What's the privacy concern with license plate readers? | Hour 2

What's going on. Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to three on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron, go to thepeakclendershow dot com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button. Get every episode for free right to your smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for your support. All right, so, last hour we were talking about this request from the State Bureau of Investigation and the North Carolina dot in partnership with SBI. But SBI is really the one doing. The effort of placing cameras, sorry, license plate scanners. Not cameras, license plate scanners. They want every point of entry in North Carolina to be covered by a scanner that will read the license plates of the cars coming into the state. And the idea here is it's SBI. So the idea here is that you know, if somebody is fleeing from another state, they are wanted. Whatever, you've got a stolen car, you know, any kind of like bolo that goes out, whatever about a license plate, you now would scan it and then it would flag it in the system and say, hey, just got a hit on this car on this license plate. Right, And so people are raising privacy concerns, and this is prompting some towns to be like, we're out, We're not going to participate in any of this program. And I'm just trying to understand what the privacy concern is, because I've not heard anybody articulate what the privacy concern actually is to scan a license plate. All right, let me jump over and chat with Brett. Hello, Brett, can you hear me? I can hear you? Just fine? Oh, growl and then tell you I couldn't hear you, but I figured I can hear you, so I was just going to share. I had no idea of the vast network of the cameras until about a month and a half ago. My eighty two year old mother, who always takes the same little five and a half mile route to the grocery store, into the bank, into the hairdresser, calls me at random on a Wednesday and says, I don't know where I am and I'm like, tell me more. And apparently she missed a turn and drove like thirty minutes down Lawyer's Road, you know, away from Minhill and says, I don't know where I'm at. And you know, I'm like, okay, go in to the store and give me an address, and you know, call me right back or stay on the phone. She hangs up and then does something to her phone, and she's no longer reachable. And so I called them Minhill police. They tell me to call the Charlotte Police. Charlottelice comes calling, uniqu County Police, Uned County Police, some men call them, Monroye police, Monroe Police tells mean to call Charlotte back. Blah blah blah blah blah, round and round around, and one of the detectives heard my frantic voice on the phone and calls me back and says, hey, give me her license plate. I'm going to look at the cameras, And in real time they were able to locate the last place they saw, which was oddly enough, on the way back towards her house, and I was able to zoom in and find her. And I had no idea of I think. He said there was like ten thousand cameras he was tapped into. And what made it worse is my mother's license plate had a AND symbol on it, so the license plate readers didn't know whether it was an R or another character. The technology is baffling, and the privacy issue, it's no different than you having black windows tinted. You know, there's a need to be able to see in the car for people when you're out, you know, in the real world. So I see no issue with the privacy. I'm a big fan. Yeah. No, well, I'm glad it worked out. You found your mom, all right. Yeah, but that's precisely why they want the scanner. And one of the reasons why they want the scanners is to locate missing people, abducted children, wanted criminals and the like. And I understand, you know a lot of times people are sold, you know, a promise of security in exchange for some liberty to give up. I totally understand that, but I'm I'm struggling to understand what the liberty is that is being lost in this particular case, in this scenario. And like another caller texted you, I think it is a state owned plate. You're required to give it back when you change tags or move out of state, or you're going to get a penalty. Whoops. Okay, Brett, Yeah, I appreciate the call, Star, thank you. Have a great weekend. All right, Well, sell you. I've had they let me keep my plates, like for real. I went to turn them in and they were like, no, you can keep it. So I've got a couple of license plates in my garage. One from South Off Carolina, got Christie's old plate. I got my old plate. Yeah, we got a couple of them. Yeah, Joe says. Those black pole cameras are everywhere from Lancaster to Munro. The privacy issues are not for crimes, but for morality such as cheating on the spouse. But you think SBI is monitoring for cheaters. Like that? Doesn't like even in. A divorce proceeding, they like, they cannot get access to video cameras like that. The only time that happens is something in some sort of a criminal investigation where they would be able to access this information the video. And again, this isn't video, this is just a scanner of the plate. Dave says, Will DOT have access opens this up to start a road usage tax? Okay? And if they tried to do that, I would oppose that seven to one six number says you don't have to give permission for the cameras they are placed in public. You have no expectation of privacy in public. The Supreme Court has affirmed that I could put up a camera record where you're going or what you're doing in your car, and so long as I don't have a pattern of following you around like stalking behavior, it's one hundred percent legal. And since North Carolina is a one party consent state, I can record your audio without your permission or knowledge as well. Also, I hope none of you have smartphones. Did you read the fine print when you sign the contract with the carrier, especially newer phones, because if you think you have a Wi Fi and Bluetooth off, you might want to rethink that the phone is still broadcasting your location and data twenty four to seven. Whether it's your GPS gyroscope inside the phone, it's sending out information to somewhere. They can now pin your location within several feet of where you're standing or where your phone is physically sitting. Most larger national retailers also know when you walk into and out of their stores, and if you connect to their Wi Fi for some reason, you better have read the fine print on their terms of service. Plus your new fancy car transmits that kind of data constantly too. Between your cell phone data and your car's data, various entities know who you are, exactly where you are, how fast you're going, if you've crashed, and transmit that then to nine to one one, sometimes automatically without a human doing so. This is so I found this out. I was driving to pick up Christy. She had dropped her car off for some service work, and so I was going to pick her up. And on the way there, I come off of the interstate and I've got to get all the way over to the left, like within one stoplight, right, So I merge right. And this is early in the morning, so there aren't there are like no cars on the road. Okay, it's early on like a Saturday morning. And I pull off and there was a guy driving like an absolute maniac behind me. So when I come through the merge lane, he drives across the painted stripes in order to get around me. Well, that is that is unusual behavior, to say the least. I was not expecting that because as I start to then go left to move into the lanes, that's when he comes racing up behind me, and I mean I almost went right into him. But me, being the fantastic driver that I am, I was able to avert disaster, you know. But it required me to slam on my brakes. And when I did that, all of a sudden, my phone starts dialing nine to one one, which was nuts. So yeah, like that's the phone recognized that the slamming on the brakes with such force that it triggered a nine to one one call. It knew I was in the car, and it knew that that was a very hard break or because I came to a stop because we were coming up on a stoplight, and it turns out the guy worked at the dealership and was late for work, and so it was driving like a maniac to get to work. First, I did not rat him out to the boss, but I totally could have. But I'm a good person. You know. Stories are powerful. They help us make sense of things, to understand experiences. Stories connect us to the people of our past while transcending generations. They help us process the meaning of life, and our stories are told through images and videos. Preserve your stories with Creative Video started in nineteen ninety seven and Minhill North Carolina. It was the first company to provide this valuable service, converting images, photos and videos into high quality produced slide shows, videos and albums. 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They're scanners on various roads all around the state and they want to keep doing more in the program. They're asking for it to be extended through twenty twenty eight. John says, is it too much to ask that we not be forced to constantly litigate our rights on the thresholds of encroachment at every single point. How about some deference to a buffer for crying out loud? Would it kill us to not live on the slippery slope and instead treated like a poisonous snake? Okay, again, what rights are being infringed? This is why I keep asking this. I'm open to hear the argument. I've just like, of all the people who have written in so far, I've not heard a single example or an argument about how somebody's right is being infringed by the states scanning a license plate on the road. Make the argument, make the case, give me some reason, not like some Oh, this could be a slippery slope. I understand that, and I know how slippery slopes work. I have slid down them. But I'm not real clear as to why this is a slippery slope. If you're saying then that the state is going to use this the scanning technology in order to do something with it, then that's an argument to be made. But they're not. The state is saying that the what they're using it for is to catch wanted criminals. Right. They're using it if a if a car is stolen, plate comes back stolen, there's a bolo out on a plate, there's an amber alert or something, a silver alert, Like, that's the point of scanning the plates. They're not using it to track down cheaters, right, you want to go have an affair or something whatever, like DOT is not scanning your to make sure you're faithful to your spouse. So I'm not Like, again, I'm trying to understand the quote privacy concerns, but I've not heard a legitimate privacy concern here. And again, it is a license plate that is publicly visible on your car. They like, we have been using license plates since basically the advent of the motor vehicle. So if you're gonna say I'm not allowed to am I allowed to look at your license plate? Or do I have to avert my eyes? Right? Am? I? Like? Seriously, if you're saying that just simply seeing the license plate, that's an invasion of privacy or that's some sort of loss of rights or an impingement on liberty or something just to see the license plate is a is a police officer. If a cop is driving down the road and they see a license plate in front of them, and they'll they'll type it in and run it through, see what's up. And if if oh, look at that this thing pinged back as a you know, as a bolo, be on the lookout. Police officers do that. They run license plates through while they're sitting at a stop light or something. They'll put your license plate in see if there's anything, you know, if you're wanted for anything. Is that illegal? Is that an infringement of your rights? Again, the license plate is put on the vehicle for all to see, including law enforcement. That's kind of the point. And here's another thing. Will the license plate scanners maybe help crack down on these stupid thirty day tags that people are buying on the internet. Maybe this could help with that too. I don't know, Tim says, Traffic cameras. Okay, this is not try I'm not talking about traffic cameras. I'm not talking about red light cameras. I'm not talking about cameras. I'm talking about the scanner for the license plates. Go ahead with the cameras, lose a little freedom, a little freedom. There soon you are in a virtual prison. Remember the book nineteen eighty four by Orwell. Even the televisions of the day spied on you inside your own house. Oh wait, at least it's for your safety, don't you get it? Dude, Tim, I hope you don't have a cell phone. You better not have a cell phone. You better not have a smart TV or anything that does any kind of voice activation anything like that, because it's do you have an Alexa or what's the other one? I forget, but like people put those things in, I don't have one of those. I mean, I have a cell phone and I know that thing's always on. I know it is. And people will say, oh no, like Alexa says, they don't ever listen in on the conversations. That's not true. How do you activate that device? You call out to it? How does it know that you've called out to it? Yes, it's listening. This is a license plate scanner on public roads. You do not have any expectation of privacy on a public street. So I'm again, I'm not understanding what the privacy concern is. All I'm getting are hypothetical future predictions of how somebody could use the technology in afarious way. Yes, and you know what, that same argument applies to guns. Yeah, people make the same argument with firearms. On the left, the gun grabbers say that it's a tool in the hands of nefarious actors. Yes, it can be very damaging. It's just a tool. I'm not talking about cameras that are monitoring everybody at all times. I'm talking about license plate scanners fixed at the entry points into the state. Oh my gosh, forty six texts. Probably most of them are telling me that the station's off air. That's probably what most of them are. I just want to be guaranteed my travel and driving habits are not sold to private entities. For example, he just left the state and his home is now empty. Okay, you're into a whole different world than if you're thinking the SBI is selling the license plate reader data to home indators and burglars. I don't I don't even know how to respond to that. Okay, it's all a distraction, says how many people upset about privacy concerns of license plate readers put all their business up on the Facebook's that's a good point. Do you know who the state is contracting with for the scanners is a Flock. Yes, in some cases it is this company called Flock. Nationally, Flock has been under scrutiny for the types of data it makes available for its clients and because some live streaming surveillance cameras were left open to the public, which by the way, I have a text measures here who says that they should be able to see it all. Everybody should be able to see all of it then. But that's what Flock got in trouble for. And there are people that want these cameras in their neighborhoods to keep people out of their neighborhood, to know who's in their neighborhood. And like, I've got neighbors that have said this very thing. We've had people that come into our neighbor and like our neighborhood, there's only one road in Okay, And so when you get people that come in and they go around and they pop people's locks on their cars, you know, they check the handles and all that, and if people leave their doors unlocked, and then they go in and they steal stuff out of their cars, and so everybody gets all upset, you know, not it themselves. For leaving their cars unlocked and a loaded gun on the passenger seat or something. No, no, no, they didn't do anything wrong there. No, it's you know, we need flock cameras, we need to have surveillance, we need gates and whatever. So like there were all these things like how about you just you know, lock your doors and don't leave a gun in a car, you know, stuff like that. Back to the text line, Chris says, didn't we hack Iran's license plate readers to track their leaders before we bombed them? Believe that was their traffic cameras in Tehran? Seven oh four number says, if multiple agencies use scanner service, they can track you from one point to another. You know, one thing leads to another. See again, what is the so what is the other thing? So, like, do you if there's a man hunt underway for a bunch of Islamic radicals that just shot up a score and they are fleeing, would you not want there to be a license plate scanner somewhere on some road to say, hey, we got we got the license plate that just passed this point. But even so, it's like, and I understand, you know, they'll remember years ago when I forget what the proposed, Oh I think it was. I think it was maybe it was the creation of TSA or something like that, or maybe it was the Patriot Act. And then Congresswoman Sue Myrik, she was right here in this studio and she said something to the effect of, if you're not doing anything wrong, what do you have to worry about? Which that's not a good argument either, And that's not the argument I am making. I am I'm I'm. Pleading for somebody to tell me what is the privacy concern with a license plate scanner when police can do the very same thing but for the cost of putting police at every entry point into the state. They can do it on a public road. They can do this. They're allowed to look at your license plate, They're allowed to run it through a system. Now if you want to say, get rid of all license plates, so every vehicle is just, you know, incognito all the time. Nobody has any idea, the cops have no idea you know, what vehicles belong to whom and all of that. I mean, but I've not heard anybody making these arguments. I think Brett says, I think people are concerned about what's next after these cameras. Sure, look and I. Understand that too, but hypothesizing about what might be and getting all nervous about how somebody could use the tool in a bad way. I understand that. But if you put up you put up guardrails that say, you know, this is just for law enforcement. You don't sell any of the information. Nobody gets any of the any of the data whatever. Like That's that's a fair point, but that's not an argument against the idea of the scanners. I see cars every day that do not have a license plate. So what's the problem, right, Just do what Michael says, do what many Charlotte drivers do, drive without the license plates altogether. Okay, So yes, Scott asks if the government kicked BT off the air, no signals static radio signal is out, problems hearing the station? Have you on the app? Peat? The signal is down. Cannot hear you? I got a dead air next text. I've heard nothing but static radio and radio and now stream just went out. Can't hear you? Signal is out? I can hear you on the stream, Thank you, Jackie. Yes on live stream. It is coming through on an Amazon Alexa device. Oh my gosh, lost signal not transmitting coming in as static. I think the opposition to this by some people just speaks to how little we trust government now, says Jennifer. Yeah no, and I get that too. Isn't you saying only call if you can't hear me, the same as Democrats saying it the tax base shrinks, it's not because the policy failed. It's because those who left were avoiding their obligation. The system still worked for those committed to the community. Uh maybe, Um, it's just a it's a joke. That's the joke, Okay. But if I have to explain the joke, then it's probably not a funny joke. If you think that was a funny joke and you're listening on air on the FM signal, let me know, Okay, call in and let me know that you got the joke, all right. I got a message from Susan who says, I drive from North Carolina up through several states to visit a friend in Indianapolis. A week or so after I get home, I receive a bill for crossing a bridge in Indiana. Nefarious, no irritating absolutely. Well, Susan. I think that's because it was probably a toll bridge. You probably had to pay a toll to cross the bridge, and then you didn't you didn't have an easy pass or something, and so when you went across the bridge, they just they took a snapshot or or scanned your license plate and then they mail you. A bill because you didn't pay the toll. And then they mail and then you pay like. Like a fifteen dollars or twenty five dollars something, you know, additional fee for not having the easy pass. I gotta tell you it is very convenient. Like Christy and I both have the easy passes in our cars. You put whatever money you want to put into your account, you set it in there. And like when we drove up to New York a couple of years ago, we used a bunch of different toll roads and bridges and they all accept the same They all read the same thing. So it's whether it's easy pass or what do they call it the Georgia Pass or something down in Georgia. I got my brother in Atlanta. So we go see him, and it just reads the thing and it draws the money out of your account, and then you avoid that extra fee of like twenty five or fifty dollars whatever it is. I don't know. It's super convenient, and if you don't use it, then you don't pay obviously, So I think that's probably probably what nailed you. Okay, So that's favorite RUSS because there are several Russes that text in and he says, I hate that I cannot poke some holes in your scanner logic. I reflexively dislike it. I guess it comes down to the potential for misuse. But they already have so many other tools. I just think of things like prosecuting expired concealed carry holder permit holders while dismissing charges against felons in possession of a firearm during violent crimes. And I think this is also what Jennifer was saying, and it is what is pervasive in the people who are saying like, oh, this is what you know. It could be misused this way or that way or whatever. As the noted philosopher Billy Joel said, it's a matter of trust, right or lack thereof, And that is really the problem here, is that trust in law enforcement has so eroded. And I don't mean like police officers themselves. I'm talking about just sort of the general law enforcement, the judiciary, over zealous prosecutors, partisan prosecutors, right that we don't believe that there is an equal application of the law occurring. We see criminals getting special treatment, we see them getting released over and over and over and over again, and we worry that the tools that are sold to us as helping to catch criminals will not be used to actually do so. They will eventually be used much like a gun registry would would be used against law abiding citizenry after a government goes tyrannical. I get that, I do. I get that, but I don't understand when people talk about the privacy concerns, and these people are usually Democrats, and I don't understand what that privacy concern is. Seem like I'm I'm being very specific on what their opposition to it is, because you don't hear these Democrats saying anything like conservatives are saying. Conservatives are saying the things that y'all are saying on the text line and in the emails and on Twitter, y'all are saying, you're worried about how it will be used against the citizenry, But that requires the government to target citizens for some other reason, right for a tyrannical purpose. This is the same mentality for defending the Second Amendment rights. So I understand that from a conservative viewpoint. I share that view. However, when Democrats are up there telling me that there's some privacy concerns and you won't tell me explicitly what that privacy is that's being violated, well, now I'm thinking you don't want the scanners, not because of privacy and not because of a tyrannical government. You're afraid it's going to catch criminals. And I hate to say it, but you guys kind of have a bit of a track record here of not really wanting to, you know, catch and punish criminals. So that's what I think is actually driving the quote privacy concern argument from the left. They're not actually making an argument that there are privacy rights being infringed. They're worried that this might actually lead to the incarceration of criminals and we can't have that. Eric says. One nice thing about an older car is in North Carolina, if your car is thirty five years or older, you can put a plate from the year it was made on it, as long as you keep the issued plate in the car to show a cop if they need to see it, if the let the cameras get confused by the half dozen different plates that I have from my nineteen ninety Ford F one fifty. Next time your wife needs a mechanic, she should go to Jimmy's and she could drive your old car. Oh that's up in Ashville. Yes, I gave my well my car. This is an auto place up in Ashville, Jimmy's Automotive. I used to advertise for them, and when I was driving back up the mountain one day, my engine seized and so they towed it to their shop and they're like, dude, this thing's going to cost like, you know, six thousand dollars year old Hyundai Sonata. It doesn't It's not worth six thousand dollars. And I was like, well, it's like you want it, Like you can have the car if you'll pay for the tow and they were like okay. And so they worked on it for like a couple of months and they put a new engine in it and everything else, and they turned it into a loaner car. And then people would send me pictures of my Sonata. It's still on the road up there. I still every now and again I still get a picture from somebody up in the Asheville area. Ken the service guy says, I just got been got in my work truck. Yeah, we're not on air. Okay, on the app now, Yes, the app is working, the WBT app. So if you can't hear me on the radio, go over to the app. My little brother's car got stolen in Raleigh last year. They found it in twelve hours due to the license plate scanners. I'm a libertarian and I'm not against the state having access to a publicly displaced identified displayed identification method. Yeah. I mean that's the thing. It's a license plate. It's publicly displayed in public, and that means you do not have any expectation to privacy when you are in public. My only issue with the flock. Cameras are any other camera or any other camera, is let the police catch me if I'm doing something wrong, not some automated system. Okay, I cannot read that. If you send me a text with a curse word in it, I'm not going to read it. Yes, I am off air to do news and bruises. Is it news and bruises? Oh that's from what? Okay? No, it's news and bruis not news and bruises. That's going to be the UFC fight that we do later this year. Nine Ato says, I am on board with license plate cameras. We have them in Lancaster County and our sheriff uses it to avoid high speed chases and track thieves after being reported by retailers. The only excuse anybody would be opposed to this is the fear of everyone is guilty until proven innocent. There is no freedom quote quote unquote freedom lost here. People should just move to their bunker in the woods. There we go. LP readers license plate readers are mounted to some police cars. They're a great tool to catch people doing illegal things. Don't do bad stuff. You have no issue. Like you say, they are already watching every move we make. Just go on Google Earth for example. I got an idea. When the camera detect a Northeastern license plate, a series of signals turned them back to where they came from. I'm down for that. Redirect all the Yankees back, and I say that as a New Yorker. All right, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support. And the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast, so if you'd like, please support them too and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to dpetecallanershow dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.