Free Republic

Spurred by a series of robberies, shootings and other crimes in the Melrose Avenue area in recent months, a neighborhood group has raised $30,000 for license plate readers that will be installed beginning this week. Melrose Action, a group that tracks crimes and breaking news in the busy shopping corridor and surrounding neighborhoods between La Cienega and La Brea avenues, spearheaded the fundraiser, which launched in August. City Councilman Paul Koretz, who represents the area, donated $10,000 from his discretionary accounts to the project. As of Nov. 27, total violent and property crimes in the LAPD’s Wilshire Division, which includes...

=San Jose's Garbage Trucks May Do Police Surveillance With License Plate Readers The government of San Jose, Calif. has come forward with a proposal to mount license plate readers to the city’s garbage trucks in an effort to expand police surveillance beyond department cruisers. Have no fear, innocent citizen, for the trash companies may be stepping up to help our friends in blue. San Jose, California happens to be America’s tenth largest city - that makes it pretty difficult for the police force to keep up with everybody. In a story by the local San Jose Mercury News, the new...

If you live in Virginia and owe back property taxes, you should probably leave your car parked in the garage. That's because a few local police departments and towns are now using license plate readers provided by the Department of Homeland Security to spot people who owe back taxes and then impound their vehicles. Multiple agencies across the state were able to purchase automatic license plate readers thanks to grant money they received from Homeland Security's terrorism prevention program. But, rather than use them for security purposes, some seem to be using them to fill local coffers by collecting taxes.

The NSA isn’t the only government agency raising concerns about electronic privacy. Local police departments are coming under similar scrutiny—not only for using spying technology, but for hiding their use from the public. At least 25 police departments now use what is known as “Stingray,” a briefcase-sized box that swallows up cell phone data within a mile radius. More than one in three large police departments are also using license-plate readers, which can record every plate—even on a four-lane highway—from vehicles going at speeds of up to 150 miles per hour. […] But the two technologies raise broader questions about...

The American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts on Thursday filed a request for records from several police departments, including Springfield, to determine if the use of automatic license plate readers goes too far and could infringe on rights to privacy. Police Sgt. John M. Delaney, aide to Commissioner William J. Fitchet, said there is just one license plate reader used by the department to detect stolen cars and unregistered cars, with no ill intent. “It’s not ‘big brother,’” Delaney said. “We don’t use it to monitor anybody’s movement. It is only used for law enforcement, stolen cars and other investigations.”...