Jake Rocco
Professor Nardone
Blogger Post
April 15, 2014
Editorial
Last year, Pennsylvania State
Police have started using computerized license-plate cameras in their patrols.
These cameras are mounted to the police vehicles to scan the license plates of
parked or passing cars. The computer will then automatically check the plate
number against police records of outstanding violations of law or regulations. Violations
can be either unpaid parking tickets to outstanding warrants for serious
crimes.
I big focus with this system is
targeting stolen cars but will scan the plates for any violation in the
database. This approach to surveillance of motorists has been a concern of
civil-liberties types’ right. The American Civil Liberties Union is now
involved with this issue about how widespread it has become.
Most of the data comes from
innocent people who might have a simple unpaid parking ticket. According to the
American Civil Liberties Union, in Maryland 29 million plates were scans but
police only received 58,000 (0.02%) matches in the database. Of that amount
only three percent we stolen vehicles/plates or outstanding warrants. Only 47
matches out of every million were connected to serious crimes.
This license-plate scanning technology
is not only used by police but by private companies as well. These private
companies use the scans to repossess cars, control access to gated communities,
and enforce parking-garage charges and others. With all this information being
collected from companies they often work with the police and share the
information with them if need be.
With the available of these
scanners becoming more wide-spread and lowered prices, it is easier for police
agencies to purchase them. Stated in a report from last January, it was
predicted that about 85 percent of police agencies in the United States could
have scanners within the next five years. Enough though
police are increasing the use of these scanners does not mean everyone is being
targeted. There has to be reasonable suspicion that you committed a crime
before reviewing the collected data. This restriction of accessing the data
means the police cannot look at the data with justifiable reason, like the act
of needing a search warrant.
The writer, Dan Hartzell of the
Morning Call, wrote this article well comparing it to a standard editorial
format. He got right the points and main information about these license plate
scanners. There are also two sides provided; one from the police stand-point
and one from the American Civil Liberties Union stand-point. He has equal
representation of both sides, and it was written in the third person but it did
not have any of his own opinions intergraded. The article was nicely broken
into two sections, “Among the highlights” and “Among the proposals, which made
the reader able to quickly read the most important points of the story.
Overall, this was a pretty standard editorial piece.
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