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The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency has officially gained agency-wide access to a nationwide license plate recognition database, according to a contract finalized earlier this month. The system gives the agency access to billions of license plate records and new powers of real-time location tracking, raising significant concerns from civil libertarians.
For civil liberties groups, the implications go far beyond immigration. "There are people circulating in our society who are undocumented," says senior policy analyst Jay Stanley, who studies license plate readers with the ACLU. "Are we as a society, out of our desire to find those people, willing to let our government create an infrastructure that will track all of us?"
Meanwhile, countermeasures are already deployed, and obfuscated:
Known as "Bienvenidos," the Spanish word for "Welcome," the app purports to help navigate the treacherous U.S.-Mexico border by alerting users to a range of obstacles and threats.
The anonymous creators of Bienvenidos attempted to pitch their app this month to numerous media outlets before suddenly reversing their announcement. A YouTube video explaining the technology was inexplicably deleted while the Bienvenidos website became password-protected.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Saturday January 27 2018, @11:12PM (12 children)
The infrastructure is there. They are using it. They are tracking us, to the best of their ability now. And, we readily sign up for new tracking technology, by the millions. It's here. It's 1984, people.
Given that it's here, WHY NOT TRACK ILLEGALS? If they are tracking legals, why not track the illegals?
(Score: 3, Funny) by fustakrakich on Sunday January 28 2018, @12:10AM
It's 1984, people.
One more year and I can get that 386! 32 bits! Yippee!
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday January 28 2018, @01:13AM (10 children)
Dude, you realize how much this would cost? Tracking needles in a haystack nation wide?
Sure I didn't tell you this when implementing that plate tracking network - you didn't ask.
(grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday January 28 2018, @01:25AM (5 children)
You think the fixed cameras on poles are bad? You know, the Florida-California daily airbridge follows I-10, and a stabilized PT-ZOOM camera on the belly of a commercial plane can read every plate on I-10, and many of the less tree shaded minor roads from coast-to-coast. Look for them on your government contracted commercial aircraft, coming soon.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday January 28 2018, @01:50AM (4 children)
I don't exactly know what's that I-10 you are taking about, but in any case drones are cheaper.
I suggest you look for them in the budget of your local police [recode.net]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @02:06AM (1 child)
Predator and Reaper drones cost about $2,500-3,500 per flight hour; larger armed systems such as the military’s Global Hawk cost about 10 times as much: approximately $30,000 per flight hour. (source [fcnl.org])
That doesn't sound very cost-effective. I doubt they're cheap to acquire and house, either. I doubt even more that Americans would be thrilled to know that their government is OK with local cops targeting highway-driving citizens with the same hardware that the feds use to murder citizens and civilians when they're outside the country's borders.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday January 28 2018, @02:33AM
Then try DJI drones - about 30 minutes of flight on a battery charge. For the cost of 1h Predator time, you can buy two drones.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday January 28 2018, @05:19AM (1 child)
I-10 is the highway that runs from Florida to Southern California.
The U.S. military contracts with commercial air carriers to make their planes structurally capable of moving materiel (like Humvees, Tanks, etc.) in "times of need." Since we've been in a "War On TERROR" for 15+ years now, why wouldn't they also just attach a stabilized camera to the belly of those same commercial planes that fly coast to coast every 20 minutes, every day? Cheaper than launching satellites, which they also do...
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @06:50AM
Clouds? Limited camera resolution?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @02:51AM
Dude, you realize how much this would cost?
Not as much as you think.
I scoped out a similar project about 10 years ago. Even THEN the cost was not exactly back breaking. WELLLLLL within the reach of a large corporation. Easily in reach of the the gov. The big parts would be hard drive and staff to support it. The cameras themselves I was going to get other people to pay for them. But even then the cost was very manageable. You hit some key junction points in the US and you can cover 90% of the drivers out there. That was 10 years ago. The cost has dropped significantly since then.
I then nuked the project from orbit and properly over inflated all the numbers to make it look like a huge money sink hole. When the opposite was true. It was a terrible idea then and still is. It was 1 lawsuit away from being a huge headache. That corp will never do it. But it was not exactly a ground breaking idea. There are at least 3 other companies doing the exact same thing.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday January 28 2018, @12:18PM (2 children)
Look at the UK. They haven't been broken by putting up a nearly all-pervasive traffic camera system. Here in the US, it's coming. It's just a question of time. When the politicos decide it is time, it will happen. Like any other law that the people hate, it may fail the first time, the second, maybe the third. But it will keep coming back with slightly different language, and different buzz words, until it is passed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @01:53PM (1 child)
Cool. With so many targets, Americans will become great sharp-shooters when they feel they had enough.
Or if they feel.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 29 2018, @11:30PM
Yeah, just another practice target like the streetlights.