The People Score Two Victories Against Automated License Plate Readers

Eleven years back, John W. Whitehead warned in his weekly column about the danger from government’s proliferating use of automated license plate readers across America. Whitehead included these devices among the tools being employed in the construction of what he termed an “electronic concentration camp.”

This “electronic concentration camp,” wrote Whitehead, “as I have dubbed the surveillance state, is perhaps the most insidious of the police state’s many tentacles, impacting almost every aspect of our lives and making it that much easier for the government to encroach on our most vital freedoms, ranging from free speech, assembly and the press to due process, privacy, and property, by eavesdropping on our communications, tracking our movements and spying on our activities.”

Automated license plate readers play a part in this surveillance because, noted Whitehead, each “can identify the owner of any car that comes within its sights.” “Affixed to overpasses or cop cars,” he continued, “these devices give police a clear idea of where your car was at a specific date and time, whether the doctor’s office, the bar, the mosque, or at a political rally.”

An August 13 article at Reason by Jacob Sullum provided a couple recent examples of pushback by residents leading to local governments ending or limiting their use of automated license plate readers, or ALPRs. Scarsdale, New York, wrote Sullum, “terminated its ALPR contract with Flock Safety after more than 400 residents signed a petition expressing concern about ‘the broad and lasting implications of deploying such a surveillance system.’” And, a week earlier, related Sullum, Greers Ferry, Arkansas agreed to remove an ALPR that, in tracking license plates, had “also documented the comings and goings of … visitors, including their friends, children, and grandchildren” to a house, the front yard and driveway of which were in the ALPR’s range. The removal came after a lawyer for the inhabitants of the house, who were also subjected to surveillance by the automated license plate reader, sent a letter to the city government presenting arguments against the use of the ALRP.

Big Brother is not on the ropes, but at least the people have been able to land some punches against him. Down with Big Brother, down with automated license plate readers, and down with the electronic concentration camp.