License Plate Recognition System Used For Homeland Security

Is it a boon to public safety? Or a disturbing new chapter in the Brave New World of law enforcement? Depending on how it’s deployed, it could be either. A new Automated License Plate Recognition system is now in use in Lakewood: six cameras mounted on the roof of a “reader car” scanning license plates as it rides, feeding the data to a dashboard computer screen. An alert beeps when a vehicle the computer has flagged is spotted, and the officer then can initiate a motor vehicle stop.

The system has been challenged in the courts, and its limited uses to date have passed constitutional muster. Nevertheless, it should give pause to anybody concerned about privacy rights and civil liberties. It needs to be monitored carefully.

Ed Barocas, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey, says the chief concern is what police do with the information they get during their patrols and how long that information is kept and stored. Lakewood Deputy Police Chief Frederick J. Capper said the state Attorney General’s Office makes those determinations. Unfortunately, it has yet to issue any guidelines, and a spokesman says it won’t do so until the State Police begin using the recognition systems — primarily as part of its anti-gang initiative — at some unspecified date. That’s hardly reassuring.

Lakewood, one of the first local police departments in the state to use the technology, received a $30,000 federal grant for the system from the federal Department of Homeland Security and state Department of Homeland Security and Preparedness. Lakewood Police Chief Frederick Capper said counterterrorism is the primary purpose of the cameras. Lakewood has several sites deemed potential targets, including Kimball Medical Center and Beth Medrash Govoha, one of the world’s largest Orthodox institutions for Talmudic studies.

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Fusion Centers Expand Criteria to Identify Militia Members – Updated

UPDATE: The head of the Missouri Highway Patrol has quashed a controversial report linking conservative groups with the modern militia movement.

Superintendent James Keathley said distribution of the report has been halted, and that a new system is being created to review future reports before they’re released.

Lt. Governor Peter Kinder said the report unfairly targets conservative Missourians.

“We had a focus on pro-lifers, folks who are concerned about enforcement of our borders and the immigration issue, and other people all on the conservative side of the spectrum, and I think the focus is wrong,” Kinder said.

Kinder is calling for an investigation into the report and wants Public Safety Director John Britt placed on administrative leave.

A spokesman for Governor Jay Nixon voiced support for Britt and for the Missouri Information Analysis Center, which produced the report.

Press Secretary Scott Holste said the report’s premature release is due to a flawed oversight system that existed long before Nixon took office.
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If you’re an anti-abortion activist, or if you display political paraphernalia supporting a third-party candidate or a certain Republican member of Congress, if you possess subversive literature, you very well might be a member of a domestic paramilitary group.

That’s according to “The Modern Militia Movement,” a report by the Missouri Information Analysis Center (MIAC), a government collective that identifies the warning signs of potential domestic terrorists for law enforcement communities. Read more

NYC Civil Liberties Union Sues To Obtain Data On Lower Manhattan Security Plan

When the New York Police Department refused to release its database of hundreds of thousands of civilian “stop and frisk” encounters, the New York Civil Liberties Union sued to obtain the data.

The group went to court again last month after police officials resisted its requests for data on the races of people shot by officers. Read more