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* Sun-Times…
A lawsuit accuses Illinois State Police and state officials of operating an unconstitutional “system of dragnet surveillance” through license plate-reading cameras that track motorist’s whereabouts.
The suit, filed last week by Cook County residents Stephanie Scholl and Frank Bednarz, names the state police, Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Attorney General Kwame Raoul as defendants. […]
According to the suit, the images taken by state police cameras are stored in the Motorola Law Enforcement Archival Reporting Network for 90 days, but that retention limit can be changed at any time.
“Defendants could therefore extend the retention of such data indefinitely at their discretion,” the suit states. “ISP is tracking the movements of millions of citizens, including plaintiffs, and just holding onto that mass surveillance data in case one day some police officer decides to target plaintiffs for specific investigation — warranted or unwarranted.” […]
In 2021, state police were awarded more than $12 million in grant money to expand their network of high-definition surveillance cameras after a surge in expressway shootings.
The grant came a year after Pritzker signed the Tamara Clayton Expressway Camera Act, which required the state to install new cameras on expressways. The act was named for a postal worker who was shot and killed on her way to work on Interstate 57 in 2019.
* Liberty Justice Center is behind the lawsuit. It’s affiliated with the Illinois Policy Institute. From ABC Chicago…
Retired Chicago Police First Deputy Anthony Riccio says the readers are a very effective tool for police.
“It alerts an officer who is in a vehicle that a vehicle is wanted or if a vehicle has been stolen and really allows an immediate follow up by officers,” Riccio said. […]
Calling it dragnet surveillance, the Liberty Justice Center says if law enforcement wants to use license plate readers constitutionally, a warrant should be required. […]
The Liberty Justice Center plans to file similar lawsuits in others states that use the technology.
* Center Square…
In January of this year, ISP said they were increasing the use of technology to “target and track criminal activity.”
“Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs) capture a visual of vehicle license plates and anytime a wanted or suspected vehicle is detected by an ALPR, an alert is issued and law enforcement are better able to locate and track the vehicle,” the agency said.
Pritzker said then that the ALPRs around Chicago are “another step to enhance public safety for residents of and visitors to the nation’s third-largest city.”
By the end of 2022, ISP said 289 ALPRs were installed in the Chicago area. In 2023, 139 additional ALRPs were installed in Cook, St. Claire, Champaign and Morgan counties. For 2024, the agency said it planned installations in Macon, Madison, Peoria, Bureau, Lake and Winnebago counties with additional camera in Boon, DeKalb, DuPage, Grundy, Henry, Kane, Kendall, LaSalle, McHenry, Rock Island, Sangamon and Will counties as well along Lake Shore Drive in Chicago.
* From the suit…
Defendants are tracking anyone who drives to work in Cook County—or to school, or a grocery store, or a doctor’s office, or a pharmacy, or a political rally, or a romantic encounter, or family gathering—every day, without any reason to suspect anyone of anything, and are holding onto those whereabouts just in case they decide in the future that some citizen might be an appropriate target of law enforcement. […]
Plaintiffs, Cook County residents and drivers, challenge the warrantless, suspicionless, and entirely unreasonable tracking of their movements as an unreasonable search in violation of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments. […]
WHEREFORE, Plaintiffs respectfully request that this Court grant the following relief:
A. Enjoin the implementation of the operative version of the Tamera Clayton Expressway Camera Act, 605 ILCS 140/1 et seq.,
B. Enjoin Defendants from operating the existing system of ALPRs to track Plaintiffs.
C. Enjoin Defendants from installing additional ALPRs that would track Plaintiffs if they continues to drive cars in Illinois.
D. Award Plaintiffs their reasonable costs, expenses, and attorneys’ fees pursuant to any applicable law; and
E. Award Plaintiffs any additional relief the Court deems just and proper.
[Rich Miller contributed to this post.]
posted by Isabel Miller
Tuesday, Jun 4, 24 @ 11:26 am
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1. the roads are public. IF you don’t want to be surveilled drive on only private roads.
2. how does this differ from a cop on every corner writing down license plate numbers of all cars that pass by?
Comment by cermak_rd Tuesday, Jun 4, 24 @ 11:34 am
=1. the roads are public. IF you don’t want to be surveilled drive on only private roads.=
The 4th Amendment would like a word…
“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
Comment by JS Mill Tuesday, Jun 4, 24 @ 11:51 am
===1. the roads are public. IF you don’t want to be surveilled drive on only private roads.===
Man, you’d be right at home in Stalinist Russia.
Comment by Team America Tuesday, Jun 4, 24 @ 11:52 am
This tech seems to be a great tool for “Amber Alerts” and other situations where you are trying to locate suspects. But the push back sounds like the anti “shot-spotter” folks and the folks against using drones for crowd surveillance. This “slippery slope” crowd just seems to be dedicated to make law enforcement harder to do and almost impossible with new tools.
Comment by levivotedforjudy Tuesday, Jun 4, 24 @ 11:53 am
o no, I kinda agree with the IPI about something.
Not only do I share their Constitutional concerns, but this is ridiculous overcollection of data that will eventually be breached, and probably monetized.
But I do know how useful these are to law enforcement. I’d think some stricter guidelines around retention and use could make this more reasonable
Comment by Suburban Mom Tuesday, Jun 4, 24 @ 12:00 pm
I honestly don’t see the issue. You’re out and about on public roads, where everyone can see you. The cops aren’t intruding on your property or seizing your property. Whether it’s good policy is different.
Comment by Perrid Tuesday, Jun 4, 24 @ 12:06 pm
===1. the roads are public. IF you don’t want to be surveilled drive on only private roads. ===
Good news — I went to read Motorola’s documentation of the system, and they also provide extensive ALPRs to parking lots, retail stores, apartment complexes, etc., and share and combine that data with law enforcement data from state cameras. (One way — law enforcement data does not flow back to the privately-collected data.) They also purchase certain other commercial data to “enrich” the ALPR data for both private and government clients.
The security controls as documented are actually pretty appropriate (and FedRAMP compliant) on Motorola’s side; that says nothing about local police IT, though.
Comment by Suburban Mom Tuesday, Jun 4, 24 @ 12:07 pm
This seems like trolling.
Comment by Three Dimensional Checkers Tuesday, Jun 4, 24 @ 12:09 pm
=I honestly don’t see the issue. You’re out and about on public roads, where everyone can see you. The cops aren’t intruding on your property or seizing your property.=
With respect to all who have commented…the 4th Amendment is a protection from government (like the rest of the Bill of Rights) and not each other. In this case, the plate reader can be considered a search without proper probable cause or due process (a warrant).
I have never been on board with IPI or any of the false patriotically titled little entities like the liberty freedom american patriot jesus center or whatever. But this time I don’t think they are wrong. WHat is interesting to me is that in the past, conservative courts have always upheld these clear 4th Amendment infringements like “safety checks” and asset forfeiture. That might be changing, or it might just be just for 2nd Amendment and religion. We shall see.
Comment by JS Mill Tuesday, Jun 4, 24 @ 12:23 pm
Is it creepy and big brotherish? Yes. Unconstitutional? Nope. Your expectation of privacy on a public street is zero. Is there possibility this data will be breached or misused. Yes. So whether this should be done is debatable, but there is no legal barricade for the state to do this. Don’t like it? Elections matter…
Comment by Captain Obvious Tuesday, Jun 4, 24 @ 12:29 pm
The 4th amendment has nothing to do with a right to be free from being surveilled in public. It is pretty close to being a dead letter as far as what protections it affords you outside of your home. Probable cause isn’t the standard for pulling you over and once you’re sitting on the side of the road they are going to search your car if they want to. You can raise your constitutional objections after you’ve been fingerprinted and processed.
Very funny to watch conservatives pretend to care about the hollowing out of Americans’ constitutional rights in furtherance of the “war on drugs.”
Comment by Larry Bowa Jr. Tuesday, Jun 4, 24 @ 12:29 pm
When an elderly man in Chinatown was randomly gunned down a couple of years ago, a nearby camera got an image of the shooter’s license plate as he drove away. The plate number was entered into the state’s license plate reader system and a short time later a plate reader spotted the car on the Kennedy expressway, leading to the almost immediate arrest of the suspect. The shooter had no connection to the victim. It was a totally random act of mindless violence that could have easily been repeated by the shooter, but wasn’t because of the plate reader technology. That seems argue the program has a very compelling public interest. Perhaps the plaintiffs can point to a compelling example of the technology being misused, but I haven’t seen that yet.
Comment by Telly Tuesday, Jun 4, 24 @ 12:35 pm
While I am certain that the Supreme Court of the 1960s would find a volition of the Fourth Amendment I am not sure that the current originalists on the supreme court will see a problem.
Comment by Bigtwich Tuesday, Jun 4, 24 @ 12:40 pm
=Very funny to watch conservatives pretend to care about the hollowing out of Americans’ constitutional rights in furtherance of the “war on drugs.”=
First and foremost that is not me. I am not a “conservative” if that was directed at me. The 2020 election wasn’t stolen, racism is real, COVID was real, just put me down for a “No” on any maga argument.
Running your plates for no reason can be considered a search.
Your constitutional rights follow you everywhere you go, in home or out.
I disagree with your statement regarding probable cause and searches. I think you will find significant jurisprudence on that topic with a quick search. You are correct, referencing your rights may not stop law enforcement for conducting a search if they are determined to do it, but they will protect you afterward.
Comment by JS Mill Tuesday, Jun 4, 24 @ 12:41 pm
The Oklahoma bomber was caught using an ATM camera.
Comment by Bud grant Tuesday, Jun 4, 24 @ 12:55 pm
=== In this case, the plate reader can be considered a search without proper probable cause or due process (a warrant). ===
You are forgetting one big problem with that logic. The license plates are out in the public way for everyone to view. I would say that you do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy here since your license plate is in plain view of anyone in the vicinity. You do not need a warrant in that situation.
Comment by Hannibal Lecter Tuesday, Jun 4, 24 @ 1:07 pm
I’m in agreement that the use of these is not unconstitutional but I do not wear a robe. I’d like to see them expanded. It seems like they can be an effective tool to catch carjackers. I’m also in agreement with Suburban Mom’s suggestion about restrictions on use and retention.
Comment by Original Rambler Tuesday, Jun 4, 24 @ 1:09 pm
===The Oklahoma bomber was caught using an ATM camera.===
TOKC bomber Timothy McVeigh was caught by Oklahoma Trooper Charlie Hanger who made a routine traffic stop for driving a car with no license plates.
A good man performing his duties in an honorable fashion.
Comment by Occasionally Moderated Tuesday, Jun 4, 24 @ 1:11 pm
Torn on this one.
Imagine an alert goes out for a vehicle involved with a crime. Every ISP officer is asked to look at every license plate they see while driving on public highways to find the involved vehicle. How is that different than cameras on those highways doing it in real-time? Does it only become a fourth amendment violation when a camera looks at a plate vs. an officer?
Comment by NIU Grad Tuesday, Jun 4, 24 @ 1:12 pm
“overcollection of data that will eventually be breached, and probably monetized”
This is the key - governments can not be trusted with databases/ lists of tens of thousands of otherwise innocent individuals doing regular activities. The ALPR databases despite the promise that only gad guys are flagged and that the data is erased every so often - will be ripe for abuse. Look at ATF, CIA, and NSA they all illegally accessed or surveilled individuals via databases.
Comment by Donnie Elgin Tuesday, Jun 4, 24 @ 1:13 pm
Any devices or programs that improve pedestrian and traffic safety should be implemented. Any penalties and fines to improve public safety should be paid promptly. A “grace period” diminishes the impact of the violation.
As someone who was hit in a crosswalk on a major street in Chicago by a driver not paying attention to signals has impacted me to this day. An ambulance to the emergency room, x-rays, doctors’ visits, physical therapy…the list goes on. A fear of crossing the street never goes away.
Comment by Rudy’s teeth Tuesday, Jun 4, 24 @ 2:03 pm
=The license plates are out in the public way for everyone to view.=
Totally agree. But not everyone can run your plates through a tracking system or use it to look for priors etc.
For me, in my opinion, this isn’t about a violation of privacy because it definitely isn’t. As hard as it is for me to say, I don’t think the IPI (or whatever org they fund) is without some merit here. I also think it is interesting that they now seem to be interested in some of these rights that they were not heretofore concerned about when john law was confiscating the money of some landscaper when he was doing anything wrong just guilty of being a person of color.
Comment by JS Mill Tuesday, Jun 4, 24 @ 2:06 pm
I guess I have lived long enough to agree with IPI about something. My suburb has put these up in our crime free, middle to upper middle class a couple of years ago neighborhood for no valid reason. I would hate to think that they started putting them up because the neighborhood is now majority muslim american due to the proximity of a newer mosque, but I have my suspicions.
Then again, and this may be the tin foil hat talking, I really do believe that these cameras and readers may be causing as much or more crime as it may be solving. The Hyundai and Kia stuff aside ignitions issues aside, I don’t think it is an accident that auto thefts have been in a steady trajectory upward almost in parallel with the increased use of these cameras.
Comment by Benniefly2 Tuesday, Jun 4, 24 @ 2:19 pm
There is a constitutional theory that at least some justices have entertained that public cameras might violate the constitution is they are so pervasive that it allows the government to completely monitor a person’s real-time movement at each point in their journey through the public spaces. The state camera law doesn’t come anywhere close to this standard.
Apropos of nothing, but the “Liberty Justice Center” has to be the worst name for an organization ever. It sounds like an Orwellian “reeducation” camp.
Comment by Duck Duck Goose Tuesday, Jun 4, 24 @ 2:22 pm
“I disagree with your statement regarding probable cause and searches.”
First, I wasn’t directing my comment about conservatives discovering a love for freedom from unreasonable search and seizure at you or anyone else here, but rather IPI/Liberty Justice Center.
Second, it’s not my opinion as to whether they need probable cause to pull you over. Reasonable suspicion is the requirement for a lawful stop in Illinois. The case is People v. Hackett from 2012.
Comment by Larry Bowa Jr. Tuesday, Jun 4, 24 @ 2:24 pm
I slightly buried it in snark, but part of the problem is that you ARE being tracked on private roads, etc. — especially if you live in a rental complex — and that data is being given to the police. And that Motorola is “enriching” the data with other data, presumably acquired from data brokers.
Even if capturing license plates in public places isn’t privacy violating (although I think constantly surveilling every car on the road without probable cause is, in fact, kinda violative), combining that data with other data sets very rapidly becomes extremely privacy violating. This is a lot of what I do at my job, look at how combining one innocuous data set with another innocuous data set is suddenly a terrifying and possibly life-destroying privacy violation.
I’m sure a lot of police departments are using these exactly as intended (ALPRs were used in finding the Highland Park shooter) for exactly the right reasons. But I’m also sure there are police departments combining this with consumer data profiles about you and basically doing predictive policing, or targeting you based on protected characteristics, or similar. There need to be stronger guardrails on how and when the police can use the data, when it must be deleted, and much stricter guidelines on what other data can be combined with this data. There also need to be restrictions on private users of the same technology.
This is fundamentally real-time geolocation data being gathered without your knowledge or consent. That is basically always privacy-violating, so it needs very strict guidelines.
Comment by Suburban Mom Tuesday, Jun 4, 24 @ 2:50 pm
Benniefly2, how do you connect increased thefts with increased use of cameras?
Comment by Original Rambler Tuesday, Jun 4, 24 @ 3:44 pm
=== But not everyone can run your plates through a tracking system or use it to look for priors etc. ===
That is not a 4th Amendment issue. The police can always run your plates to check for outstanding warrants, priors, etc. and traffic stops based on information learned from running a license plate is not a 4th Amendment violation.
Comment by Hannibal Lecter Tuesday, Jun 4, 24 @ 4:01 pm
You’re either for a police state or against it?
Comment by Cheswick Tuesday, Jun 4, 24 @ 5:11 pm
= Second, it’s not my opinion as to whether they need probable cause to pull you over. Reasonable suspicion is the requirement for a lawful stop in Illinois. The case is People v. Hackett from 2012.=
As a dedicated lifelong learner I appreciate your specific evidence. Learn something new everyday.
Thanks for the clarification.
We use the same standard in schools. I am not sure how that really changes my concerns about a lack of reasonable suspicion to essentially run your plates en mass.
I get that it does have positive benefits. So does stop and frisk (I might not be using the exact term there but you know what I mean) because it can get illegal guns off the street. But that one was severely abused and I can definitely see that with plate readers.
With respect.
Comment by JS Mill Tuesday, Jun 4, 24 @ 5:21 pm
There was a book I read that talked about an interesting extension of this idea. In part to deal with IEDs in Afghanistan and Iraq technology that had been developed so that ‘eyes high in the sky’ basically a few high-flying drones could capture all vehicle traffic.
The idea was that you could use to backtrack and try and figure out where an IED might have come from.
Now imagine the same sort of thing flying over Chicago and after a drive it is used to backtrack and follow the paths of the shooters back to their homes.
As for the constitutionality of the plate readers, is it considered a search if it takes a warrant to ‘identify’ the data?
If you have done some data work and know what plates you are interested in and get a warrant to find out more about those plates, has a warrantless search occurred?
Comment by OneMan Tuesday, Jun 4, 24 @ 10:01 pm
Here’s a brief University of Michigan policy paper on some problems with ALPRs, including that they misidentify license plates about 10% of the time (according to industry advocates) or about 37% of the time (according to nonprofit industry critics). They get around 47 hits for every million license plates, which is wildly tiny. And yes, there is evidence of police misusing them to stalk former romantic partners, attempt to prove a spouse is cheating, harass journalists, and other things you could imagine doing with such a gigantic trove of car data. https://stpp.fordschool.umich.edu/sites/stpp/files/2023-02/ALPR%20Memo%20Final%20Jan%202023_0.pdf
(And YES they are almost definitely being used to target minority communities, and YES they are probably being used post-Dobbs to track women trying to get out-of-state for abortions.)
In my opinion, they should be used in real time for active Amber alerts and active car-involving felonies (including fleeing from the felony). But for misdemeanors and anything that’s retrospectively looking back at data to find patterns or evidence, that should require a warrant. There should be clear retention limits and deletion requirements of data after 90 days or less (unless acquired by warrant or used in the investigation of an active felony), and police should not be able to use it for non-car-related crimes. Like, if I’m selling loosies and doing some low-key misdemeanors, the police should not be able to get a warrant to find out I’m also speeding on the Tri-State. (Everybody’s speeding on the Tri-State except people who don’t understand how the social contract works.)
One of the core tenets of data privacy is transparency, which means that the state, the police, and Motorola should be absolutely clear on what data they’re recording, where and when they’re recording it, WHY, and how it can and cannot be used. We also absolutely need to know what data Motorola is combining with state-collected ALPRs, and what data they CAN combine with them.
Police use of the system MUST be publicly auditable. And it’s fine to run those audits through the Attorney General’s office or a state university research facility, who provide audits to all user-communities every year and flag possibly non-compliant uses, and disguise or aggregate compliant uses to prevent investigation methods or ongoing investigations from becoming public. But if you access HIPAA-protected records for a famous patient out of curiosity, that’s an immediate firing for unauthorized access, and the audit trail provides the evidence. Cops should be subject to the same scrutiny; if Officer Bob is constantly looking up plates of his neighbors and exes, Officer Bob needs to be fired and prevented from serving elsewhere.
Comment by Suburban Mom Tuesday, Jun 4, 24 @ 11:00 pm