back to article US cops can't keep license plate data scans secret without reason

Police departments cannot categorically deny access to data collected through automated license plate readers, California's Supreme Court said on Thursday – a ruling that may help privacy advocates monitor government data practices. The ACLU Foundation of Southern California and the Electronic Frontier Foundation sought to …

  1. W4YBO

    Under the Fourth Amendment...

    ...no government agency should collect any data pertaining to me unless that agency has probable cause that I've committed a crime.

    Dammit!

    1. Mark 85

      Re: Under the Fourth Amendment...

      Well... if we follow the logic, we're all guilty of something. As Cardinal Richelieu wrote: "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him. "

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      How many Federal, State, County and City laws

      have you broken today?

      What? Only 50.

      Go to jail, do not pass go and most certainly do not collect $200.

      You are a career criminal and need locking up for Life... And Life means Life.

      The US Legal system is broken and has been for more than 100 years. Some City Laws directly contradicy state laws. You can't step outside your home in some places without breaking at least 5 laws that could put you in Jail. Three strikes and you are inside for ever.

      Ok, so I probably exagerate a bit but it goes to show how stupid their system is.

      He who pays the piper the most gets the laws they want. Everyone else has to suffer the consequences.

  2. Woodnag

    Not quite

    California's Supreme Court covers, possibly unsurprisingly, just CA. So "US cops can't keep license plate data scans secret without reason" snot quite true. Only the CA ones.

  3. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Gimp

    All part of the "making police work easy, by making it a police state" agenda

    And this gives you some idea of the scale the British system is operating (although I'm not sure anyone has any idea how long the data is retained for).

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: All part of the "making police work easy, by making it a police state" agenda

      Indefinitely.

  4. ratfox
    Paris Hilton

    LAPD vs LASD

    Can somebody explain to me the difference between the two?

    1. Peter Clarke 1
      Coat

      Re: LAPD vs LASD

      The Sheriffs ride around on horses and wear big Stetsons. (Yes, I know McCloud was from Arizona and worked in NY)

      PS I don't have any plans to travel to LA any time soon

    2. eldakka

      Re: LAPD vs LASD

      LAPD=Los Angeles Police Department.

      LASD=Los Angeles Sheriff's Department.

      As per wikipedia:

      Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department – provides law enforcement services for the unincorporated parts of Los Angeles County, as well as 42 cities.

      Los Angeles County, officially the County of Los Angeles,[7] is the most populous county in the United States. Its population is larger than that of 42 individual U.S. states. It has 88 incorporated cities and many unincorporated areas and at 4,083 square miles (10,570 km2), it is larger than the combined areas of the U.S. states of Delaware and Rhode Island. The county is home to more than one-quarter of California residents and is one of the most ethnically diverse counties in the U.S.[8] Its county seat, the City of Los Angeles, is also its most populous city at about four million.

      The city of Los Angeles is an incorporated city within the County of Los Angeles.

      Therefore the LAPD is the local city of Los Angeles-only police department. The LASD is the Los Angeles County-wide police (Sheriff's Department) force, the provides policing for those parts of the County that do not have their own police force.

      An incorporated city, like Los Angeles city, can either form its own police department, or contract the County Sheriff's department to provide policing.

  5. ZenCoder

    It should be illegal.

    The system should immediately purge any and all license plates that are not part of a current investigation. Otherwise they are placing millions of people under illegal surveillance.

    If they want to make it legal to spy on everyone all the time just in case it proves useful 5 years latter then they need to do so by passing legislation that clearly and explicitly authorizes them to do that.

    If that fails on constitutional grounds push for a constitutional amendment.

    Although good luck trying to do that without committing political suicide.

    I'm surprised frankly I'm surprised that there isn't widespread use of State Ballot Measure as a backlash against this kind of thing.

    1. Eddy Ito

      Re: It should be illegal.

      This is California, all it takes is a little money and a good ad campaign, which could simply be the name of the proposition, and folks will vote yes to anything. I can easily see the spin being something like 'Prop 1984 a.k.a. Amber's Cameras' which would simply say 'help us stop child abduction! Amber alerts are good but we need to the ability to track child abductors and stop human trafficking. Vote Yes on Prop 1984 and save our children from a lifetime as a sex slave in North Korea!'

      Seriously, I'm willing to wager real money that gets copied nearly verbatim on at least one California ballot in the next few years.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Not surprised

    California is the biggest group of whacky cuck bastards on this side of the pond.

    This doesn't shock me. Police in my area have these plate OCR things too. It's really just making traffic cops lazy, and giving the NSA more metadata about the populace.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Hey 4SAM123 !!

    It's been weeks since you visited your Grandma.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Collecting is not ALL they do!

    I had the pleasure of riding as an unwilling guest in the back of a squad car and witnessed my chauffeur glancing at his opened mounted laptop that was listing all the owners of the vehicles in front of "our" unit using this technology.

    The information also contained any past criminal charges the drivers may have had.

    It was apparent to me that my "civil servant" was making a conscious decision on which vehicle he was going to follow on our long journey to my final destination.

    Seems to me that this would be a clear case of profiling.

    1. Prst. V.Jeltz Silver badge

      Re: Collecting is not ALL they do!

      "Seems to me that this would be a clear case of profiling."

      I thought that was what they were supposed to do.

      "Has he got any previous guv?"

      "yeah , same m.o."

      "right , bring the **** in!"

      Also in the uk sometimes police will pull you over and say:

      "We stopped you because this car has a marker on it for suspected drug involvement"

      "What are you basing that on?"

      " oh its just some half cocked idea we pulled out of our arses a while back when you parked in the same car park as this other guy we're watching"

  9. Mike 16

    Requests?

    I suspect that requests from "Friends of the PD Widows and Orphans Fund" will be handled the same way they have been for several hundred years, probably more expeditiously than "going through channels". The thing about laws, and court decisions, is that they are only effective when obeyed. In some other universe, perhaps.

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