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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MTA Considers Audio Surveillance On Trains, Buses

The Maryland Transit Administration is considering installing audio surveillance equipment on its buses and trains to record conversations of passengers and employees, according to a letter sent by the MTA’s top official to the state Attorney General’s Office.

The letter, reported by the Maryland Politics Watch blog, seeks legal guidance on whether installing such equipment would violate Maryland’s anti-wiretapping law. In his letter, MTA Administrator Paul J. Wiedefeld notes that the MTA already uses video cameras for security aboard its vehicles.

“As part of MTA’s ongoing efforts to deter criminal activity and mitigate other dangerous situations on board its vehicles, Agency management has considered adding audio recording equipment to the video recording technology now in use throughout its fleet,” Wiedefeld wrote.

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Homeland Security Seeks Next Generation REAL ID

Privacy advocates are issuing warnings about a new radio chip plan that ultimately could provide electronic identification for every adult in the U.S. and allow agents to compile attendance lists at anti-government rallies simply by walking through the assembly.

The proposal, which has earned the support of Janet Napolitano, the newly chosen chief of the Department of Homeland Security, would embed radio chips in driver’s licenses, or “enhanced driver’s licenses.”

“Enhanced driver’s licenses give confidence that the person holding the card is the person who is supposed to be holding the card, and it’s less elaborate than REAL ID,” Napolitano said in a Washington Times report.

REAL ID is a plan for a federal identification system standardized across the nation that so alarmed governors many states have adopted formal plans to oppose it. However, a privacy advocate today told WND that the EDLs are many times worse.

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