Law Enforcment

[xoxoxoBruce]

The city fathers of San Jose, CA, have come up with a plan to help the police department stretched thin by budget restraints.

The noisy garbage trucks that lumber down San Jose streets every week could soon pick up more than just trash -- they might also scan your license plate and all your neighbors' tags, too, in a proposed city-wide sweep for stolen vehicles that has civil libertarians crying foul.

Mayor Sam Liccardo and Councilmen Johnny Khamis and Raul Peralez proposed that the city consider strapping license plate readers to the front of garbage trucks, allowing them to record the plates of every car along their routes. The data would be fed directly to the Police Department from the privately operated trash trucks, prompting an officer to respond to stolen vehicles or cars involved with serious crime.
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While license plate readers are increasingly being used by police across the Bay Area, some are alarmed that San Jose is considering turning the garbage collector into an agent of law enforcement. Councilman Chappie Jones was opposed to what he called an "extreme" policy, evoking the "Big Brother" government of George Orwell's dystopian 1949 novel "1984."

Chappie Jones? Harrumph, probably the spawn of some long haired Jesus freaks in a chartreuse microbus.

Civil rights advocates said the unusual plan raises "significant concerns" and could invade the privacy of San Jose residents because of how the data is collected, stored and analyzed.
"The idea is they would also collect the location of cars as they drive down the street," said Chris Conley, a policy attorney for ACLU of Northern California who said he has not heard of any other city gathering license plate records in such a way. "If it's collected repeatedly over a long period of time, it can reveal intimate data about you like attending a religious service or a gay bar. People have a right to live their lives without constantly being monitored by the government."

If you're an upstanding, god fearing patriot, doing nothing wrong, you've got nothing to worry about.

While most residents may not know it, six San Jose police cars already are fitted with license plate readers that scan car tags every day while out on patrol. This year's budget pegged an additional $68,400 to pay for two more plate readers.

Maybe the NSA, in return for all that data, will part with some of the $52 Billion they spend every year, to help San Jose fight terrorism.

The police can report back to the trash companies, in return for their service, where their trucks are, how long they stop, and how long it took to do each street. After all, Jeff Bezos says that's the best way to streamline operations, and weed out the deadwood.