Both technologies involve cameras mounted on poles designed to read license plates, and at a moment when Americans are rightly more alert to the dangers of unchecked surveillance, it makes sense that people would approach any new camera with skepticism. But similarity at the surface is not sameness in design. These systems are built for different purposes, governed by different statutes, and constrained by different guardrails.
A coalition of high-profile civil-liberties groups led by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and ACLU are suing San Jose over what it characterizes as millions of warrantless searches of automated license plate reader data, which it says has put the city in an unprecedented state of surveillance with no meaningful gatekeeping. The lawsuit, filed Tuesday, claims that local authorities as well as outside law enforcement are violating the California Constitution by continuously combing, without a search warrant, the hundreds of millions
The suspects left the scene in a vehicle before officers arrived, but officers used automated license plate reader cameras to identify and track down the car, Shih said. Officers stopped the vehicle outside a home in the 100 block of Muirfield Drive. A search of the vehicle turned up a stolen rifle, a privately made handgun and property stolen in the burglary, as well as evidence related to other burglaries, Shih said.
County supervisors voted Tuesday to approve a , introduced by Supervisor Hilda Solis, to beef up oversight of data gathered by law enforcement devices known as automated license plate readers. It's already illegal in California for local law enforcement agencies to share information gleaned from license plate readers with federal agencies such as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement without a warrant.
