Sometime last year, a friend introduced me to the Waze App, which Google had purchased for $966 million in 2013. I immediately thought the concept was awesome, particularly the feature that allows users to crowdsource information on where police are stationed. Considering how dangerous interactions with police have become, with theft or death being an increasingly real possibility, the idea seemed helpful.
Well fast forward a few months, and we find out that several sheriffs are actively campaigning to make Google disable the feature. This is simply incredible to me, since this would effectively be a ban on people informing each other voluntarily where police may be present. A ban on the exchange of information between citizens.
Meanwhile, at the same time police are so concerned about plebs being able to figure out where they are, the U.S. government has been surreptitiously spying on millions of Americans’ cars via license plate readers. No public debate. Nothing.
That’s how the authorities roll in a police state.
First, on the spying on cars from the Wall Street Journal:
WASHINGTON—The Justice Department has been building a national database to track in real time the movement of vehicles around the U.S., a secret domestic intelligence-gathering program that scans and stores hundreds of millions of records about motorists, according to current and former officials and government documents.
“A secret domestic intelligence gathering program.” Nice to see our rulers bothered to get our opinion on the matter, you know, for all that empty talk about our vibrant democracy.
The primary goal of the license-plate tracking program, run by the Drug Enforcement Administration, is to seize cars, cash and other assets to combat drug trafficking, according to one government document. But the database’s use has expanded to hunt for vehicles associated with numerous other potential crimes, from kidnappings to killings to rape suspects, say people familiar with the matter.
Oh great, at least the primary purpose of the program is to crack down on adults committing non-crimes by making choices about what to put in their own bodies.
Many state and local law-enforcement agencies are accessing the database for a variety of investigations, according to people familiar with the program, putting a wealth of information in the hands of local officials who can track vehicles in real time on major roadways.
The database raises new questions about privacy and the scope of government surveillance. The existence of the program and its expansion were described in interviews with current and former government officials, and in documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union through a Freedom of Information Act request and reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. It is unclear if any court oversees or approves the intelligence-gathering.
Hahahaha. I mean it’s so scary, you just have to laugh.
Sen. Patrick Leahy, senior Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said the government’s use of license-plate readers “raises significant privacy concerns. The fact that this intrusive technology is potentially being used to expand the reach of the government’s asset-forfeiture efforts is of even greater concern.’’
Ah asset forfeiture. Please watch: “Common People Do Not Carry This Much U.S. Currency…” – This is How Police Justify Stealing American Citizens’ Money.
The senator called for “additional accountability’’ and said Americans shouldn’t have to fear ”their locations and movements are constantly being tracked and stored in a massive government database.’’
The DEA program collects data about vehicle movements, including time, direction and location, from high-tech cameras placed strategically on major highways. Many devices also record visual images of drivers and passengers, which are sometimes clear enough for investigators to confirm identities, according to DEA documents and people familiar with the program.
“Any database that collects detailed location information about Americans not suspected of crimes raises very serious privacy questions,’’ said Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst at the ACLU. “It’s unconscionable that technology with such far-reaching potential would be deployed in such secrecy. People might disagree about exactly how we should use such powerful surveillance technologies, but it should be democratically decided, it shouldn’t be done in secret.’’
One email written in 2010 said the primary purpose of the program was asset forfeiture—a controversial practice in which law-enforcement agencies seize cars, cash and other valuables from suspected criminals. The practice is increasingly coming under attack because of instances when law-enforcement officers take such assets without evidence of a crime.
The effort began in border states like Arizona, California, Nevada, New Mexico and Texas, but the goal has always been expansion, according to current and former federal officials and documents. Officials wouldn’t say how many other states are now feeding data into the system, citing concerns that disclosing such information could help criminals avoid detection.
Earlier this month, the DEA filed court documents indicating that for more than a decade it had gathered the phone records of Americans calling foreign countries, without judicial oversight, to sift through that data looking for drug suspects. That program was canceled in 2013.
So that’s how considerate the “authorities” are when it comes to our privacy. Guess what happens when you turn the tables and citizens start to talk about where cops are located?
They have a panic attack and describe their campaign to remove the feature “a personal jihad.”
From NBC News:
Sheriffs are campaigning to pressure Google Inc. to turn off a feature on its Waze traffic software that warns drivers when police are nearby. They say one of the technology industry’s most popular mobile apps could put officers’ lives in danger from would-be police killers who can find where their targets are parked.
Waze, which Google purchased for $966 million in 2013, is a combination of GPS navigation and social networking. Fifty million users in 200 countries turn to the free service for real-time traffic guidance and warnings about nearby congestion, car accidents, speed traps or traffic cameras, construction zones, potholes, stalled vehicles or unsafe weather conditions.
There are no known connections between any attack on police and Waze, but law enforcers such as Kopelev are concerned it’s only a matter of time. They are seeking support among other law enforcement trade groups to pressure Google to disable the police-reporting function. The emerging policy debate places Google again at the center of an ongoing global debate about public safety, consumer rights and privacy.
“The police community needs to coordinate an effort to have the owner, Google, act like the responsible corporate citizen they have always been and remove this feature from the application even before any litigation or statutory action,” said Brown, who also serves as the chairman of the National Sheriffs Association technology committee.
Brown asked Kopelev to discuss Waze at the upcoming sheriffs’ association conference. Kopelev refers to his efforts as his “personal jihad.’’
Always encouraging to see police officers using radical Islamist language in reference to stripping rights from the citizenry.
A cop becoming injured in the line of duty is now like a banker losing money. The most horrible thing imaginable and everyone else needs to suffer to make sure it never happens again.
For related articles, see:
License Plate Readers Stir Controversy in California as the NYPD Prepares to Use Drones
Department of Homeland Security Moves to Install National License Plate Tracking System
License Plate Readers to Track Every Car Entering New York City
In Liberty,
Michael Krieger
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Good article. Hopefully, “Sen. Patrick Leahy, senior Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee,” will get legislation going to set some boundaries this type of ongoing abuse of taxpaying law abiding citizens.
If you aren’t doing anything wrong, you shouldn’t mind being monitored. Seems to rub those entrusted with keeping the peace the wrong way. They know it could be a private citizen tool of parallel construction…which they use on us and know is illegal in establishing probable cause. God forbid a citizen uses it for simple accountability of a public official, let alone foiling dubious revenue collection activities like speed traps.
The sheriffs’ reasoning follows right along with the Thin Blue Line meme that says every cop is at risk of deadly peril at all times and in all places by everyone they meet. Yes, the beat or patrol cop is exposed. It’s always been that way. But the sheriffs are starting to sweat bullets–sorry, had to–because they are beginning to sniff the air and notice that people are now starting to shoot back. If it isn’t a mobile app it’s the guy with the “Speedtrap!” placard standing on the corner.
I know a lot of cops professionally. Most are OK but they would be better off with a pencil sharpener on their duty belt rather than a pistol. They are in most imminent danger from a fatty liver due to bad eating. Most shoot no better than the average citizen and some shoot a lot worse. No wonder they want an advantage.
BTW Notice how the number of cops killed in the line of duty is known down to the individual but the number of civilians killed by police has to be estimated and the true number of innocents injured or killed by cops is a number as secret as the Enigma Code was during WWII.
The more they try to jigger the game in their favor, all the while demanding exemption from the same rules the rest of us play by, the more they will be hated just like any Third World police force. Try killing someone who is unarmed and telling the grand jury, ” I was in fear of my life.” Hilarity would ensue.