Comment by wmf
4 hours ago
Just don't collect the data. If it's too dangerous for the government to have then private companies shouldn't have it either. The entire purpose of license plate readers is to assist law enforcement; if we decide as a society that we don't want to do it then just ban it completely.
> The entire purpose of license plate readers is to assist law enforcement
It was the repossession companies that deployed them first. The police, as a general rule, are about 10 years behind on technology almost everywhere, so when new stuff drops, it's actually profit driven industries that deploy it.
Our company cut deals with several large business in the area, like malls, and we deployed the cameras at the entrances to their lots. If a car on the "hot list" pulled in, we'd get an alert, then dispatch a truck to go collect the vehicle.
You can't realistically ban cameras and character recognition software.
NH banned ALPRs, with some narrow exceptions.
https://gc.nh.gov/rsa/html/XXI/261/261-75-b.htm
You can ban possession of the data if you attach statutory damages per infraction.
It’d be hard to keep individuals from doing this. But individuals aren’t running networks of cameras. Companies are. Those companies probably couldn’t fly under the radar selling LPR data if the practice was banned.
You can ban mass surveillance.
You can make it illegal to use private cameras for surveillance of public spaces. In Europe this is already the case.
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You can ban certain ways of using them, and enforce it and serve punishment for violation.
You can ban what’s done with the software/hardware, just as we ban assault with a deadly weapon.
And who, may I ask, uses deadly weapons more than anyone else? Perhaps the military, a part of the federal government?
You all are suggesting that the people who want thing put laws in place to prevent them using thing. It sadly won't happen.
You can ban pictures with certain content.
There is little chance I could just post up cameras wherever my ex travels and note all the time she arrives and leaves at all intersections and get away with that without at least a restraining order ordering me to stop. What they are actually doing is stalking by method of a network of cameras deliberately installed to follow people from place to place. It isn't generalized observation in pursuit of speech, it arguably isn't even speech, but rather mass individualized stalking. Maybe 1A allows that but that doesn't seem to be the law on the books for anyone else trying to stalk people in such a way.
Personally I don't have a huge problem with 1A being broad enough to including recording literally everything in public and meticulously cataloging and following everyone, but only if the rest of the amendments are read in the same broad and literal manner. Meaning I can own nukes, I don't have to display a plate, the 10th amendment would stop the feds from outlawing intrastate weed, etc. What it looks like what happens is the feds cherry pick interpretations of the bill of rights to trump up their powers and then give the least charitable interpretations to the plebs.