David Sirota In These Times Analysis

Many police departments around the United States have moved from the old run of the mill cars, to fancy cars like Dodge Chargers and Hummers with all the bells and whistles. In fact, The New York Police Department is now working on have a “smart car.” According to The New York Police Department, the car can do more than what the old, standard police cars can do. The car is fitted with two infrared cameras that store numbers like license plate numbers and addresses. With the collected data from license plates, the car will then tell the driving officer whether the vehicle is stolen, has any traffic violations, or has been involved in a crime. This kind of information is stored in the car’s database and the database back at police headquarters so anytime that number is tracked again, the information will be brought up whether or not a cop needs to

As stated by the daily newspaper My Central Jersey, “Jack Molenaar[Head of Department of Transportation at Rutgers University] said the school is looking into adopting License Plate Recognition (LPR) in the next few years to allow officers to quickly spot an illegally parked car.” Some schools are going away from the regular parking passes you put inside your car, to the extreme of putting something on your license plate making it easier for the school to see if you are illegally parking on campus. In the meantime while students are being discriminated against, stressed, and spending an excessive amount of money on school, the school boards are coming up with new and easier ways to be able to demand more money from their

The system has been criticized as a breach into privacy and the first amendment as well as taking surveillance a notch higher than permissible. Law enforcers on the other hand have argued that the license plate reader is not discriminative and does not choose which license plate to read and raise alarm; it is not discretionary, it reads all the plates. (Beyerlein 2009)

"All of them make a big deal out of it, since it gives them so much value." Yet with few limits, there is little, if any, accountability regarding where and how repossession companies use the scanners. This type of emotion is called ethos. The character is determining the right or wrong in this situation.

Ever since the development of Automatic License Plate Readers (ALPR) in the United States, law enforcement has been solving a wide variety of crimes at the cost of sacrificing the privacy of citizens. Since it’s start in 1976 by the Police Scientific Department Branch in the United Kingdom, the use of ALPRs has become increasingly common by police both federally, and locally (Casanova and Roberts 3). Being introduced to the United States in 2000 (Dryer and Stroud 3), ALPRs were developed to solve numerous crimes such as stolen vehicles (2). In a 2011 survey, ALPRs are obtained by 71% of police departments, while 85% of police departments want to use ALPRs more frequently (Waddell 3). That means many of the police agencies that planned to

(Boatright, 2009) States that “Hyman Gross argues … what is morally objectionable about being observed unknowingly … or having personal information in a data bank is that a person loses control over how he or she appears to other.” It can be to the detriment of consumers that their information be shared without their knowledge. Imagine a Grenadian applying for an American VISA and being denied that VISA because that person conducted a research on ISIS as an assignment while at University which was released to the American Embassy.

Technology in the policing field has revolutionized the way police officers go about their job on a daily bases. It is constantly changing for both the good and the bad, and helps to create a safer and better environment for citizens to live in. Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) is just one of the many technologies that have been discovered, and put into place throughout the policing community. Automatic Number Plate Recognition is means of surveillance that uses optical character recognition on various images and makes reading license plate numbers possible. They do this through the use of existing closed-circuit television, road enforcement cameras, or ones specifically designed for the task. This technology has been

The surveillance is constant. They are not only seeing where you are but also listening to everything that is said on the off chance you ask your car for assistance.

Jay Stanley's article about the privacy threat that automatic license plate readers (ALPR) and related technologies pose to average Americans may seem a bit histrionic in tone, but the point seems valid enough. Stanley is a senior policy analyst with the American Civil Liberties Union, whose primary purpose is to monitor the privacy threat that emerging technologies represent, so the fright-inducing tone of the hypothetical scenarios offered at the end of the article makes sense. However, I feel a more factual basis for the hypothetical scenarios would have helped make Stanley's case to skeptical readers.

The Personalized License Plate process is currently not being monitored to ensure consistency with plate approvals/denials, voting trends and issuance of inappropriate plates. Additionally, a feedback process does not exist to advise committee members of the outcome of the voting. Without monitoring of the process and proper feedback, Personalized License Plates that should be denied may end up approved or vice versa, resulting in customer disputes and potential legal or political action. Additionally, the reputation of the BMV could be impacted.

Surveillance cameras are widely used around the world by both law enforcement officers and private entities. The main purpose of installing these devices is to identify any suspicious behavior or criminal activities (Costa, Guedes, Vasques & Portugal 1). For example, in American cities, the police monitor and ticket those who run red lights or drive past the set speed limits using surveillance cameras. State officials monitor these cameras from different locations in the country. With technological advancements, these devices can reveal one’s identity, car number plates, and some even show any items hidden underneath clothing. Nations around the world continue to intensify public surveillance in a bid to provide a safe environment for their citizens. However, not all persons support the use of law enforcement cameras. Many argue that these cameras infringe on people’s right to privacy (Neyland 2). Although some of their arguments are sensible, this paper will conduct a discussion aimed at

The question about the government having access to the citizens personal data produced is very controversial. Some people agree that “if you’ve got nothing to hide, you’ve got nothing to fear”, while others contend that this issue is invading our privacy and violating two different amendments (Solove). What is at stake is not fear of people knowing what we buy or look up, but rather the government having the power to invade our privacy and not needing to notify us. I believe that the government having the legal ability to look into our personal data online is wrong and should not be allowed.

A Free market view for gathering and utilization of personal data by Organizations (including organizations government offices and) underscores informed assent which ought to plainly advise the individual giving the data on the off chance that they won't keep it secret (from different organizations, people, and government offices) and how they will utilize it. They ought to be legitimately subject for infringement of their expressed policies. This perspective could consider genuinely mystery types of undetectable data social affair to be burglary or intrusion. A free market view stresses flexibility of agreement: People ought to be allowed to enter agreements (or not enter agreements) to unveil individual data in return for an

Yet although the advantages on gathering information on the public has its obvious benefits as it would protect and prevent the country from terrorist attacks, the government in some instances seems to act intrusively, carrying out security measures that pry into the personal lives of its citizens. Thus, a middle ground is essential, one that establishes clear instances in which the government has the power to observe and collect information, and in which second

In every country, the need to protect its citizens is basically the same. Security is a higher priority, which causes sacrifices to be made in order to obtain an unlimited protection against any rivals, without breaking into the individual’s privacy. Although there may be an issue; if society has a 100 percent privacy, it is really hard for governments to give people an excellent security. In an increasingly worldwide society, the government and its community struggle to find the proper balance between security and civil liberties, regardless the fact that privacy is an absolute necessity in a developed society like ours today. As a matter of fact, no one should have to accept less of one to get more of the other. There has to be a balance between the two of them.