
ICE is about to start tracking license plates across the US - uptown
https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/26/16932350/ice-immigration-customs-license-plate-recognition-contract-vigilant-solutions
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moonka
> For civil liberties groups, the implications go far beyond immigration.
> “There are people circulating in our society who are undocumented,” says
> senior policy analyst Jay Stanley, who studies license plate readers with
> the ACLU. “Are we as a society, out of our desire to find those people,
> willing to let our government create an infrastructure that will track all
> of us?”

It seems we are hurtling towards a scary state of affairs faster than I would
have ever guessed. I remember hearing an outcry about police cars using these
type of scanners a few years ago, but I guess by now the outcry has died down.

~~~
netsharc
Incredible huh, it's also due to the acceleration of technology. If you wanted
to do this in, say the 1970's, you'd have to hire someone to follow each car.
With video cameras with good enough resolution you can start recording things,
but someone would still have to watch them, or review the recordings manually.
Now, computers can read licence plates and recognizes individuals from their
faces, they can have eyes (cameras) everywhere and they don't need sleep. And
Petabytes of storage are affordable.

Was it DHS that had drones constantly recording Cleveland from the air, and if
something happens they can just rewind the footage to see who, where they came
from, etc? (Also being used in warzones, IIRC)

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SauciestGNU
ICE is becoming a really disconcerting force in America. They are largely
exempt from warrant requirements, and can demand papers from anyone they
arbitrarily detain. Now they're tracking all of us who drive.

Not to put too fine a point in it, but ICE are perfectly positioned to be the
shock troops in a fascist takeover of America.

~~~
anigbrowl
Actually they do have warrant requirements, and those are more limited than
for criminal warrants. Also, in California employers (of any size) are
required by law to turn away ICE agents unless they have an appropriate
warrant, and to provide notice to employees, subject to criminal penalties for
non-compliance.

[https://www.fletc.gov/audio/ice-administrative-removal-
warra...](https://www.fletc.gov/audio/ice-administrative-removal-warrants-mp3)

[http://hrwatchdog.calchamber.com/2018/01/ice-raids-
californi...](http://hrwatchdog.calchamber.com/2018/01/ice-raids-california-
employers-new-laws/)

This has nothing to do with the license plate issue, but I wanted to clarify
that ICE agents are not quite as legally powerful as they like to present
themselves. You might be mixing them with the very broad search powers of
Customs and Border Patrol, which is a separate agency and the one that can
supposedly conduct searches within 100 miles of any border. Not that being a
separate agency makes that better.

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skimaskninja87
Well, the local police and sheriff's department have been "practicing"and
writing tickets with this for about four years. This is just another layer of
law enforcement that will be collecting information on your whereabouts.

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nickthemagicman
This is insane. Face tracking, body scanners, license plate tracking, TSA,
cameras on every city street corner, militarization of the police, citizens
united, allowing police to force blood tests on DUI suspects, search warrants
via text messages, police confiscation of property with no guilty verdict...

In just my short 35 years in America the bill of rights are being steadily
eroded.

It feels like it would be super easy to get an truly authoritarian president
in office who is able to lift term limits and assert control over the press
and the America we know and love is no more.

If you truly want to fund one organization the ACLU is the biggest one in my
opinion. Without a free America everything else falls like dominoes

~~~
masonic
"Face tracking, body scanners, license plate tracking, TSA, cameras on every
city street corner, militarization of the police, citizens united, allowing
police to force blood tests on DUI suspects, search warrants via text
messages, police confiscation of property with no guilty verdict..."

... _all_ of which were in widespread practice well before the current
administration.

The ACLU _did_ , to their credit, blog about these issues throughout the Obama
administration[0], although they got far less attention in the mainstream
media or HN back then.

[0]
[https://www.aclu.org/search/%22license%20plate%22?page=2&f%5...](https://www.aclu.org/search/%22license%20plate%22?page=2&f%5B0%5D=type%3Ablog)

~~~
nickthemagicman
I'm saying in the last 35 years these have all become widespread.

Not any particular administration...

It's just a steady decline in civil rights.

The ACLU blogs about a ton of amazing issues all the time. Their blog should
deff be a periodic read.

My current favorite is the scary election commission Trump tried to establish
that kept all of its meetings secret..

