GoKawiilSo while I work with police departments regularly, I think it is critically important that technology be used reasonably.
While this may be off-putting to some of my clients, I worked with the Institute for Justice as an expert witness in their trial Schmidt v City of Norfolk. (Any opinions herein are my own and not those of IJ, to be clear.) The gist of that case was whether searches of historically cached ALPR data (automated-license-plate-reader) constituted an illegal search.
The judge ruled against plaintiffs in that case. Here is a quote from the judgment:
Consistent with Plaintiffs’ claims in this case and controlling precedent involving mass surveillance in public spaces, ALPR surveillance could become too intrusive and run afoul of [constitutional privacy standards] at some point. But when? While a definitive answer to that question is elusive, what is readily apparent to this Court is that, at least in Norfolk, Virginia, the answer is: not today.
The important point to note about this quote is “not today”. This will be a long winded post, but to try to keep it simple:
I think cameras will become ubiquitous in the foreseeable future. So the question is not if this data will require a warrant, it is when. It is going to happen eventually under current case law.
I think cameras are good, and can be used to reduce crime in a cost effective manner.
There is a difference between active flags (e.g. this car is stolen and it pings the PD when it drives past a camera) vs historical searches (e.g. look to see where license plate XYZ1000 was the last 30 days).
Requiring a warrant for historical searches will not seriously impede police investigations.
The current status quo of not retaining data is VERY BAD ; it does not prevent illegal searches, and currently limits the utility of actually using that data for legitimate investigations.
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