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Apparently, it was not a well-pleaded case

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Illinois

* Background from NBC 5…

A lawsuit accuses Illinois State Police and state officials of operating an unconstitutional “system of dragnet surveillance” through license plate reading cameras which 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 Atty. Gen. Kwame Raoul as defendants.

“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,” the suit states.

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, “challenges the warrantless, suspicion less, and entirely unreasonable” tracking as a violation of the Fourth and Fourteenth amendments.

The lawsuit was filed by the Liberty Justice Center.

* Welp…

* From the opinion…

Because their alleged constitutional injuries are not sufficiently imminent, plaintiffs lack standing to enjoin the warrantless use of the LEARN database. […]

Indeed, plaintiffs’ attempt to sue Governor Pritzker and Attorney General Raoul under Ex parte Young is foreclosed by Ex parte Young itself. … Accordingly, Governor Pritzker and Attorney General Raoul are dismissed. […]

Plaintiffs, of course, are concerned less with the license plates themselves and more with what the [Automated License Plate Reader] data reveals about their movements. But “[a] person travelling in an automobile on public thoroughfares has no reasonable expectation of privacy in his movements from one place to another.” […]

In reaching this conclusion, the court joins the nearly uniform consensus of courts that have evaluated the constitutionality of ALPRs and held that their uses “were not Fourth Amendment searches requiring warrants or probable cause.” State v. Sidor, 558 P.3d 621, 631 (Ariz. Ct. App. 2024) (collecting cases); see, e.g., United States v. Porter, No. 21-cr-00087, 2022 WL 124563 (N.D. Ill. Jan. 13, 2022); United States v. Brown, No. 19-cr-00949, 2021 WL 4963602 (N.D. Ill. Oct. 26, 2021); United States v. Toombs, 671 F. Supp. 3d 1329 (N.D. Ala. 2023); Commonwealth v. McCarthy, 142 N.E.3d 1090 (Mass. 2020); Sidor, 558 P.3d at 629. But see Schmidt v. City of Norfolk, No. 2:24-cv-621, 2025 WL 410080 (E.D. Va. Feb. 5, 2025); Commonwealth v. Bell, 113 Va. Cir. 316 (Va. Cir. Ct. 2024).

Plaintiffs have until April 30th to try again.

posted by Rich Miller
Tuesday, Apr 1, 25 @ 8:44 am

Comments

At this point I think we can assume that we have “no reasonable expectation of privacy” anytime we step out the door of our home. And even in the home has become suspect.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has created a database of public surveillance that is fascinating.

https://atlasofsurveillance.org/

Comment by OutHereInTheMiddle Tuesday, Apr 1, 25 @ 8:59 am
Sadly, there appears to be no limits on government.

Comment by Steve Tuesday, Apr 1, 25 @ 9:09 am
==Sadly, there appears to be no limits on government.==

How is this harming you? You’re out in public. You’re under surveillance by cameras in some cities already. Government has an interest in doing this. Nobody is infringing on your rights.

Comment by Demoralized Tuesday, Apr 1, 25 @ 9:24 am
The Liberty Justice Center wins at fundraising.

Comment by walker Tuesday, Apr 1, 25 @ 9:25 am
The ongoing tracking of movement by US citizens is disturbing, although I suspect the ruling will hold up that this is not a “search”. Still it feels un-American and contrary to the whole “land of the free” concept.

Comment by Friendly Bob Adams Tuesday, Apr 1, 25 @ 9:32 am
Maybe someone should tell the ACLU about internet surveillance capitalism. Google knows more than your ALPR. And Google is one of the “better” actors.

Comment by Nope. Tuesday, Apr 1, 25 @ 9:51 am
This issue has already been decided. First you are in public so no right to privacy. Two you don’t own the license plates the state does.

Comment by Common Sense Tuesday, Apr 1, 25 @ 9:57 am
Common Sense - Obviously you are correct on both points. The issue is oversight. Who monitors access to citizen’s location data to ensure that it is used for legal purposes? Or is it OK for a bad actor to track his/her ex’s location? Or to stalk someone?

No transparent oversight simply means no control.

Comment by OutHereInTheMiddle Tuesday, Apr 1, 25 @ 10:33 am
@Common Sense April 1, 9:57
Ding, Ding, Ding. Common Sense is the winner for the day. There is no expectation of privacy while in public. And keep in mind, you rent those plates from the state for $151 a year, they are not your personal property. LPR cameras are utilized on a daily basis to assist law enforcement in locating criminals and gathering evidence to solve financial and violent crimes across the state. The state is not tracking your visits to the doctor’s office or your romantic affairs, sheesh, stay grounded people.

Comment by It's not hard Tuesday, Apr 1, 25 @ 10:43 am
Somehow sometime ALPR will be used to figure out miles driven for tax purposes

Comment by DuPage Saint Tuesday, Apr 1, 25 @ 10:55 am
Do I think the ruling is correct? Absolutely. Applying the law to the facts makes it a slam dunk. Am I comfortable with the government potentially tracking my movements on the highway? Not at all. But it is what it is. Am I comfortable that the location data will be kept secure and only used for legitimate law enforcement purposes. Also no. Perhaps our governor and legislature could address this issue and provide at least nominal reassurance that the data generated will not be used nefariously.

Comment by Captain Obvious Tuesday, Apr 1, 25 @ 10:56 am
You’re in public. You don’t have the right to privacy. Nobody is sitting around tracking people unless they have a reason to track you because you’ve committed a crime.

Comment by Demoralized Tuesday, Apr 1, 25 @ 10:59 am
It occurs to me that current law may address the security of this data but it is a relatively new type of data made possible by technological advances that might not fit current statutes.

Comment by Captain Obvious Tuesday, Apr 1, 25 @ 11:02 am
-This issue has already been decided-

Do you want the Trump Justice Department monitering their enemies via plates?

Comment by Steve Tuesday, Apr 1, 25 @ 11:15 am
A better approach to this might be the fact that the readers that are being used to scan plates are not always secured and have been demonstrated as being something that can be accessed by anyone to privately collect these troves of data as the government has failed to protect the information it has collected about people.

Generally speaking new state and federal laws may need to be adopted to consider this level of protection. I can’t imagine that many reasonable people would think that it is good to build a massive database of their movements, regardless of whether or not there is an expectation of privacy. There’s a difference between tailing a suspect and building a database like everyone is a suspect so that their movements can be tracked.

I can’t imagine that this “loophole” of the government being able to actively spy on and build databases of peoples private activity while in public spaces was ever the intent of the language.

I’m sure the Governor, Attorney General and State Police likes it now, but ya know, when it starts getting used to round up people for utilizing their rights under the first amendment, maybe they’ll get why it is a bad idea.

Especially with the Feds now arguing that because they sent someone to a foreign country without due process “on accident” that it is a moot point because now that they’re in a foreign county the Feds have no authority over the matter. Which is quite literally what the Nazis did to strip people of their citizenship.

Pritzker gives speeches telling me and everyone else he wants us in the streets while maintaining the practice of creating massive databases of everyone who listens to him.

Great work, Governor. Wonder if any savvy folks could use this data to identify folks who went to the Trans Visibility rally in Chicago over the weekend?

Comment by Candy Dogood Tuesday, Apr 1, 25 @ 11:16 am
Now sure they show any instance the data has been miss used. Meanwhile there have been several examples of mopes on the expressways shooting and other motorists. The plate readers have led to their prosecutions. Guessing most clear thinkers believe that is a plus.

Comment by Annonin' Tuesday, Apr 1, 25 @ 11:30 am
===How is this harming you? You’re out in public. You’re under surveillance by cameras in some cities already. Government has an interest in doing this. Nobody is infringing on your rights.

It’s pretty clearly Constitutional, but we should also put strong limits on usage and requirements for deletion after a set period of time. You have no expectation of privacy, but the law has not evolved. You should have a right to not have your movements tracked which is different from having a license plate read. The state needs to limit usage of the data to specific purposes and delete data after a set period of time. Also, such information should not be FOIAble unless used in a criminal case.

Comment by ArchPundit Tuesday, Apr 1, 25 @ 11:35 am
=== The state needs to limit usage of the data to specific purposes ===

If there’s anything that we can count on and expect from experience with databases like this is that it already is being abused by people who have access to it to look up the license plate activity of neighbors, friends, family members, the person they thought was attractive at the gym, and so on and so forth.

The suggestion that since this database is simply a database that reports where specific license plates were scanned at what times isn’t an invasion of privacy when it is queried isn’t something I specifically agree with if it is constitutional then I agree it absolutely needs to be legislated and controlled.

In addition to limits on the usage of the data, people should receive notification via USPS and email at the addresses provided to the SOS for vehicle registration when this information is accessed including time and date, who specifically accessed it, and the purpose for which they claim it was accessed. Otherwise we’re essentially just allowing the police to amass a database that allows them to engage in warrantless stalking without the victim having a prayer of knowing that it is occurring.

Comment by Candy Dogood Tuesday, Apr 1, 25 @ 11:54 am
@CommonSense -

Also, license plate scanners do not track people, they track vehicles, and vehicles do not have a Privacy Right.

Note for example that people do have some privacy rights in public places, for example audio recordings usually require a warrant.

Comment by Thomas Paine Tuesday, Apr 1, 25 @ 1:23 pm
==The state needs to limit usage of the data to specific purposes and delete data after a set period of time.==

Legislation to do just that has been floating around since at least 2015. Not sure where it stands now or the last time such a bill was run.

Comment by Leslie K Tuesday, Apr 1, 25 @ 2:07 pm
“Government has an interest in doing this. Nobody is infringing on your rights.” Always reliable for a groveling boomer point of view. It must be freeing to reflexively give up critical thinking about your own self-interest to “the government” because cops know what’s best for you.

Comment by Payback Tuesday, Apr 1, 25 @ 2:20 pm
ALPR’s can’t track you per say.

This lawsuit was against the state police. Their alpr’s are on the interstates so it’s pretty tough to know where people go from there.

Misusing the alpr data for inappropriate personal reasons would be akin to using any police database for inappropriate reasons. Officers have been charged criminally with Official Misconduct and fired for that.

Comment by Occasionally Moderated Tuesday, Apr 1, 25 @ 2:38 pm
@Payback:

LOL. No, I’m just not part of the tinfoil hat club who thinks anyone is tracking this stuff 24 hours a day. I have zero problems with this. But again I’m not an anti-government nut.

Comment by Anonymous Tuesday, Apr 1, 25 @ 3:25 pm
Sorry. That was me above.

Comment by Demoralized Tuesday, Apr 1, 25 @ 3:25 pm
I just want to point out that for this specific case, the Expressway Camera Act mandates that all images are deleted after 120 days, unless needed for an ongoing investigation or criminal case. So the concern expressed in a lot of comments for this particular instance is not warranted. Also, the images are limited to being used for specific purposes. Now should that be expanded to all cameras? Probably, however I’m guessing there aren’t many, if any, agencies that maintain the images in perpetuity for the simple reason the storage costs would be cost prohibitive.

Comment by MyTwoCents Tuesday, Apr 1, 25 @ 3:34 pm
Privacy is in your head…a friend of mine who was Vice Admiral on a nuclear aircraft carrier told me they had 4K satellite images that could read an open book on the ground….circa 1960.

Comment by Dotnonymous x Tuesday, Apr 1, 25 @ 4:05 pm