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"A state trooper had been positioned in the store parking lot to collect the license plate numbers of customers, compile them into a spreadsheet, then send the

"A state trooper had been positioned in the store parking lot to collect the license plate numbers of customers, compile them into a spreadsheet, then send the spreadsheets to local sheriff’s departments for further investigation." this sound a lot like a stasi operation. https://media.ccc.de/v/32c3-7209-what_does_big_brother_see_while_he_is_watching#video https://media.ccc.de/v/32c3-7209-what_does_big_brother_see_w...

trhway 11y ago
>this sound a lot like a stasi operation. the Stasi/KGB would be salivating at the scale and the capabilities that has already been deployed. They could only dream about automatic recording of every sound around any connected electronic device and automatic transription of it into a searchable database already containing all the un- and weakly-encrypted electronic communications of all your populace and all the movements of that populace. Add to that constant video recording from security, police and backdoored consumer cameras with automatic image recognition. Stasi/KGB was a kiddie game compare to that.
simoncion 11y ago
> this sound a lot like a stasi operation. No. Assuming that the parking lot is exposed to the street, there is absolutely nothing wrong with posting an officer in or near the lot and recording the plates of vehicles that travel near the area. The notion that it is 100% okay that things that happen in public view may be subject to notice and recording at any time is very important to preserve. Where this goes oh so wrong is when the PD posts a robot policeman [0] at the location, or a network of them throughout the district that record things (like license plates). There are only so many officers in a district, each of them can only be doing one thing at a time, and every one of them requires OT pay for extended work hours. This means that a district has to decide if plate collection at a location is the best thing that they can be doing with a particular officer. If a district can suddenly -for the price of one meatbag officer- dedicate ten new robot "officers" [1] to the task of car movement surveillance, then their powers have been greatly expanded. It's very important that we protect the right to notice and record things that happen in public. I feel that it's equally important that we work to limit the damage that an entity can do when they have the resources available to record such things on a large scale. [0] AKA: a camera [1] who can work 24/7 and never require OT pay
- hellbanner 11y ago
  You're saying public recording is fine when it's "expensive" -- costing a human salary, but not when it's a robot? I'm not following you. If police are going to record citizens, citizens should feel comfortable recording police. What their routes are, favorite stops, conversations, etc.
  - pavel_lishin 11y ago
    It's not fine when it's expensive, it's fine when it's inherently limited and not omniscient. > If police are going to record citizens, citizens should feel comfortable recording police. Nobody's debating that.
  - eximius 11y ago
    But citizens aren't incentivized to record police.
  - simoncion 11y ago
    > You're saying public recording is fine when it's "expensive" -- costing a human salary, but not when it's a robot? I'm not following you. You are following me. That's exactly what I'm saying. Human scale surveillance is okay. Because the surveillance is carried out by a human on the scene, it requires the surveillers to decide who should be surveilled, and prevents or eliminates blanket surveillance. > If police are going to record citizens, citizens should feel comfortable recording police. 100% agreed. Because of the extraordinary powers they are entrusted with, on-duty police [0] should be held to a much higher standard than regular folks. Off-duty cops who aren't exercising police power? They're folks like any other and must be afforded the same rights and protections as every other regular citizen. [0] Or off-duty police who are otherwise exercising their police powers.
    - whoopdedo 11y ago
      > Human scale surveillance is okay. Because the surveillance is carried out by a human on the scene, it requires the surveillers to decide who should be surveilled, and prevents or eliminates blanket surveillance. But what we're describing is not a human using his judgment to select probable suspects for further investigation. It's a guy parked pointing a camera at all license plates and feeding them en masse to a computer for automated processing. It is not functionally different than the hypothetical robot you described, only this happens to be a robot with an organic component.
awqrre 11y ago
But the bigger problem is that they started to use automatic license plate recognition with cameras around town and police cars to automatically log all license plates and their locations... (see this for example, in Florida: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WA5Gy32aqdo&t=1m22s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WA5Gy32aqdo&t=1m22s)

trhway 11y ago

>this sound a lot like a stasi operation. the Stasi/KGB would be salivating at the scale and the capabilities that has already been deployed. They could only dream about automatic recording of every sound around any connected electronic device and automatic transription of it into a searchable database already containing all the un- and weakly-encrypted electronic communications of all your populace and all the movements of that populace. Add to that constant video recording from security, police and backdoored consumer cameras with automatic image recognition. Stasi/KGB was a kiddie game compare to that.

simoncion 11y ago

> this sound a lot like a stasi operation. No. Assuming that the parking lot is exposed to the street, there is absolutely nothing wrong with posting an officer in or near the lot and recording the plates of vehicles that travel near the area. The notion that it is 100% okay that things that happen in public view may be subject to notice and recording at any time is very important to preserve. Where this goes oh so wrong is when the PD posts a robot policeman [0] at the location, or a network of them throughout the district that record things (like license plates). There are only so many officers in a district, each of them can only be doing one thing at a time, and every one of them requires OT pay for extended work hours. This means that a district has to decide if plate collection at a location is the best thing that they can be doing with a particular officer. If a district can suddenly -for the price of one meatbag officer- dedicate ten new robot "officers" [1] to the task of car movement surveillance, then their powers have been greatly expanded. It's very important that we protect the right to notice and record things that happen in public. I feel that it's equally important that we work to limit the damage that an entity can do when they have the resources available to record such things on a large scale. [0] AKA: a camera [1] who can work 24/7 and never require OT pay

hellbanner 11y ago
You're saying public recording is fine when it's "expensive" -- costing a human salary, but not when it's a robot? I'm not following you. If police are going to record citizens, citizens should feel comfortable recording police. What their routes are, favorite stops, conversations, etc.
- pavel_lishin 11y ago
  It's not fine when it's expensive, it's fine when it's inherently limited and not omniscient. > If police are going to record citizens, citizens should feel comfortable recording police. Nobody's debating that.
- eximius 11y ago
  But citizens aren't incentivized to record police.
- simoncion 11y ago
  > You're saying public recording is fine when it's "expensive" -- costing a human salary, but not when it's a robot? I'm not following you. You are following me. That's exactly what I'm saying. Human scale surveillance is okay. Because the surveillance is carried out by a human on the scene, it requires the surveillers to decide who should be surveilled, and prevents or eliminates blanket surveillance. > If police are going to record citizens, citizens should feel comfortable recording police. 100% agreed. Because of the extraordinary powers they are entrusted with, on-duty police [0] should be held to a much higher standard than regular folks. Off-duty cops who aren't exercising police power? They're folks like any other and must be afforded the same rights and protections as every other regular citizen. [0] Or off-duty police who are otherwise exercising their police powers.
  - whoopdedo 11y ago
    > Human scale surveillance is okay. Because the surveillance is carried out by a human on the scene, it requires the surveillers to decide who should be surveilled, and prevents or eliminates blanket surveillance. But what we're describing is not a human using his judgment to select probable suspects for further investigation. It's a guy parked pointing a camera at all license plates and feeding them en masse to a computer for automated processing. It is not functionally different than the hypothetical robot you described, only this happens to be a robot with an organic component.

awqrre 11y ago

But the bigger problem is that they started to use automatic license plate recognition with cameras around town and police cars to automatically log all license plates and their locations... (see this for example, in Florida: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WA5Gy32aqdo&t=1m22s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WA5Gy32aqdo&t=1m22s)