Mauldin police have gadget that can scan thousands of license plates | The Greenville News | greenvilleonline.com

Mauldin police have gadget that can scan thousands of license plates | The Greenville News | greenvilleonline.com:

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Attorney General Secretly Granted Gov. Ability to Develop and Store Dossiers on Innocent Americans | Threat Level | Wired.com

Attorney General Secretly Granted Gov. Ability to Develop and Store Dossiers on Innocent Americans | Threat Level | Wired.com:

In a secret government agreement granted without approval or debate from lawmakers, the U.S. attorney general recently gave the National Counterterrorism Center sweeping new powers to store dossiers on U.S. citizens, even if they are not suspected of a crime, according to a news report.

Earlier this year, Attorney General Eric Holder granted the center the ability to copy entire government databases holding information on flight records, casino-employee lists, the names of Americans hosting foreign-exchange students and other data, and to store it for up to five years, even without suspicion that someone in the database has committed a crime, according to the Wall Street Journal, which broke the story.

Whereas previously the law prohibited the center from storing data compilations on U.S. citizens unless they were suspected of terrorist activity or were relevant to an ongoing terrorism investigation, the new powers give the center the ability to not only collect and store vast databases of information but also to trawl through and analyze it for suspicious patterns of behavior in order to uncover activity that could launch an investigation.

The changes granted by Holder would also allow databases containing information about U.S. citizens to be shared with foreign governments for their own analysis.

A former senior White House official told the Journal that the new changes were “breathtaking in scope.”

But counterterrorism officials tried to downplay the move by telling the Journal that the changes come with strict guidelines about how the data can be used.

“The guidelines provide rigorous oversight to protect the information that we have, for authorized and narrow purposes,” Alexander Joel, Civil Liberties Protection Officer for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, told the paper.

The NCTC currently maintains the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment database, or TIDE, which holds data on more than 500,000 identities suspected of terror activity or terrorism links, including friends and families of suspects, and is the basis for the FBI’s terrorist watchlist.

Under the new rules issued in March, the NCTC can now obtain almost any other government database that it claims is “reasonably believed” to contain “terrorism information.” This could conceivably include collections of financial forms submitted by people seeking federally backed mortgages or even the health records of anyone who sought mental or physical treatment at government-run hospitals, such as Veterans Administration facilities, the paper notes.

The Obama administration’s new rules come after previous surveillance proposals were struck down during the Bush administration, following widespread condemnation.

In 2002, the Pentagon’s Total Information Awareness program proposed to scrutinize both government and private databases, but public outrage killed the program in essence, though not in spirit. Although Congress de-funded the program in 2003, the NSA continued to collect and sift through immense amounts of data about who Americans spoke with, where they traveled and how they spent their money.

The Federal Privacy Act prohibits government agencies from sharing data for any purpose other than the reason for which the data was initially collected, in order to prevent the creation of dossiers, but agencies can do an end-run around this restriction by posting a notice in the Federal Register, providing justification for the data request. Such notices are rarely seen or contested, however.

The changes to the rules for the NCTC were sought in large part after authorities failed to catch Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab before he boarded a plane on Christmas Day in 2009 with explosives sewn into his underwear. Abdulmutallab wasn’t on the FBI watchlist, but the NCTC had received tips about him, and yet failed to search other government databases to connect dots that might have helped prevent him from boarding the plane.

As the NCTC tried to remedy that situation for later suspects, legal obstacles emerged, the Journal reports, since the center was only allowed to query federal databases for a specific name or a specific passenger list. “They couldn’t look through the databases trolling for general ‘patterns,’” the paper notes.

But the request to expand the center’s powers led to a heated debate at the White House and the Department of Homeland Security, with Mary Ellen Callahan, then-chief privacy officer for the Department of Homeland Security, leading the charge to defend civil liberties. Callahan argued that the new rules represented a “sea change” and that every interaction a citizen would have with the government in the future would be ruled by the underlying question, is that person a terrorist?

Callahan lost her battle, however, and subsequently left her job, though it’s not known if her struggle over the NCTC debate played a role in her decision to leave.

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AOL On - Warrantless Cell Phone Tracking Police Don't Want You To Know About

AOL On - Warrantless Cell Phone Tracking Police Don't Want You To Know About:

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Jersey City Unveils ‘Eye In The Sky’ Surveillance Tower To Fight Crime « CBS New York

Jersey City Unveils ‘Eye In The Sky’ Surveillance Tower To Fight Crime « CBS New York:

JERSEY CITY, N.J. (CBSNewYork) — A warning to criminals in Jersey City: Every step you take, every move you make, police are watching.

As part of a stepped-up effort to deter and detect criminal activity, Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healyand Police Chief Tom Comey announced new initiatives Tuesday that they hope will be effective.

Among the initiatives is the “Eye in the Sky,” a three-story high, mobile tower equipped with 360-degree views and streaming surveillance cameras to give police a bird’s-eye view of high-crime areas.

It makes us smarter. It makes us better and once again, it’s another step we have to take as we embrace technology and do policing,” Comey told reporters, including 1010 WINS’ Steve Sandberg.

With budget cuts and mass retirements in his police force, Chief Comey is still dealing with a significant police shortage. So he said he is looking for ways to do the job smarter and better.

“Is it the most effective way? At what we have right now. Yes,” he said. “Would it be better if we had more man power? Probably. That’s not something I have right now.”

The $100,000 “Eye in the Sky” was acquired by Jersey City’s Office of Emergency Management & Homeland Security through the state’s Urban Area Security Initiative program.

Officials said the technology is used by police departments across the country, including the New York Police Department.

Mayor Healy also announced the hiring of 22 new beat cops to help beef up the department’s dwindling ranks.

In July, the U.S. Justice Department awarded Jersey City $1.85 million through a hiring program that allowed it to bring on 15 new officers. The other seven cops will be paid through the municipal budget, officials said.

The police department will now have a total of 806 officers.

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Council to hear CMPD plans for wireless cameras, plate readers | WCNC.com Charlotte

Council to hear CMPD plans for wireless cameras, plate readers | WCNC.com Charlotte:

cameras, plate readers
Council to hear CMPD plans for wireless cameras, plate readers
by CLEVE R. WOOTSON JR. / Charlotte Observer
WCNC.com
Posted on December 10, 2012 at 5:48 AM
Updated Monday, Dec 10 at 6:00 PM
CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Charlotte-Mecklenburg police Chief Rodney Monroe plans to
tell the Charlotte City Council on Monday about his department’s plans to use
technology that has the potential to affect how the department fights crime.
The equipment – more than 500 wireless cameras, automatic license-plate readers
and a network of sensitive, gunshot-detecting microphones known as ShotSpotter –
were all bolstered by or put into place before the Democratic National Convention. The
city received a $50 million security grant from the federal government to pay for new
equipment and upgrades.
The Police Department did not comment in advance of Monroe’s statements to City
Council. But in the past, Deputy Chief Harold Medlock called the cameras effective
crime-prevention and crime-fighting tools.

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Speak Out: Lilburn Police License Plate Readers - Lilburn-Mountain Park, GA Patch

Speak Out: Lilburn Police License Plate Readers - Lilburn-Mountain Park, GA Patch:

Like some other municipalities, the city of Lilburn employs the use of license plate readers to capture the bad guys.

Bad guys include those who are driving around in stolen cars, people wanted for previous crimes, those who have abducted babies, and more.

In August, for example, the city used the special devices to alert them to a stolen car, which led them to eventually find a suspect hiding in the freezer of an Ingles grocery store.

-- Do you think the use of these license plate readers is justified, even if the plates of law-abiding citizens are also capture? Let us know in the comment section below. --

Typically, three automatic license plate readers (ALPRs) are mounted to patrol cars, and cansnap pictures of thousands of plates each day. Police are then able to quickly check the the plate's numbers against policy agency databases.

There is an alarm when a match is found, and the police officer's computer displays who the car is registered to and if the car is suspected in a crime, among other things.

The city of Lilburn has one, and the police department has used it for several years. Gwinnett County Police Department, which patrols unincorporated Lilburn, using them, as well.

But, while police departments are busily capturing the plates of could-be bady guys, they are also collecting information on anyone else who happens to drive by or be parked in the vicinity of the plate readers.

Like other police departments, Capt. Ben Haynes agrees that Lilburn Police Department sees the readers as a benefit -- one that outweighs public angst.

However, the ACLU worries that this could be a violation of privacy for law-abiding citizens. In July, the organization sent 587 requests to local police departments across the nation, including some in Georgia.

"When used in a narrow and carefully regulated way, ALPRs can help police recover stolen cars and arrest people with outstanding warrants, " the ACLU said on its website.

Still, the ACLU added that "police departments nationwide are using ALPR to quietly accumulate millions of plate records, storing them in backend databases. While we don’t know the full extent of this problem, we know that responsible deletion of data is the exception, not the norm."

So, what do you think Lilburn, is the automatic license plate reader used in the local police department an invasion of your privacy? Do you think the law enforcement tool is well worth it if criminal can be swooped off the streets? Let us know in the comment section.

See some of our other "Speak Out" stories, and comment on them, as well:

• Speak Out: Vacant Properties Got You Vexed?: Story highlights vacany information on several Lilburn shopping centers. Also, mentions the Main Street shopping area, with a comment from the mayor, Johnny Crist.
• Speak Out: Future of Old Blue Rooster Site: Story summarizes recent happenings with the Main Street property formerly the home of the Blue Rooster Cafe.
• Speak Out: Safety at Wells Fargo Banks: Following a robbery at the Lilburn Wells Fargo on Lawrenceville Highway, Patch asked readers what they thought of the security at local bank branches. This includes the lack of armed guards at Wells Fargo banks.

Related Topics: ACLU, Automatic License Plate Readers, License Plate Readers, and Lilburn Police Department

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Black boxes in cars raise privacy concerns - SFGate

Black boxes in cars raise privacy concerns - SFGate
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on Friday proposed long-delayed regulations requiring auto manufacturers to include event data recorders — better known as "black boxes" — in all new cars and light trucks beginning Sept. 1, 2014. But the agency is behind the curve. Automakers have been quietly tucking the devices, which automatically record the actions of drivers and the responses of their vehicles in a continuous information loop, into most new cars for years.
When a car is involved in a crash or when its airbags deploy, inputs from the vehicle's sensors during the 5 to 10 seconds before impact are automatically preserved. That's usually enough to record things like how fast the car was traveling and whether the driver applied the brake, was steering erratically or had a seat belt on.


Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Black-boxes-in-cars-raise-privacy-concerns-4098622.php#ixzz2Ef3FByKi