https://qz.com/1400791/that-ro...urveillance-network/

That sign telling you how fast you’re driving may be spying on you



he next time you drive past one of those road signs with a digital readout showing how fast you’re going, don’t simply assume it’s there to remind you not to speed. It may actually be capturing your license plate data.

According to recently released US federal contracting data, the Drug Enforcement Administration will be expanding the footprint of its nationwide surveillance network with the purchase of “multiple” trailer-mounted speed displays “to be retrofitted as mobile LPR [License Plate Reader] platforms.” The DEA is buying them from RU2 Systems Inc., a private Mesa, Arizona company. How much it’s spending on the signs has been redacted.

Two other, apparently related contracts, show that the DEA has hired a small machine shop in California, and another in Virginia, to conceal the readers within the signs. An RU2 representative said the company providing the LPR devices themselves is a Canadian firm called Genetec.

The DEA launched its National License Plate Reader Program in 2008; it was publicly revealed for the first time during a congressional hearing four years after that. The DEA’s most recent budget describes the program as “a federation of independent federal, state, local, and tribal law enforcement license plate readers linked into a cooperative system, designed to enhance the ability of law enforcement agencies to interdict drug traffickers, money launderers or other criminal activities on high drug and money trafficking corridors and other public roadways throughout the U.S.,” primarily along the southwest border region, and the country’s northeast and southeast corridors.

“There used to be an old police saying, ‘If you robbed a bank, please drive carefully,’” former NYPD Detective Sergeant and Bronx Cold Case Squad commander Joseph Giacalone told Quartz, explaining that if a getaway driver didn’t do anything to attract the attention of police and get pulled over, they usually had a half-decent chance of fleeing. “But that’s no longer in effect because you can drive slow, you can stop at every red light, but these license plate readers and surveillance cameras track your every movement.”

And therein lies the real issue: What is a game-changing crime-fighting tool to some, is a privacy overreach of near-existential proportion to others. License plate readers, which can capture somewhere in the neighborhood of 2,000 plates a minute, cast an astonishingly wide net that has made it far easier for cops to catch serious criminals. On the other hand, the indiscriminate nature of the real-time collection, along with the fact that it is then stored by authorities for later data mining is highly alarming to privacy advocates.

“License plate readers are inherently a form of mass surveillance,” investigative researcher Dave Maass of the nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation told Quartz. “You look at something like a wiretap and most of the time it’s looking for a specific person and capturing specific conversations with that person. But here they are collecting information on everybody, not all of whom have been accused of a crime, in case they may one day commit a crime. This is un-American.”

The DEA does not release how much of the data it collects is connected to crimes. The nonprofit American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland found that only 47 out of every 1 million plates scanned by police in the state, or 0.005%, were linked to a serious crime. The Atlanta PD captured data from 128.5 million license plates last year; 786,580 of those—0.6%—were suspected of having a connection to a crime. Of 22 million license plates recorded in Austin, Texas during that same period, 3,200 of them—0.01%—were linked to alleged criminal activity.

Still, it’s not the data collection itself that’s the issue, as much as what authorities do next with that information, explained Maass.

“The technology is fairly simple, but as they start collecting more and more data and applying more and more algorithms to that, you can get information about people’s travel patterns, where their doctor’s office is, where they sleep at night, or put in the address of a place and see who visited it: an immigrant health clinic, a medical marijuana facility, or even a [marijuana] grow [operation] that would be completely legal under state law but illegal under federal law,” Maass said. “You could [link someone to] an abortion clinic, any number of sensitive locations.”

Precise details of the DEA’s license plate reader program are extremely difficult to pry loose. The DEA declined to comment on either the program in general or its latest purchase of license plate readers; Sherman Green, the Department of Justice contracting officer handling the RU2 deal did not respond to an interview request.

Maass said the DEA augments its own data collection by buying access to commercial databases, including one maintained by Vigilant Solutions of Livermore, California. In January, the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency purchased access to Vigilant’s LPR data which reportedly allows investigators to trace plates going back five years.

Some LPR cameras can capture “contextual photos,” which include shots of the driver and passengers. Companies like Palantir Technologies, which was co-founded by controversial venture capitalist Peter Thiel in 2003, are incorporating facial recognition technology into license plate reader software; officers can access Vigilant’s “Intelligence-Led Policing Package” on their mobile phones.

Law professor Andrew Ferguson, a former public defender and author of 2017’s The Rise of Big Data Policing: Surveillance, Race, and the Future of Law Enforcement, said the DEA “finds itself at the intersection of new technology scandals [accusations of secret, and possibly illegal, bulk data collection by the DEA have surfaced in recent years] because they maintain both domestic and international jurisdiction and thus can argue the need to use surveillance tools that would not be acceptable in purely local law enforcement.”

“For example, most other domestic law enforcement agencies couldn’t claim any right to know information from secret NSA wiretaps…but because the DEA can claim that they are tracking international drug traffickers and thus need to know information obtained outside the states, they can use invasive techniques domestically.” In addition, the DEA has largely worked under the radar, as our national approach to large scale drug prosecutions has not changed from administration to administration. The DEA has been funded, and with federal funds comes playing around with new surveillance technologies.”

Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst with the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, told Quartz he thinks it’s wrong for the government to arbitrarily collect such a broad swath of data in the first place. Holding onto it for future analysis only makes things worse, he said.

However, the law enforcement community at large argues that none of this data is being used to spy on everyday Americans.

“We don’t know when somebody’s going to commit a crime, we don’t know when somebody’s going to run over somebody and take off,” said Joe Giacalone. “So that data should be there forever. We never know when we’re going to need it.”

Kabrina Chang, a professor of law and ethics at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business told Quartz, “We as a society have to think long and hard about the consequences. I don’t think anyone would begrudge law enforcement help in doing their jobs; we all want them to do their jobs really, really well. But what are we willing to give up?”

DEA expects to take delivery of its new license plate-reading speed signs by October 15.

Legalize marijuana and tell the DEA to fuck off. If they want to know my driving habits, they can check with Google. They already have all of that info.

Just take Uber to the grow house

I see no reason they should be allowed to monitor the activities on people who are not criminals, the "don't do anything wrong and you won't have anything to fear" is a poor reasoning.

Perhaps at some point they cross reference those that frequent gun ranges and gun stores with legal MJ stores, known areas where drugs/pot is sold and bingo they get a warrant and your guns...

So in the future when we are arrested for our potential crimes (Time Cop Stuff) they could monitor for those people that go to bars then drive home, or liquor stores then pop them for DUI, shooting sharks in a barrel so to say, of course this intrusion would be marketed as a "public safety" measure.

Then of course they could track your plates, find you visited the Moonlite Bunny Ranch so the government sends a "Notice of Health" to your home with a picture of your car at the whorehouse in the name of "public health".

It would make a great movie theme too...

There are some countermeasures available that supposedly work, for now. I don’t know that I really care about these things, but in principle, I wouldn’t mind screwing with them. I’m sure the states will make that kind of thing illegal.

Living in a surveillance state is a far, far greater threat to humanity and to liberty than all the gang bangers, drugs, crime, and random violence the world has ever seen. Despite all of the ills and challenges modern humanity faces... we're safer than ever, living longer than ever, and need such Orwellian measures less than we ever did - which was not at all.

The choads from all political parties who push and vote for such initiatives need to be flogged publicly, for days, until they see the error of their draconian and Orwellian ways.

LPRs are ALL OVER the place. Freeways, in cop cars, you name it.

I just go about my day knowing that with little to no effort, my activities and moves could easily be tracked. And probably are in a passive way, with a smart phone on your body it pretty much is.

Do I like it? No, but unless you intend to take relatively extreme measures, it's hard to avoid.

No doubt.

But, with apologies to Martin Niemöller:

quote:

First they came for my privacy, but I did not speak out, because I had nothing to hide.

Which is dangerously close to lunatics like Lavrentiy Beria and his ilk:

quote:

Show me the man and I'll show you the crime

We're already burdened with 100x more laws than any normal person could ever keep up with; the last damn thing we need is our government "always looking".

There’s an untapped market for plate flippers. The only one I’ve ever seen is cumbersome.

-Rob

It has been proved that the advertised overlays, etc. to prevent mechanized reading of license plates do not work. Mythbusters ran a segment on it.

flashguy

quote:

Originally posted by flashguy:
It has been proved that the advertised overlays, etc. to prevent mechanized reading of license plates do not work. Mythbusters ran a segment on it.

flashguy

Mud does.

Yeah, but a little bit of nail polish that's just the right shade goes a long way.

Mystic Lake Casino in MN have used plates readers for years now. You would be surprised how much they are used. Google has more information on our movement and habits then anyone. If you turn off your phone take the SIM card out of they still track you. As soon as you reactivate your phone it down loads a history of where you were, if you were on foot or traveling by car, train, plane, or boat.
What businesses you went into for how long.....even how many drips you shook off after pissing.....ok I made the last thing up unless you wear a smart watch

Arizohno is a one plate state, so having the thing read a blank pad for a front plate is interesting - wondering if they are also reading from the rear of the device as well.

I kind of like the idea of a license plate flipper.

Well, if they use them here in East Overshoe, they have some lovely bird photography.

I invariably give every one of those obnoxious things I see a big ol' Hawaiian Peace Sign.

Plenty of tech to read a rear plate.

FL is a rear plate state and tolls via plate as well.

but the point is - how do we defeat them?

quote:

Originally posted by nhtagmember:
but the point is - how do we defeat them?

Sell your car.

When the so called "speed trailer" first came out, a neighboring agency bought one. First day they set it up, someone stole it. It was run by deep cycle batteries and that was the attraction. We thought that was hilarious! And damned if my Dept.did not buy one! We hated towing the damn thing around and setting it up. Giant waste of money. People just used it to verify their speedometer accuracy. The last time I went home I saw they had done away with the stupid trailer and now had pole mounted them in various areas.
Doesn't surprise me the DEA (and everyone else) is using them.
And the plate reader is very interesting when you scan the parking lot of the local no tell mo-tel!

quote:

Originally posted by YooperSigs:
done away with the stupid trailer and now had pole mounted them in various areas.

I don't know how this has come about, but a townhouse community near me has one of the pole-mounted gadgets now. It doesn't tell you your speed, but it reminds you to bring your trash can in off the street by 6pm. (Otherwise you get a call from the PD, I'm told by one of the residents there.) What the double-heck?

quote:

Originally posted by Ryanp225:

quote:

Originally posted by flashguy:
It has been proved that the advertised overlays, etc. to prevent mechanized reading of license plates do not work. Mythbusters ran a segment on it.

flashguy

Mud does.

Indeed.

quote:

Originally posted by nhtagmember:
I kind of like the idea of a license plate flipper.

I do, too, but they appear to be quite illegal.
If they weren't, I'd be way tempted to duplicate the license plate of a neighbor I don't like, and then go raise all sorts of Cain!