Ark. police photograph license plates, store data

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

Ark. police photograph license plates, store data
By JEANNIE NUSS, Associated Press | March 2, 2013 | Updated: March 2, 2013 12:25pm

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Little Rock may not be a likely terrorism target or a gang crime hotspot, but the Arkansas capital has decided to follow the example of high-security cities by expanding electronic surveillance of its streets.

A police car with a device that photographs license plates moves through the city and scans the traffic on the streets, relaying the data it collects to a computer for sifting. Police say the surveillance helps identify stolen cars and drivers with outstanding arrest warrants.

It also allows authorities to monitor where average citizens might be at any particular time. That bothers some residents, as well as groups that oppose public intrusions into individual privacy. The groups are becoming more alarmed about license plate tracking as a growing number of police departments acquire the technology.

Though authorities in Washington, D.C., London and Chicago conduct extensive electronic surveillance of public areas to detect security threats or deter gang crime, "Today, increasingly, even towns without stoplights have license plate readers," said Catherine Crump, a New York-based staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union.


Read more: http://www.chron.com/news/crime/article/Ark-police-photograph-license-plates-store-data-4323024.php

[hobbit709]

1. And a lot of people, including some here at DU would be comfortable with that.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

5. Maybe some...

...but not all. The IVth Amendment still matters to some people.

[hobbit709]

6. I can think of a couple that always say they agree with anything that makes them feel "safer"

[blkmusclmachine]

11. And the Gov still wants 30,000 Drones flying over US cities by 2020 ?!

The Gov has legions of license plate readers (cameras) at every intersection across the nation, and the Gov requires license plate cameras be installed on all new automobiles starting this model year. Also, your car has an Event Data Recorder (EDR), which spies on you, pre-installed at the factory. And your passport and other government identification have tracking capabilities. And we all know that the Gov monitors everywhere you go on the internet, and it monitors all your phone calls, too.

FREEDOM.
F/CK YEAH !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[bossy22]

9. sadly yes

[blkmusclmachine]

2. Gulags coming soon

[Javaman]

25. Closer than you think...

Arkansas law jails tenants who don’t pay their rent
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/02/09/arkansas-law-jails-tenants-who-dont-pay-their-rent/

Under a state law in Arkansas, renters can be imprisoned for failing to pay their rent. According to a report by Human Rights Watch, titled “Pay the Rent or Face Arrest: Abusive Impacts of Arkansas’s Criminal Evictions Law,” hundreds of tenants each year are taken to court, fined and jailed under the state’s “failure to vacate” law.

“The failure-to-vacate law was used to bring charges against more than 1,200 Arkansas tenants in 2012 alone,” read the report. “This figure greatly understates the total number of people impacted by the law. The vast majority of tenants scramble to move out when faced with a 10-day notice to vacate rather than face trial — and with good reason.”

The report continued, “Making matters considerably worse, the law strongly discourages accused tenants from pleading not guilty. Those who do are required to deposit the total amount of rent they allegedly owe with the court, which they forfeit if they are found guilty. Tenants who are unable to deposit the rent amount but plead not guilty anyway face substantially harsher fines and up to 90 days in jail. Tenants who plead guilty face none of this.”

Landlords and corrupt public officials have frequently abused the law, which is unlike landlord-tenant law in any other state in the union. HRW reported, “Several of the tenants interviewed for this report were confronted at home or at work by police officers who had warrants for their arrest. One woman was berated in open court by a district judge, who compared her to a bank robber.”

More at link...

-----------------------------------------------------
Is Arkansas becoming the new Oklahoma?

[Art_from_Ark]

27. That's not what the Arkansas law says

Here is an explanation of the "failure to vacate" procedure, from the Arkansas State Attorney General's web site:

Failure to Vacate: If a landlord wishes to use the “failure to vacate” method of eviction, he must give you 10 days written notice. This method of eviction applies only to non-payment of rent. If you do not leave the premises within 10 days, the prosecuting attorney has the discretion to charge you with a misdemeanor. You would then be required to appear in court where you could be fined up to $25 for each day you remained in the dwelling after being given the 10-day notice to vacate".

http://gotyourbackarkansas.org/home/landlordtenant-rights-guide/

[bluedigger]

3. They've been doing this for years.

I actually prefer it to stoplight cameras, as far as police state surveillance goes. I doubt they store the records of where cars are parked for more than a short time - they just scan the tags and compare them for outstanding tickets, and then boot the cars.

[Hestia]

7. If you read the article, they just bought it, so no, they haven't been doing this for years.

In fact, Ark. used to be laid-back and low-key, but ever since the Koch brothers came blowing into town, we are a bunch of criminals and babies that need to be taken care of, generally in jail. It really didn't used to be this way.

We just bought a house here, but I am truly thinking of moving to another state, where you are treated half way as an adult.

Notice how this came from an out of state newspaper, not even local.

Little Rock police bought the tracker last year for about $14,000, as interest in the technology began spreading in law enforcement circles. The purchase didn't require city council approval and didn't attract much attention in town.

"There was no public notice or anything," police spokeswoman Sgt. Cassandra Davis said.

Richardson said he didn't hear about the device until after it had been collecting data for months. He said he said he hasn't heard many complaints.

"It's hard for you to have a problem with something if you don't know it's going on," he said.

[bluedigger]

8. Sorry, I didn't mean in AR.

I've watched them do it in New Orleans for several years before I left. White van drives by, circles the block, stops, someone jumps out and puts a boot on the vehicle, and off they go.

As a method of targeting and finding specific vehicles or criminals it would be really inefficient, but it works well for comparing large databases.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

10. What town was that...

...which I read about having a "Robin Hood" character driving around with a portable saw and diamond blade randomly removing boots from cars?

[bluedigger]

12. You would need that.

I've seen some people try some fucked up shit to get out of them.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

14. I've always thought...

...that it's so much easier to boot your own vehicle. Less chance of it being stolen and it's unlikely anyone else would boot it if it's already been booted.

[bluedigger]

15. Fake boots.

Brilliant!

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

16. I was thinking a real boot.

[Selatius]

23. My state of Mississippi is extremely conservative, but they're ahead of the game on this issue.

The proliferation of traffic light cameras and automatic ticketing networks established behind the camera networks caused the state legislature to pass a bill explicitly banning the use of traffic light cameras for ticketing purposes. There is a somewhat libertarian streak in the state, at least as far as issues outside of guns, God, and gays are concerned.

Hopefully, my legislature will take the lead again and outlaw this practice. If a person has not committed any crime, I see no probable cause for law enforcement to actually track the movements of any motorist as if everybody is guilty until proven innocent.

[blkmusclmachine]

4. The Police State lives!

Onward!

[Tempest]

17. Do what friends of mine in the UK do with these cameras

Cover up a portion of your license plate number or change it to something else. If you use the same color material, they won't notice it.

My friends converted a 3 to a B and an S into a 5. They've never been stopped.

[AndyTiedye]

19. They Do Other Things to Licence Plate Cameras in the UK Too

?w=470&h=315

[Leslie Valley]

18. Man uses license plate data to repossess car in Mpls.

A South St. Paul car dealer used Minneapolis license plate tracking data to find and repossess a car in South Minneapolis Thursday, likely the first time the records have been used by a business in Minnesota.
Jake Ingebrigtson, co-owner of Car and Credit Connection, sought information on four cars after reading in the Star Tribune that data stored by city license plate readers is retained for one year and available to the public. Ingebrigtson's company sells cars to people with bad credit, and the owners of the cars had stopped making payments.
(snip)
The city provided data on two other cars he was looking for, but had no information on the fourth. Ingebrigtson plans to look for the other two this evening. Some of the data on the car he repossessed included pictures, since police keep photos for 21 days.
As lawmakers consider new statutes that would potentially reclassify license plate reader data, Ingebrigtson hopes they carve out some exemption for lien holders on a vehicle.

http://www.startribune.com/local/blogs/168014676.html

[Squaredeal]

20. This is common in NJ now - another "fund raiser" in lieu of higher taxes to make the Gov look good.

Cops get behind cars and let the computers read the plates to pull over anyone with any outstanding infractions. I borrowed a neighbor's car one day last summer and was pulled over for having an expired driver's license. Of course, it was the registered owner of the car whose license had expired, just as my neighbor himself had expired earlier that year. His widow still had the car registered in his name. The cop told me to remind the (deceased) owner to renew his driver's license and the cop drove off, hunting for another unsuspecting taxpayer to make a special contribution to the government coffers.

[Historic NY]

21. Driving a car is not a right. The plate readers are used to scan for offenders....

they are also used by companies doing parking lot enforcement, however civilan agencies cannot access restricted infomation. The scanner doesn't photograph it scan the plate against the DMV or National or State Crime databases. The answer is if you owe fines, you car isn't registered, your license is suspeneded, etc it will sort you out.

[Politicalboi]

22. Doesn't make me feel safer

But it is coming. We can fight it all the way, or just get used to it. I predict in the future your car will drive itself, and it will ONLY go the posted speed limit. The cars will have receivers, and the cities will have transmitters or wifi to send out the speed signal. No more high speed pursuits. If they need too, they could stop ALL cars. Minority Report IS coming.

http://www.digitaltrends.com/international/minority-report-style-ads-hitting-japan/

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2237302/Minority-Report-reality-New-software-predicts-laws-broken.html

[Selatius]

24. If predictive software becomes standard protocol, thought crime will become a reality at some point.

If the software predicts you are in a high risk pool for offending, you'll be more likely to be pulled over or face stiff interrogation on your whereabouts, what you've been doing, and other things that law enforcement may ask.

Like, if you like to attend anti-war protests or protests against a sitting head of state or have been seen with literature deemed anti-government, the software may flag your vehicle for inspection to see if you're up to no good, like if you're potentially carrying weapons to an anti-war protest or if you may potentially be using your vehicle to ferry away protesters accused of committing capital crimes.

If cars with autopilot and GPS become the norm, it could end up like I, Robot. Vehicles connected to the grid could be shut down remotely or be commandeered to ferry unwilling citizens to their homes for a lock-down or to a police check point for interrogation and possibly arrest.

[graham4anything]

26. Good police work like this caught the Son of Sam in 1970s new york.