Carlsbad Plans To Scan License Plates To Boost Safety

Started by bing101, March 20, 2017, 07:50:03 PM

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bing101

http://www.kpbs.org/news/2017/mar/20/carlsbad-plans-scan-license-plates-boost-safety/


A city in  San Diego County wants to add license plate scanners to enhance safety.


  http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/communities/north-county/sd-no-plate-readers-20170317-story.html

Post Merge: March 21, 2017, 10:50:12 AM

These scanners will be placed on San Diego area streets in the Carlsbad city limits.


Max Rockatansky

All that's going to do is just cause more people to buy screens for their plates or scrape the reflective paint off who live, work, or commute through Carlsbad.  Really any boost in effect in safety would be nominal at best, even the first article points out that plate scanners are typically used on patrol cars. 

slorydn1

It may just be me, but why are people so up in arms that their tag may get logged going through the intersection of such and such at a certain time? I mean, if I wasn't doing anything I wasn't supposed to be doing I wouldn't have a problem with it at all. Now, If I were to be sneaking around doing something less than above board-then yeah, I would have a HUGE problem with it.
Please Note: All posts represent my personal opinions and do not represent those of any governmental agency, non-governmental agency, quasi-governmental agency or wanna be governmental agency

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corco

The way our laws are set up, any innocent person can be made a "criminal" with the right context. Give me enough information about you and I absolutely guarantee I (or a qualified legal mind) could find a reason why you should be in jail. A judge might  dismiss the complaint, but I bet I could find enough to convince somebody to make you go through the time and expense of going into a courtroom.

My preference is to see the police take a more reactive approach to policing - stay away from folks unless there is a reason not to -i.e. a crime is actively in progress. I don't support dragnets, which is what this functionally is, because innocent people can get caught in dragnets. Even if you're not doing anything illegal, you're still more liable to be falsely charged with something and have to go through that process if your movements are able to be monitored.

Max Rockatansky

Quote from: slorydn1 on March 22, 2017, 11:48:17 PM
It may just be me, but why are people so up in arms that their tag may get logged going through the intersection of such and such at a certain time? I mean, if I wasn't doing anything I wasn't supposed to be doing I wouldn't have a problem with it at all. Now, If I were to be sneaking around doing something less than above board-then yeah, I would have a HUGE problem with it.

Because some people seem to think that they have an expectation of privacy in public places when nothing could be further from the truth.  There is still a huge segment of the population that is largely naive to laws and gives in to popularized paranoia that someone is out to get them.  Granted I wouldn't expect the everyday person to have ever read their state statutes much less have any familiarity with things like constitutional or procedural law.  I would seriously doubt that it is common knowledge among the general populace that police departments or even something like a repossession agency have used license plate readers as far back as I can remember.

What I spoke to in my first reply is actually a common practice with Californian drivers.  It isn't too uncommon to see a plate that has all the paint scraped off of it based off the theory that license plate reading devices can't scan it.  It is also very common to see reflective plate covers, all of what I describe are actually illegal actions to take in this state.  Really all I'm seeing is a PR stunt by Carlsbad to has the tinge of trying to keep people up to no go out of town due to fear of being picked up on a plate scan.

corco

QuoteBecause some people seem to think that they have an expectation of privacy in public places when nothing could be further from the truth.  There is still a huge segment of the population that is largely naive to laws and gives in to popularized paranoia that someone is out to get them.  Granted I wouldn't expect the everyday person to have ever read their state statutes much less have any familiarity with things like constitutional or procedural law.  I would seriously doubt that it is common knowledge among the general populace that police departments or even something like a repossession agency have used license plate readers as far back as I can remember.

There is a very distinct line though, in terms of privacy. If I am walking down the street, otherwise not committing a crime, I have a reasonable expectation that I'm not going to interact with the police. If I am walking down the street and the police have the ability to do a blanket scan of all persons in the area and determine who has an unpaid parking ticket, I'm likely going to have to interact with the police. And in my mind, there's a line there. I don't think privacy is guaranteed in a public place, but I also think that police should have to do some work to catch criminals. I would certainly support that kind of technology to stop somebody who broke out of jail and is an axe murderer, but the ratio of those to somebody that forgot to pay a parking ticket is so miniscule that it's not worth the tradeoff.

A license plate reader that requires a cop to make a conscious decision to select a license plate is one thing - a dragnet camera that captures every single license plate is something else entirely . I'm also troubled that the article seems to indicate the purpose of this is to stop property crime - does that mean that if I have an out of area plate, or have some very low level drug possession charge or something, and drive through Carlsbad just before a crime is committed, I will automatically be a suspect? Or maybe you now know that about me and pull me over for going a mile an hour over the speed limit just to see what I'm up to. I don't think that's right - and this technology could certainly be used for exactly that type of targeting.

Maybe it's paranoia - but even as a clean-cut white guy in a clean car, I've been pulled over on what could generously be described as a fishing trip just to try to search my car for drugs (which I declined) - I'm not saying that the police are generally bad or corrupt, but I think in their efforts to do good they sometimes are a wee bit aggressive on innocent people, and this provides great opportunities to expand that behavior.

Max Rockatansky

Quote from: corco on March 23, 2017, 12:13:50 AM
QuoteBecause some people seem to think that they have an expectation of privacy in public places when nothing could be further from the truth.  There is still a huge segment of the population that is largely naive to laws and gives in to popularized paranoia that someone is out to get them.  Granted I wouldn't expect the everyday person to have ever read their state statutes much less have any familiarity with things like constitutional or procedural law.  I would seriously doubt that it is common knowledge among the general populace that police departments or even something like a repossession agency have used license plate readers as far back as I can remember.

There is a very distinct line though, in terms of privacy. If I am walking down the street, otherwise not committing a crime, I have a reasonable expectation that I'm not going to interact with the police. If I am walking down the street and the police have the ability to do a blanket scan of all persons in the area and determine who has an unpaid parking ticket, I'm likely going to have to interact with the police. And in my mind, there's a line there. I don't think privacy is guaranteed in a public place, but I also think that police should have to do some work to catch criminals.

A license plate reader that requires a cop to make a conscious decision to select a license plate is one thing - a dragnet camera that captures every single license plate is something else entirely . I'm also troubled that the article seems to indicate the purpose of this is to stop property crime - does that mean that if I have an out of area plate, or have some very low level drug possession charge or something, and drive through Carlsbad just before a crime is committed, I will automatically be a suspect? I don't think that's right - and this technology could certainly be used for exactly that type of targeting.

I don't think there is any mistake, that's exactly what Carlsbad is going for.  They basically want to use the available technology as a deterrent measure to scare away what the city views as undesirables that are more likely to commit crime in the city limits.  I'm not saying that I disagree with you, but really not a lot of laws have been enacted around the majority of the country that place a limit on using technology like plate scanners for enforcement.  Really it would take an act of the state legislature to really place limits on what cities like Carlsbad can and can't do.  Really the rub is that if you are in public there really is no expectation of privacy of anything that might be happening in plain view for all to see which would include roadways. 

This brings me back to the whole deal from last year when I brought up a story about being stopped on I-20 at 6 AM in the morning while I was driving home from Dallas.  Basically the officer would never say it outright but I guarantee you the reason I was stopped was due to the fact that I had an out of state plate.  Basically he just used the excuse that I was 550 feet behind a trucker at 70 MPH instead of 700 feet as a reason to pull me over and see what was going on.  The officer even slowed down to 40 MPH in the left lane just to flash my plate to see where I was from and followed me for about a good ten miles to get something to pull me over.  All he was greeted with was a smile and an explanation that I was on the way to Carlsbad Caverns, no ticket issued.  Reading up after the fact it would seem that a lot of folks who were running drugs through western Texas were using I-20 to get around Border Patrol Checkpoint and other enforcement zones. 

So was it a pretext stop?...probably...but was the reason to do it probably sound?...probably.  Really one could argue that the whole deal in Carlsbad isn't too different with the plate scanners at the city limits.  Given the demographics of the city tend to run with reasonably high incomes I would imagine that the local population base largely is probably behind using plate scanners...for what its worth.

vdeane

It's one thing to have a plate scanner than just runs the plate for things.  That's like a cop standing on the corner, happening to see you, and running the plate.  It's another thing to store the data in a database somewhere where it can be analyzed and given to other agencies... which is what just about everywhere that has scanners is or will soon be doing.  That's like a cop trailing your every move every hour of every day.  That is not OK.  Granted, I have anxiety issues, but the idea of being watched all the time makes me quite nervous, even when I'm doing nothing wrong.  I can't help but wonder how long it is before roadgeeks start getting pulled over and possibly arrested because our driving patterns don't fit the norm and are therefore suspicious.
Please note: All comments here represent my own personal opinion and do not reflect the official position of NYSDOT or its affiliates.

Max Rockatansky

Quote from: vdeane on March 23, 2017, 07:59:44 PM
It's one thing to have a plate scanner than just runs the plate for things.  That's like a cop standing on the corner, happening to see you, and running the plate.  It's another thing to store the data in a database somewhere where it can be analyzed and given to other agencies... which is what just about everywhere that has scanners is or will soon be doing.  That's like a cop trailing your every move every hour of every day.  That is not OK.  Granted, I have anxiety issues, but the idea of being watched all the time makes me quite nervous, even when I'm doing nothing wrong.  I can't help but wonder how long it is before roadgeeks start getting pulled over and possibly arrested because our driving patterns don't fit the norm and are therefore suspicious.

Really the way I see things playing out is that legislation on state and federal levels will change as surveillance/tracking technology improves.  The amount of president that has already been decided on over the course of the 20th century and way beyond the scope of what I could talk about it a road forum.  Needless to say once you get Federal Courts involved in deciding things it generally sets the limits of what the police can and cannot do.  Really at the end of the day it all falls back to a simple question "does it violate the 4th amendment protections in regards to unreasonable searches and seizures?" 

At this point I would find it incredibly difficult to find something unconstitutional with running a license plate since it is public information which generally doesn't fall under something that would be protected.  Basically what will likely happen is that enough cities like Carlsbad will piss off enough people that there is a push to limit or prohibit surveillance technology.  I'd say that it would likely take an act of the Californian Legislature to do something, but they probably wouldn't do without public outcry and a proven track record of abusive policing tactics. 

A real world example where a state put in limits on enhanced surveillance enforcement technology would be out in Florida.  There was actually a legislatively defined traffic code that spelled out the length of a yellow light.  A couple cities in Florida got caught by the FDLE cheating the timing and had to pay back a crap ton of fines in addition to throwing out tickets. 



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