Soon, cops may not even have to pull you over to know almost
everything about you — and keep it on file, too.
Motorola — manufacturer of radio equipment and other cop
stuff — has developed automated license plate scanners that can ID
you (and note your exact location at that moment) at the blink of
an electronic eye. Fitted to a cop car, the plate scanners eyeball
every passing vehicle, using the license plate number to
cross-reference electronic records for such things as outstanding
warrants, stolen vehicle reports — potentially, anything that can
be tied via the license plate number to a vehicle and thus, to its
registered owner.
Motorola says its readers can scan 5,000 plates during the
typical eight-hour police shift. That’s just one car, mind you. If
every cop car in a given jurisdiction had the scanners, an
electronic dragnet would make it very easy to scan almost every
vehicle not locked up in a walled private garage.
So is it a good thing — or a bad thing?
There’s no denying the technology would make it a lot
easier to identify stolen cars, say — and presumably cuff and
stuff the thieves, too.
But the technology has a Dark Side, too.
For one, scanning random vehicles amounts to yet another
diminishment of whatever’s left of the Fourth Amendment’s
guarantees against warrantless (and unreasonable) searches. If the
scanners become ubiquitous you may expect to be ubiquitously
scanned, anywhere, anytime — for literally no reason whatsoever
other than you happen to be outside of your home.
Civil libertarians note that the scanners do not merely
passively search for specific vehicles (plates) that are tied to,
say, an outstanding warrant. They monitor and record all
vehicles. They also jot down (electronically) the date, time and
location your vehicle (and thus, you) were scanned into
the system. Which is both creepy and raises a legal issue — maybe
several of them. Will an estranged spouse be able to deploy such
records in a divorce proceeding to establish proof of infidelity?
Will the state authorities provide information about your comings
and goings to insurance companies, possibly to be used against you
— or as the basis for “adjusting” your premium?
The ACLU
argues:
[License plate readers] raise serious concerns to your
privacy because of the system’s ability to monitor and track the
movements of all vehicles, including those registered to people
who are not suspected of any crime. Without restrictions, law
enforcement agencies can and do store the data gathered by the
license plate readers forever, allowing them to monitor
where you have been and when you traveled there over an extended
period of time. In fact, a key selling point for vendors is the
system’s ability to track drivers. [Emphasis
added.]
Of course, cell phones already do much the same thing —
but there is an important difference: The cops still have to get a
court order to obtain the information obtained and stored by cell
phone providers. With plate readers, even that flimsy protection
would evaporate.
Indeed, Motorola
touts (in its product literature) something called — fittingly
enough — BOSS, or Back Office Systems Software. What does BOSS do?
Just what you’d expect a BOSS to do, of course:
[Plate readers] can generate vast amounts of data:
database, GPS coordinates, time of day, photographs, plate numbers
and more. Back at headquarters, BISS turns this data into
useful intelligence… Users can query the data using
multiple search parameters including time, date, full or partial
plate, location and user. BOSS can also map all locations
related to a single plate to track vehicle movements. The BOSS
web interface allows data to be easily shared across multiple
locations and agencies. {Emphasis added.]
Some will say, well — so what? Isn’t it a good thing that
new technologies will make it easier to identify and catch
no-goodniks, from parking ticket scofflaws to
carjackers?
No doubt. Just as tossing whatever remains of the Fourth
Amendment into the shredder — and giving, say, the IRS open-door,
unlimited, anytime access to all homes, private correspondence,
records, etc., would likewise make it more efficient at
catching tax-evaders.
But, do you want to trust the government — that is,
government agents (cops and otherwise) — with unchecked,
unlimited, global power to inspect, snoop, interrogate, store, pore
over, and otherwise monitor your entire life? Is making it easier
for them to catch a few more bad guys worth the price of all of
us reduced to being treated as though we are bad guys, too
— and presumptively?
No question, the pre- sicherheit state was less
orderly — and so easier for the no-goodniks to fade into the
background.
But if you’re old enough to remember what it was like, it
wasn’t a half-bad place to live….
