Surveillance
Automated plate readers: A violation of civil rights?
The Ohio State Highway Patrol and the Springdale, OH Police department has the local ACLUs panties in a twist over the use of plate scanners on police cruisers:
The Mobile Plate Hunter 900 – two cameras mounted atop a cruiser – can read up to 900 license plates an hour on vehicles driving at highway speeds. …
… “It’s unreal,” Springdale Police Chief Mike Laage said. “It’s the best technology out there.”
The State Highway Patrol has been using the plate hunter in six spots along the Ohio Turnpike, but Springdale police are the first to use it on regular patrols.
Since the patrol began using the scanners in 2004, it has recovered 95 stolen cars – valued at $740,000 – and made 111 arrests, said patrol spokesman Lt. Shawn Davis. The plate hunter has made roads safer, he said. …
… The scanner’s gaze is too wide and it’s an infringement against the innocent drivers whose plates get captured, said Jeff Gamso, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio.
Using the plate hunter to scan all license plates is a civil rights violation and could lead to government abuse of the information, Gamso said.
I think they should just knock it off,” Gamso said. “Is the marginal benefit likely outweighing the danger of increased surveillance of everything we do?”
Laage finds nothing wrong with casting the wide net. – [WBNS10TV/AP]
Well I have to admit that I am on the fence on this. This system has many advantages. It is indiscriminate, and does not profile anyone based on color, creed, etc., like a regular police officer could. It is also noninvasive, i.e. traffic stop is not required to do spot checks etc. and it does it’s job while on public roads, where there should be no reasonable expectation of privacy.
But while I can clearly see the advantages of this system, as a law enforcement tool, like any tool, it can be abused. There does not seem to be much difference between this and the covert surveillance of American citizens by government agencies without probable cause or due process.
I’m sure many will agree that we don’t want an America where our every move is observed, logged and recorded by government agencies, and our every action subject to the interpretation of a paranoid. Technologies like this always seem to take us closer, one step at a time, to that scenario…
Plate reader draws objections of ACLU – [WBNS10TV/AP]
Government intelligence goes P2P (and is apparently also an oxymoron…)
Just read a jaw dropping article that described how government employees had inadvertently shared sensitive documents on a P2P network:
Robert Boback, CEO of P-to-P monitoring service vendor Tiversa Inc., and retired U.S. Army General Wesley Clark, a Tiversa board member, said the company found more than 200 sensitive U.S. government documents during a recent scan of three popular P-to-P networks. The two testified earlier this week before the U.S. House of Representatives Oversight and Government Reform Committee. …
… Many lawmakers directed their criticism toward the Lime Group LLC, distributor of the popular P-to-P software Lime Wire, during a contentious hearing Tuesday. But Boback, in a later interview, said his testimony wasn’t intended to cast blame on Lime Wire.
In many cases, P-to-P users override the default security settings in the software. In Lime Wire, the default setting allows users to share files only from a “shared” folder, but many users apparently override the default settings, ignore warnings from the software, and share their entire “my documents” folder or other folders, Lime Group CEO Mark Gorton testified.
In other cases, government employees or contractors apparently ignore policies prohibiting the use of P-to-P software on computers containing sensitive government information, witnesses testified. – [Yahoo/PCWorld.com]
And to top it off, some government officials tried to blame the P2P provider for the breach in security. You know what? I’ve got nuthin’. Just dunno what to say. Either someone has been slippin’ crazy pills into my food, or people are actually thinking less these days. I would much prefer the first alternative to be true…
P-to-P Users Expose U.S. Government Secrets – [Yahoo/PCWorld.com]
Big Brother… is… umm… Watching…
Beijing couples intent on stealing a kiss in public are being warned they could be caught on closed-circuit television — and suspected of committing a crime, a state news agency reported Wednesday.
Xinhua News Agency said “intimate acts of lovers may be initially categorized as ‘kidnapping’ or ‘robbery’ by the computers, which are programmed to be sensitive to violations of safe distances.”
But police officers monitoring the cameras will decide if the situation really is dangerous. – [USA Today/AP]
Now it could just be my overly paranoid mind at work, but doesn’t this sound suspiciously like an attempt by Beijing officials to restrict public displays of affection by it’s citizens? It kind of seems like a logical next step, after all, they do censor everything else…
Just a random thought… Please feel free to smack me upside the head with a wet trout if I’m reaching…
Amorous couples in Beijing told to beware surveillance – [USA Today/AP]
Log In
My Thoughts…
Blogroll
General Info
Phyreblades Blogs
Famous Last Words
The Time Machine
| M | T | W | T | F | S | S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| « Jan | ||||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | ||
| 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
| 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 |
| 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 |
| 27 | 28 | 29 | ||||
Issues
Pick your Poison:
Easy Eavesdropping.
- Phyreblade on Objective vs Subjective Reporting
- dreadrocksean on Objective vs Subjective Reporting
- phyreblade on Giving relevance to the irrelevant…
- phyreblade on Giving relevance to the irrelevant…
- shamelesslyatheist on Giving relevance to the irrelevant…