 Automated license plate readers (ALPRs) are often sold to local governments as indispensable tools for solving carjackings, kidnappings, murders, and other serious crimes. And they truly are such valuable tools for public safety. But the reasons police officers enter when searching these systems undermine that narrative. In a disturbing Electronic Frontier Foundation exposé, EFF’s Rindala Alajaji and Dave Maass reveal that officers across the country have searched Flock Safety’s vast database of Americans’ movements using “reasons” such as “LOL,” (laugh out loud), “LMAO,” (laugh my ass off), “sexy,” “idk,” (I don’t know), and “blah.” Other officers apparently mashed their keyboards, entering strings of meaningless characters. One officer wrote, “robbery i don’t remember the case number leave me alone.” More than 30 agencies conducted over 6,300 searches marked “TBD.” These entries are not harmless paperwork lapses. They suggest that officers can access sensitive location records without having to articulate a legitimate investigative purpose – and that neither their departments nor the thousands of agencies connected to these networks are exercising meaningful oversight. As Alajaji and Maass write: “With no warrant requirements, limited guardrails, and deficient audit processes, ALPR databases have fostered a culture of unrestricted access to everyone’s location information.” They add that this culture has effectively turned a mass-surveillance network into a personal police search engine, used to trace ordinary people over low-level complaints, personal whims, and, sometimes, apparently for laughs. The abuses are not merely juvenile. EFF previously uncovered more than 80 law-enforcement agencies using search terms such as “roma,” as well as a slur for Romani people to target members of that ethnic group – often without identifying any suspected crime. ALPR systems have also been used to monitor protests, pursue a woman suspected of seeking an abortion, investigate school-residency and loud-music complaints, and stalk former or prospective romantic partners. Flock says it now requires officers to choose an offense from a drop-down menu. But selecting a generic category does not establish that a search is legitimate. Judging from EFF’s report, that sanitized menu may only make improper searches harder to detect. Police officers seeking sensitive cellphone-location records generally must demonstrate probable cause to a judge. Yet ALPR networks can allow officers to reconstruct a driver’s movements without a warrant, judicial supervision, or – as we now know – even a serious explanation. If police want to track someone’s movements, “LOL” should never be enough. The Constitution requires probable cause and a warrant – and that’s nothing to laugh about. Comments are closed.
|
Categories
All
|
RSS Feed