20
votes
License plate readers are creating a US-wide database of more than just cars
Link information
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- Authors
- Matt Burgess Dhruv Mehrotra, Lily Hay Newman, Jason Parham, Scott Gilbertson, Carlton Reid, Will Knight, Matt Burgess, Kate O'Flaherty, Kate Knibbs, Aarian Marshall, Andy Greenberg, Julian Chokkattu
- Published
- Oct 3 2024
- Word count
- 674 words
I am not sure why people seem surprised or offended by this.
Google cars roam the streets every day and have been for years. The rules on photographing from public spaces is well defined.
I hate it, but it would be naïve to think this wasn't happening. It is the cost of living in an area with few rules on recording in public compared to somewhere like Germany with (as I understand) strict public recording laws.
The issue for me is political context. This is similar to the problem with menstrual tracking apps when a significant number of US states have laws against abortion and prosecutors who might be interested in the information about your miscarriages.
Trump has been making speeches about revenge against people who oppose him and this kind of a database could be weaponized.
I don't think a political sign next to your house is comparable to using a menstrual tracking app? The point of putting up a sign is for anyone to be able to read it: friends, relatives, and strangers. And if it's next to your house, it's by no means anonymous. This is going public, standing up and telling everyone what you believe in hope of influencing people.
It doesn't seem reasonable to expect your neighbors to keep a secret while you tell the world. Nobody agreed to that; they can tell whoever they want what they saw on the street. Newspapers could report on this, and for famous people, often they do.
And yet, there's a difference in practice between "everyone in the neighborhood" and "everyone in the world," including strangers doing a database query years from now. I don't think we've really figured that out yet.
It would be nice to have a high-trust society where you can support a political cause without personal consequences. Sometimes we pretend that it's true, sometimes we worry that it's not true, and sometimes people want strangers they don't like to suffer consequences for what they said in public. It's sort of true since often, nobody cares and there are no consequences, but only for some people, some of the time, and you never know what will go viral.
Yes. I agree.
One key point for me is that most of us (outside of black people in the Jim Crow south) haven't had to worry about random consequences of most political speech other than some anomalous moments in history such as the red scare McCarthy period, the period just before the civil war, the revolutionary war period etc. We generally take free speech for granted and don't take precautions like people do in totalitarian societies.
Trump's vindictive rhetoric makes a lot of people, including me, extremely nervous about risks most Americans have never had to worry about.
As well as more recently in Mississippi.
Hopefully these will remain exceptions.
I'd say this news comes as a surprise, but it doesn't.
"The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it; moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment."
Just another step in the large march to dystopia.
The article does a good job of highlighting the problem, but doesn't provide any actionable steps for people to act on so they may be less affected.
I'm surprised people are still putting political bumper stickers on their vehicles with how often that causes targeted attacks, as is.
Mirror: https://archive.is/E5YVQ