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| | Constitutional Problems with ALPR |
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< | The immense surveillance scheme enabled by ALPR runs into several problems with the intent and language of the Constitution. Its comprehensive capture of personal information and warrantless use run afoul of the Constitution’s protections for private citizens. |
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> | The immense surveillance scheme enabled by ALPR runs into several problems with the intent and language of the Constitution. Its comprehensive capture of personal information imposes a surveillance structure that chills speech and association protected by the First Amendment, and its warrantless use allows for unreasonable searches of private information. |
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The reader cannot just take this in without wanting to know why. At least a sentence or two here to outline the argument is desirable or the reader may give up. |
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The First Amendment |
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< | The ability of ALPR systems to track an individual’s personal life conflicts with the First Amendment’s protections for people’s freedoms of speech and association. These protections were enshrined in the Constitution to secure, in part, the ability of individuals to share ideas and form associations unsanctioned by or critical of the government. A political dissident has the same right to communicate his ideas and form a group of likeminded compatriots as does a supporter of popular ideals. However, the dissident is much more likely to be targeted by the state for surveillance and curtailing of his activities. |
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> | ALPR systems, at a basic level, track public information by logging license plate numbers. This does not pose a constitutional problem until its comprehensive network is used to track an individual's personal life, which conflicts with the First Amendment’s protections for people’s freedoms of speech and association. These protections were enshrined in the Constitution to secure, in part, the ability of individuals to share ideas and form associations unsanctioned by or critical of the government. A political dissident has the same right to communicate his ideas and form a group of likeminded compatriots as does a supporter of popular ideals. However, the dissident is much more likely to be targeted by the state for surveillance and curtailing of his activities. |
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How to get from reading the deliberately highly-legible registration tag on automobiles to the First Amendment is not a step you can take so blithely
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< | ALPR use imposes a chilling effect on speech with which the government at large or law enforcement specifically disagrees. Knowledge that a speaker of unpopular ideas could give a speech at a rally or protest and have her vehicle tracked to and from the event will surely deter some individuals from civic participation. The marketplace of ideas envisioned through the First Amendment will suffer because the state may use ALPR to surveil the activities of individuals without cause or public oversight. It will likewise dampen the ability and willingness of individuals to form associations they would prefer to keep private from the eyes of the state. These consequences span beyond even political affiliations. The imposition of a comprehensive vehicle surveillance system could track the activities of people engaged in same-sex relationships, or the attendees at a mosque, or the patients and employees at an abortion clinic. All manner of personal, private activities are made the business of the state when the government has such an overwhelming system of travel surveillance. |
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> | ALPR use imposes a chilling effect on speech with which the government at large or law enforcement specifically disagrees. Knowledge that a speaker of unpopular ideas could give a speech at a rally or protest and have her vehicle tracked to and from the event will surely deter some individuals from civic participation. The marketplace of ideas envisioned through the First Amendment will suffer because the state may use ALPR to surveil the activities of individuals without cause or public oversight. It will likewise dampen the ability and willingness of individuals to form associations they would prefer to keep private from the eyes of the state. These consequences span beyond even political affiliations. The imposition of a comprehensive vehicle surveillance system could track the activities of people engaged in same-sex relationships, or the attendees at a mosque, or the patients and employees at an abortion clinic. |
| | The Fourth Amendment
The Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable searches and seizures clearly targets surveillance as all-encompassing as ALPR. While the framers of the Constitution could not fathom something akin to ALPR, such an invasion of individuals’ privacy and liberty surely would have repulsed them. The Fourth Amendment’s prohibition on unreasonable searches of each individual’s person, houses, papers, and effects includes the information collected by ALPR. Recording a vehicle’s license plate and registration information and later querying the ALPR data bank to retrieve that information are both searches of an individual’s papers and effects. The scale of each ALPR network, the interconnectivity between networks and jurisdictions, and the precision with which they collect private information make these searches unreasonable. |
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< | Law enforcement’s ability to collect, search, employ, and redistribute this information without the issuance of a warrant exacerbates this constitutional problem. It amplifies the unreasonableness of the ALPR surveillance system and calls into question the rights of individuals to due process. When personal data can be gathered and used without probable cause or any formal legal sanction, it deprives the victims of this surveillance of their ability to ensure fairness and proper procedure in their treatment. Popular oversight and transparency are nonexistent in the current ALPR regime. |
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> | Law enforcement’s ability to collect, search, employ, and redistribute this information without the issuance of a warrant exacerbates this constitutional problem. It amplifies the unreasonableness of the ALPR surveillance system and calls into question the rights of individuals to due process. Whereas license plates are meant to display vehicle registration information—something this paper does not challenge the constitutionality or practicality of—the comprehensive surveillance of that information rises to the level of constitutional concern specifically when it is so pervasive as to illustrate an individual's private activities and personal life. That information is not meant to be publicly available or subject to governmental registration. The mere fact that registration tags can be used as a proxy to gather protected information does not render that system of surveillance constitutional. |
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Improving the draft means addressing the central question. Automobiles are registered by the states, and are required to display highly-legible tags bearing the registration information. They are intended to communicate information that you do not dispute it is constitutional to require displayed. How then is there a constitutional problem with acquiring the information whose publication can be constitutionally required? You cite3 no cases of analogous holding, and I think there aren't any. So saying something more is clearly necessary. |