Calabasas CA
10-09-2024 10:24pm

1984: Big Brother is Watching You...40yrs Later

A 500,000 allocation of funds for Automated License Plate Readers comes on heels of numerous other cities incorporating the technology to locate those who violate traffic laws.

While the Fifth and Sixth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution do not specifically cite "innocent before proven guilty" it is a presumed narrative based upon the protections of those amendments for the benefit of the innocent.

The exact verbiage of AB2773 from 2022 is "Each state and local agency that employs peace officers shall annually report to the Attorney General data on all stops conducted by that agency’s peace officers for the preceding calendar year."

However, it further states: (c) This section shall become operative on January 1, 2024.

2806.5.

(a) A peace officer making a traffic or pedestrian stop, before engaging in questioning related to a criminal investigation or traffic violation, shall state the reason for the stop. The officer shall document the reason for the stop on any citation or police report resulting from the stop.(b) Subdivision (a) does not apply when the officer reasonably believes that withholding the reason for the stop is necessary to protect life or property from imminent threat, including, but not limited to, cases of terrorism or kidnaping.

Automated License Plate Readers

October 2024

Contrast the allocation of $500,000 by sole Republican Councilman John Lee, for the purchase and implementation of 100 license plate readers, ALPRs, to be installed in HIS DISTRICT. The West SFV initiated the bill 1/10/24 and it speedily made its way across committees and budget approval. According to Lee's press release

Mobile ALPRs are already installed in about 1,500 LAPD patrol cars, and there are about five dozen of the devices scattered around the city.

Meanwhile, the effort has the attention of NYU Policing Project: "Absent regulation, the use of ALPRs by law enforcement can have significant consequences for civil liberties, civil rights, and racial justice. "

While Sheriff Luna credits it for the identification of a suspect for the murder of three homeless persons between Nov-Dec 2023, he was already being held for murder of another homeless person "this individual that we believe is responsible for at least four murders may have been out there and re-offended," said L.A. County Sheriff Robert Luna. At the time of the arrest, it was not directly attributed to License Plate Readers but rather a vague "surveillance cameras".

Real Time Watch Centers: RTWC

The Real Time Crime Centers Association NRTCCA offers a training & consulting program for agencies that would like to either receive training and/or receive assistance with creating a Real Time Crime Center.

"In the 1990s, London built the Ring of Steel—a network of concrete barriers, checkpoints, and thousands of video cameras around the historic City of London—after bombings by the Irish Republican Army. The idea was to monitor everyone entering and leaving the Square Mile, what the The New York Times later called “fortress urbanism.”  The Quiet Rise of Real-Time Crime Centers | WIRED

December 2023

  • 300 cities across the country had RTWC's.
  • Beverly Hills already had 50 ALPR's in strategic locations, in addition to 2400 cameras as a part of their RTWC.
  • LAPD gave details to the Los Angeles Police Commission 12/12/23 of the plans for Real-Time Crime Centers in three of its 21 divisions
    • Pending approval the three locations will be: Downtown Corridor, Hollywood and Van Nuys.
    • Objections came from
      • Stop LAPD Spying Coalition, a "community based abolitionist group working to dismantle the national security police state." 's Matyos Kidane, a Tigrayan immigrant, from the organization suggested citation of statistics were: "just to fear-monger. It's just to increase these surveillance cameras."
      • Matyos had objected to Police Helicopters in October 2023 "State Eyes in the Sky: On the History of Helicopters in Policing"

Mobile ALPRs are already installed in about 1,500 LAPD patrol cars, and there are about five dozen of the devices scattered around the city.

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