SAN LEANDRO, CA -- Michael Katz-Lacabe acquired the records of the police license plate reader recently purchased by his town. The results shocked him. In just a couple of years, he had been photographed 112 times, by just one police car. These records logged his location and time whenever his license plate was scanned. One of the photographs showed him in his driveway with his daughters. One single scanner mounted to a police car can log thousands of license plates in an 8-hour shift. These records get well into the millions over a short period of time. They have the ability to run up to 1,200 plates an hour. The CIA has bankrolled efforts to house all this data in fusion centers across the country. The CIA’s venture capital fund, In-Q-Tel, has invested millions of dollars into Silicon Valley firm Palantir, to construct a database of license-plate records flowing in from police using the devices across 14 counties. Katz-Lacabe, who was featured in a Wall Street Journal story last year, said he believes the records of his movements are too revealing for someone who has done nothing wrong. With the technology, he said, “you can tell who your friends are, who you hang out with, where you go to church, whether you’ve been to a political meeting.” One effort was made in California to purge the records from the fusion centers after 60 days. The bill died. With the help of federal grants from the Department of Homeland Security, this technology will soon be coming to a department near you. There are currently no restrictions on how police & the CIA can use that data. cironline.org/reports/license-plate-readers-let-police-collect-millions-records-drivers-4883 online.wsj/article/SB10000872396390443995604578004723603576296.html
Posted on: Fri, 28 Jun 2013 23:51:50 +0000
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