Santa Cruz to start recording license plates, giving location info to Homeland Security

[Newsjock]

Source: Santa Cruz Good Times

As opposition from local activists remains strong, city officials are moving forward with plans to install Automated License Plate Readers (ALPR) for the Santa Cruz Police Department.

These controversial surveillance cameras, which supporters hope will help solve crimes, photograph all license plates as cars drive past. They record time, date and GPS location, often with a second camera that photographs the entire car. GT has learned, through public records obtained from SCPD, that local police are making preliminary decisions about ALPR, including camera placement, types of cameras, and data storage.

It’s the data storage that gets to the heart of many activists’ concerns.

SCPD plans to keep the data in San Francisco’s Northern California Regional Intelligence Center (NCRIC), a fusion center with the Department of Homeland Security. Fusion centers were created as anti-terrorism tools in the aftermath of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and they share information with other agencies.

Read more: http://www.gtweekly.com/index.php/santa-cruz-news/santa-cruz-local-news/5908-24-hour-photo.html

[Gormy Cuss]

1. If we had any privacy laws worth a damn these cameras would be illegal.

Recording every car and its occupants in the off chance that you'll catch a criminal? Ridiculous. At least one SF Bay area community (Tiburon) has these cameras recording every vehicle as it enters or exits the community. I haven't been to Tiburon since. Guess I'll be scratching Santa Cruz off the destination list too.

[hunter]

2. Fascists love cars and cell phones.

They'd require us to walk around with license plates on our butts if they could.

[KamaAina]

7. Or our chests

[MineralMan]

3. Information sharing is worrisome.

However, there are other issues. For example, there was a murder here in the Twin Cities a couple of weeks ago, where a man shot another man in a gas station. He was a former fiance of the man he killed. The police know who the shooter is, but have not been able to find him yet. The Twin Cities metro area is made up of many cities. He's been sighted in two separate cities, many miles apart, by citizens, but is still at large. He even robbed a bank since the murder. He's a high-priority suspect and intensive searches have been done where he has been sighted, and he's armed and considered dangerous.

I'm sure the police would love to be able to find him through some sort of system like this license plate recognition system. A short list of vehicles he's likely to be driving is probably known to the police. But he could be in any of three dozen different jurisdictions in the metro area.

Now, if this system was in place here, they'd also capture me driving my car here and there, but nobody wants to know where I am. They do want to know where this murder suspect is, though. Which license plates do you suppose they'd be looking for, mine or the suspect's? Nobody cares where I go, so the data on my license plates is worthless.

Such data can be used for evil purposes or for good purposes. It's a dilemma.

[Newsjock]

4. Until the "evidence" falsely accuses you

Let's say that Bad Killer is driving ABC123. Your license plate happens to be ABC723. A false positive comes up, and the police surround your vehicle with weapons drawn. They aren't going to be listening to any voice of reason that you care to offer. The best that will happen is that you'll spend the night in jail and your arrest record will be online forever for any potential employers to see. And if you happen to be the wrong color or ethnicity, well, they might just shoot you if you turn your head to cough at the wrong moment.

[MineralMan]

5. The same thing can happen based on anything.

Maybe they'll be looking for a black Kia Soul in connection with some crime. I have one of those, as do hundreds of other people in the area. Same situation.

If that happens, it happens. I'll deal with it if it does, either way. I don't consider either situation to be likely, but they're both the same. A call goes out for a suspect in a black Kia Soul, or a call goes out about a license number. What's the difference, really, except that the license number one is more specific and less likely to involve me. The odds of a black Kia Soul having an almost identical license number as mine are much smaller than just the vehicle description alone. More precision should result in fewer mistaken stops.

Similarly, I'm a 60-something white guy with a full beard. Lots of those around here. Lots of room for mistaken identification. It's a risk we all take when we leave our houses.

[msongs]

6. 1 license plate in a nation of 350 million people = everyone must submit to spying? nice nt

[MineralMan]

8. It's not one license plate in the entire country.

Daily, there are many thousands of crimes committed and many thousands of license plates reported. From stolen cars to fleeing felons, people are driving cars, just like the rest of us. Daily. Hourly. Somewhere, an armed robbery or murder is taking place in the time it takes me write this post. A child may be abducted in the same period, somewhere.

If the victims are lucky, someone got a license plate number. That really helps in narrowing down the number of possible suspects. In the past, that number gets broadcast to cops in patrol cars, along with a description of the vehicle and the person, if available. This technology takes that to a different level, that's all. That number also goes into search algorithms for the database to watch for. If it's spotted, the location will be known and LEOs can be dispatched with more accuracy and detail.

There's really no difference, except in scale. While those systems register all license numbers, most are simply not of interest and nothing is done with them. However, when a crime occurs and a license number is known, such a system can speed up the process of finding a particular vehicle.

Personally, I'm not concerned. We have a bunch of that license plate recognition technology in the Minneapolis St. Paul area. If my car gets stolen, I'm hopeful that it will be recovered before it is stripped and junked. It might happen. In the meantime, I drive around as I please, knowing that nobody's looking for me for any reason at all.

Now, you'll have to excuse me. I have to run out to the store for something. I'll be passing one of those systems on my way there and back, at a major intersection near me. I can see the cameras, and know when they were installed.

[Psephos]

9. I will never set foot or wheel in Santa Cruz again as long as those cams are on. n/t