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Cities Are Forced to Funnel License Plate Data to a Federal Surveillance Program

91 points · 35 comments · ripe

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NDlurker · 1790824060 · focus · HN ↗
How do we mess with the data? Swap out magnetic bumper stickers daily? Obscure license plates? Frequent DIY vinyl wrapping to change color?
1. SchemaLoad · 1790825975 · focus · HN ↗
  None of this holds a candle to having a functional government that works for the benefit of the public.
  1. ethersteeds · 1790826931 · focus · HN ↗
    We're trying to talk about realistic options here.
    SchemaLoad · 1790831330 · focus · HN ↗
    Trying to trick licence plate reader cameras is not realistic. A widespread network of cameras can easily detect anomalies like a plate that doesn't match the car type, or the same plate existing in two places. It might make you feel good to think there is some anarchist solution out of this, but it isn't going to work.
    The tech is incredibly powerful and there isn't really anything you can do as an individual to avoid it. You better hope the people who run it have improving society in their best interests.
    blooalien · 1790924267 · focus · HN ↗
    > You better hope the people who run it have improving society in their best interests.
    Even if the people who run it do, I can just about guarantee the people who own it surely don't.
  2. joinHNtheysaid · 1790834217 · focus · HN ↗
    And where is that mythical beast? Eu? China? Russia?
    LargoLasskhyfv · 1790835453 · focus · HN ↗
    Uruguay I've heard. Costa Rica possibly.
2. throwaway27448 · 1790828851 · focus · HN ↗
  [delayed]
  1. goda90 · 1790829453 · focus · HN ↗
    "It's now illegal to track government vehicles"
  2. tencentshill · 1790860361 · focus · HN ↗
    Minneapolis is an excellent example. ICE did NOT like being tracked, even when they (illegally) swapped license plates.
3. ethagnawl · 1790829191 · focus · HN ↗
  Show up at town halls and vote.
4. joinHNtheysaid · 1790834179 · focus · HN ↗
  Automated vehicles driving by with eink licenspeplates?
5. CircuitSeuss · 1790865219 · focus · HN ↗
  [delayed]
sohrob · 1790825074 · focus · HN ↗
It seemed like the loudest voices opposed to "Big Government" were those in the pro-Trump MAGA camp and yet I've heard nary a peep from most of them regarding things like this which are directly spearheaded by Trump's administration.
1. idle_zealot · 1790825842 · focus · HN ↗
  Most people who claim to be against big government are really just opposed to the idea of the government restricting them, personally. If it's their friends wielding government to hunt and punish the right people then they're in support. You could see this well before the current turn, recall the overlap between small government support and pro-police, pro-military, pro-death penalty, pro-stop and frisk "law and order" types.
  1. expedition32 · 1790829025 · focus · HN ↗
    Big government burned down Atlanta so that black people could be free. It also bailed out Texas.
    There's nothing wrong with big government as long as it isn't run by fascists and religious nut cases- which is the real problem in today's America.
    Cider9986 · 1790829511 · focus · HN ↗
    [delayed]
    johnnyanmac · 1790830163 · focus · HN ↗
    I don't think you two are disagreeing. It's just that the reaction to government surveillance should not be "Big government is all bad, vote in someone to shrink it". It's "outlaw mass surveillance and keep big government focused on serving the people". It's amazing how Reagan's propaganda remains so effective 45 years later.
2. gottorf · 1790826977 · focus · HN ↗
  To steelman your argument and respond: 1) there is ample reason to believe that a Harris presidency would not have done any better on this front (that is, the choice was between big government and bigger government), and 2) the federal government being as big as it is already makes it hard for states and local governments to say no to requests like these. (You might recall how highway funding was used as a cudgel to "force" the drinking age to 21.)
  There isn't a true (and viable) "weaker federal government, stronger state and local governments" party in this country at the moment. And the two party system being what it is, voters have to pick one out of two choices, neither of which will represent the voter's beliefs fully, or even mostly. Even the "pro-Trump MAGA camp" disagrees with itself on a ton of issues, perhaps more so than the camp on the opposite side[0]. I personally know many people who voted for Trump in 2024 and would describe themselves, ironically or not, as MAGA, who all did so for different reasons and are from very diverse backgrounds.
  Though, if there indeed was a peep from any of them against this particular project, would you even hear it in today's fragmented informational spheres?
  [0]: <a href="https://bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bjso.12665" rel="nofollow">https://bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bjso....
  1. fragmede · 1790827718 · focus · HN ↗
    Would she have been duped into starting a fight with Iran though?
  2. andrewflnr · 1790827748 · focus · HN ↗
    The difference there is that the Harris government wouldn't have been quite so blatantly hypocritical. That would have been the least important improvement, but it's the one the top level comment was talking about.
3. gherkinnn · 1790834117 · focus · HN ↗
  Coincidentally, the loudest pro-gun, anti-govt-overreach, don't-tread-on-me voices had precisely nothing to say as the government did exactly what they feared it would do as ICE started running amok.
4. WokeUp420 · 1790854909 · focus · HN ↗
  These are uneducated folks that don't even understand technology surveillance
charcircuit · 1790827023 · focus · HN ↗
All the states working together is what it is going to take to win the war on drugs.
1. mr_woozy · 1790827248 · focus · HN ↗
  [dead]
2. timcobb · 1790828684 · focus · HN ↗
  Working together legalizing drugs?
  1. SlightlyLeftPad · 1790828886 · focus · HN ↗
    [delayed]
3. AngryData · 1790829879 · focus · HN ↗
  Define the win condition.
  Not once in human history has prohibition worked for any substance.
  1. charcircuit · 1790830656 · focus · HN ↗
    The goal is to get it where no Americans are distributing or consuming illegal drugs, so the win condition will involve understanding the flow of drugs within the country, including across state borders.
    AngryData · 1790838563 · focus · HN ↗
    So an impossible goal. Because even in countries where they will literally behead you for having drugs, they still got drugs everywhere.
    charcircuit · 1790843225 · focus · HN ↗
    So what? There are also goals like having no workplace related deaths / injuries. Considering what is possible and not is not required for setting goals and can lead to a closed minded approach.
    AngryData · 1790882103 · focus · HN ↗
    So what? You mean you don't care that we spend billions of dollars to prevent people from working and earning taxes?
    If you are willing to spend $80K per year on each drug user to keep them in jail, why are you unwilling to spend a fraction that amount of money on helping them kick their addiction?
    charcircuit · 1790917201 · focus · HN ↗
    >You mean you don't care that we spend billions of dollars to prevent people from working and earning taxes?
    Think of it as an investment. If we can save a bloodline from being corrupted by drugs it can have a big upside if you include all of the productive goods and service the dependents may generate. It can also result in improved safety in public which has exponential effects in being able to use that area in the real world.
    >why are you unwilling to spend a fraction that amount of money on helping them kick their addiction?
    Considering there is no drugs in prison they will be forced to kick their addiction.
    AngryData · 1790957706 · focus · HN ↗
    The most dangerous part of drugs is their illegality and lack of quality and purity standards.
    Also there definitely are drugs in prison, they get flown in, smuggled in, and even guards have been known to supply them. Their value is 10x higher in prisons because prisoners are super bored and got nothing better to do.
bickfordb · 1790827668 · focus · HN ↗
AFAICT this is what ICE is using the target random Latino house cleaners, roofers
grogenaut · 1790829930 · focus · HN ↗
could cities just not have the readers?
1. wahern · 1790830966 · focus · HN ↗
  AFAIU, the San Francisco peninsula (San Francisco + San Mateo counties) has one of the densest networks of ALPRs in the country. You can't drive more than a mile or two in the peninsula without passing an ALPR. And my educated guess is this is a response to the rise of property crimes, including car break-ins and theft, over the past 15 years, which became a huge political issue, locally and of course nationally. Those crimes began to drop precipitously after it became evident that criminals were being tracked and apprehended by the cameras, and I doubt it's a coincidence. IOW, at least in this region the cameras exit because of crime, and they're working.
  That's not a defense of these wide ALPR networks, and certainly not a defense of how they're managed. But my point is that it's a thorny political issue because in many areas they actually work, at least to some significant degree. Whether or not they're worth the privacy cost, or whether or not alternatives would work sufficiently well, are fair questions, but precisely because they're fair and contentious questions means preventing their use won't be easy politically. Many of politicians and LEO officials pay lip service to privacy concerns, but behind the scenes they're wary of doing anything that would rollback the capabilities these systems provide.
  1. bendergarcia · 1790831477 · focus · HN ↗
    Is people’s catalytic converter not being stolen worth making it harder for ICE to separate and deport migrants…
    DaSHacka · 1790833640 · focus · HN ↗
    Certain people seem to think both are good
Cider9986 · 1790830074 · focus · HN ↗
There's no such thing as friendly neighborhood mass surveillance. We need to treat data as a bad thing to have. All data that is collected can be abused. There's probably a manifesto or something saying this more eloquently.

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