you manage to drive without infringing other's rights, than the government shouldn't be able to stop you from driving.

Re: ICE is about to start tracking license plates across the US

#134

Post by icebraining »

estebank wrote: post #103
dredmorbius wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are those alternative modes of transportation subject to tracking? E.g., electronic transit tickets or the like?

In London and Amsterdam you have the equivalent to the Bay Area's Clipper card with can be tracked. In Paris and surrounding areas you use paper tickets with a magnetic strip that has a given amount of trips (1/10/etc.). There the only tracking you can do is on aggregate, without ways to deanonymize people other than facial recognition on CCTV feeds and your phone's wireless signals.

In Amsterdam you can buy anonymous tickets as well (for 1h or 1-7 days). Just go to a corner shop like Primera and pay in cash. The same as been true in every city I've been to in Europe.

In general, it would be very hard to do away with anonymous tickets. There are always many citizens who only use it occasionally (but when they need it, they often can't wait for a personalized card to arrive), plus tourists.

Re: ICE is about to start tracking license plates across the US

#135

Post by pg314 »

leereeves wrote: post #125
pg314 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the guys who wrote the original rules for the country considered gun ownership so essential that they placed it second only to the freedom of expression. That is an appeal to authority. Those guys were not handed down the word of god from heaven. They wrote down what they thought was best at the time. They were not infallible (see the amendments), what they wrote down was not unambiguous (or the supreme court would…

> Those guys were not handed down the word of god from heaven. No, they wrote down rules to prevent the forms of oppression and protect the means of opposition that they knew from experience. Has society changed so much in 200 years that armed opposition to the government has become impossible? The US govs failure to control Afghanistan would argue: no.

> Has society changed so much in 200 years that armed opposition to the government has become impossible? The US govs failure to control Afghanistan would argue: no.

As your Afghanistan example illustrates, you don't need a right to bear arms enshrined in the constitution, nor 101 guns per 100 inhabitants as in the US. Afghanistan has an estimated 4.6 guns per 100 inhabitants. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_guns_per_c...

Re: ICE is about to start tracking license plates across the US

#136

Post by [deleted] »

Clubber wrote: post #67
kd5bjo wrote: post #41

Wasn't there a Supreme Court case a while ago that ruled it illegal for the government to put a tracking device on your car? Given this recognition technology, could someone challenge the visible license plate requirement as an illegal tracking device?

Plate scanning is against the spirit of the law; it's a workaround for not being able to place a tracking device on your car. Unfortunately, since your car is in a public place, and your plates are in the open, I don't think place scanning will be ruled unconstitutional. Of course congress could always pass a law making it illegal, but both our major parties have authoritarian with regards to privacy.

[deleted]

Re: ICE is about to start tracking license plates across the US

#137

Post by icebraining »

leereeves wrote: post #124
pg314 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Therefore if everyone fights back when "they" come for you, the outcome for society is positive, even if hopeless for individuals. The insane gun ownership in this country could be a benefit. Sure, you're not going to beat the army, but if every 10 people to be liquidated take out one secret police guy, then the civilian population as a whole will be safe. That argument only works if it were an all-out battle betwe…

More than half of all people killed by police are white.

In the reports I've read, white people were the largest group, but weren't more than half. Where did you get your data?

Re: ICE is about to start tracking license plates across the US

#139

Post by mratzloff »

dragonwriter wrote: post #129
b6 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The insane gun ownership in this country could be a benefit. I'm sorry, it's hard not to be a little snarky here. Yes, the guys who wrote the original rules for the country considered gun ownership so essential that they placed it second only to the freedom of expression. I don't like guns, but they represent a failsafe that we hopefully never have to use.

> Yes, the guys who wrote the original rules for the country considered gun ownership so essential that they placed it second only to the freedom of expression. The Articles of Confederation were the original rules of the country. The base Constitution which replaced them as the rules for the country also didn't include anything about that. The package of 12 amendments to the Constitution formally proposed after the…

In George Mason's original onjections to the Constitution, from which the Bill of Rights was drawn, the right to bear arms was seventeenth!

17. That the People have a Right to keep and to bear Arms; that a well regulated Militia, composed of the Body of the People, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe Defence of a free State; that Standing Armies in Time of Peace are dangerous to Liberty, and therefore ought to be avoided as far as the Circumstances and Protection of the Community will admit; and that in all Cases, the military should be under strict Subordination to, and governed by the Civil Power.

Re: ICE is about to start tracking license plates across the US

#140

Post by JumpCrisscross »

threatofrain wrote: post #122
tehlike wrote: post #47

I said this before, and i will say it again. Call your representative and voice your opinion. Donate to eff and aclu or any other civil and digital liberties organizations, to help them protect our privacy and rights through legal means. Privacy evasion is slippery slope and it only gets worse. Take this as your daily or weekly reminder to do something, even if that something is donating just the price of a coffee.

I feel very skeptical of calling your representatives. Firstly, it matters if they are in a contentious district. Secondly, even if they do see you as a potentially credible concern, they will still corroborate that concern with a political consultancy when election time comes.

> I feel very skeptical of calling your representatives

Based on what? For contentious issues on which most voters are decided, e.g. guns or abortion, you are correct--calling in is unlikely to do anything. If you care about a big-ticket issue, join an organization and do the whole camping out at town houses and protesting local and D.C. offices and filing lawsuits schtick. It's hard, but it works.

For niche issues, however, there is a good chance nobody has bothered to think about it. Congressional offices rely on inbound information to put new issues on their radar. An SLA penning out a letter to the ICE requesting information can start meaningful debate, inside the ICE as well as in the Congress.

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