FBI Wants to Buy Nationwide Access to License Plate Readers (404media.co) 101
The FBI is seeking up to $36 million for nationwide access to automated license plate reader (ALPRs) data, which could let it query vehicle movements across the U.S. and its territories through a commercial database. 404 Media reports: "The FBI has a crucial need for accessible LPRs to provide a diverse and reliable range of collections across the United States. This data should be available across major highways and in an array of locations for maximum usefulness to law enforcement," a statement of work, which describes what data the FBI is seeking access to, reads. ALPR cameras generally work by constantly scanning the color, brand, model, and license plate of vehicles that drive by. This creates a timestamped record of where a particular vehicle was at a specific time that law enforcement can then query, effectively letting them see exactly where someone drove across time. The technology has existed for decades, but has become more pervasive in recent years.
The FBI says it is looking for a vendor that will let it log into a Software-as-a-Service system and then query the collected ALPR data with license plate information, a description of the vehicle, a time or date, and geolocation information. The FBI says it is looking for ALPR coverage in the following areas: Eastern 48 (East of the Mississippi River); Western 48 (West of the Mississippi River); Hawaii; Puerto Rico; Alaska; and outlying areas such as Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, or Tribal Territories. In effect, the FBI is looking for ALPR data nationwide and even beyond. An attached price template indicates the FBI is willing to pay $6 million for each of those broad areas, bringing the total to $36 million.
The FBI says it intends to award the contract to a single vendor, but if any such vendor is unable to fulfill all of the requirements, the agency may award the contract to up to two vendors. The contract is specifically for the FBI's Directorate of Intelligence, which oversees the agency's intelligence mission. The FBI is not only a law enforcement agency, but also part of the Intelligence Community. The report notes that the contract appears aimed at vendors like Flock or Motorola Solutions, since they're some of the only companies able to provide the sort of data the FBI is seeking.
Further reading: Small Town Fights Over Flock's AI-Enhanced Network of License Plate-Reading Cameras
The FBI says it is looking for a vendor that will let it log into a Software-as-a-Service system and then query the collected ALPR data with license plate information, a description of the vehicle, a time or date, and geolocation information. The FBI says it is looking for ALPR coverage in the following areas: Eastern 48 (East of the Mississippi River); Western 48 (West of the Mississippi River); Hawaii; Puerto Rico; Alaska; and outlying areas such as Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, or Tribal Territories. In effect, the FBI is looking for ALPR data nationwide and even beyond. An attached price template indicates the FBI is willing to pay $6 million for each of those broad areas, bringing the total to $36 million.
The FBI says it intends to award the contract to a single vendor, but if any such vendor is unable to fulfill all of the requirements, the agency may award the contract to up to two vendors. The contract is specifically for the FBI's Directorate of Intelligence, which oversees the agency's intelligence mission. The FBI is not only a law enforcement agency, but also part of the Intelligence Community. The report notes that the contract appears aimed at vendors like Flock or Motorola Solutions, since they're some of the only companies able to provide the sort of data the FBI is seeking.
Further reading: Small Town Fights Over Flock's AI-Enhanced Network of License Plate-Reading Cameras
Clarification: This isn't about tracking us (Score:5, Funny)
They're having a horrible time right now keeping tabs on Kash Patel, who goes on random road trips without notice and is often too drunk to answer the phone.
Re:They need to track drunk Kash (Score:2)
Training AI to spot those eyes should be child's play. (Unless it flags too many owls to be useful.)
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Training AI to spot those eyes should be child's play. (Unless it flags too many owls to be useful.)
Every neighborhood with a couple stray cats would confuse that tracking bot.
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At least they can find his girlfriend.
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Why is this a problem? It's just another job opportunity for Marco Rubio. Even AI is afraid of being replaced by Rubio.
Quantico Colonoscopy (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Quantico Colonoscopy (Score:1)
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They've had access to all this since license plate readers became a thing, but by making this public announcement, it makes a public showing of them "doing things the right way".
You KNEW this was coming (Score:1)
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People here just drive around with black license plate covers or blurry out of state temp plates. Nothing much happens.
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Nah, not his FBI, his Geheime Staatspolizei.
Re: And of course it's this administration (Score:2)
Richtig
It's Not the FBI's Money--It's Ours (Score:5, Insightful)
^This (Score:3)
I agree, however I do not have hope we can toss out license plates.
We need to make it more difficult, if not impossible for tracking to be automated by private entities.
Push the linking of license plate to owner as far from federal government and as close to local governance as possible.
And have strong transparency to who is accessing the information.
My proposal is the "Privacy Plate": https://invalidinventions.com/... [invalidinventions.com]
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So, what's the point here? To produce a 21st century version of the James Bond plate flipper?
https://app.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=46.37.685 [wa.gov]
Personally, I prefer mud. It's a small traffic infraction by comparison.
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Yes it is a plate flipper, but a government approved plate flipper.
There is a database that matches the displayed license plate and date time to a vehicle.
However when this request is made the owner of the vehicle is notified and the person responsible for the request is logged.
So license plates can still serve their intended purpose for law enforcement of identifying a vehicle, however not without accountability.
It also removes private parties from tying a license plate to a vehicle, making the data their
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Unfortunately, centralizing access like this (at any level) gives effective carte blanche access to anyone with enough power or capital to demand it, regardless of how many "policy" checkpoints you put in the way.
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government approved plate flipper.
I don't see where this has recieved government approval anywhere. The inventors might wish this to be so, but that's going to be a tough hill to climb.
Anecdote: A few years back, our state undertook a program to switch number plates every few years. Nothing to do with damage to a plate or any other reason. Sort of a nuisance, IMO. One day, I had mentioned this to a freind of mine, well connected in law enforcement circles. I said that this would be a boon for stalkers, because victims, upon noting strange
Re: ^This (Score:2)
Wow good job. From what you are implying, this was all that one officer and your talk.
Wow man
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I always thought about using a piece of electrochromatic glass over my license plate.
Me too. Thing is, most of the EC stuff works the wrong way: clear when powered, translucent when unpowered, and cops have nothing better to do than drive around looking for parked cars with such violations and ticket them. That, and it doesn't work well in cold climates.
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do what they do in the UK cut them down. Or since this is the USA shoot them.
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How about a projector aimed right into them that plays a fake video feed. You would only have to corrupt a little of the data to make it not trust worthy.
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We need to make it more difficult, if not impossible for tracking to be automated by private entities.
Short of simply outlawing the collection of this kind of data (which is problematic in the US), that genie is out of the bottle and is never going back in. You don't even need license plates, just access to enough cameras. It isn't exactly hard these days to track e.g. a blue 2008 Honda Civic through a well-covered area, and coverage is filling in by the day. Things like supermarket loyalty cards, credit card transactions, property tax records, etc, can answer the "who's doing the driving" part.
Ever grow
Tracking (Score:2)
Yeah, I imagine that if we take away the distinctive license plate from every vehicle that it would make a simple camera system less effective at tracking individuals.
But then to be truly effective we would all need to drive 2008 Blue Honda Civics, where the same baseball cap and sunglasses as well.
Even then I imagine there are a dozen pieces of electronics in a vehicle at any time screaming to the surroundings their unique id that could be tracked.
Laws are to reactive for me, I would like something more pr
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You clearly do or you wouldn't have elected a person with obvious dictatorial ambitions. Dictators universally track their population.
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It's so cute that you think that control of the money can be taken back. The last vestiges of your democracy - the will of the people by mandate as declared by vote - has fallen. Some of you haven't noticed yet, is all.
Yes and no (Score:2)
So when people go to vote they have a hierarchy of issues they use to pick what's most important to them.
This is why you have Trump sitting at a 40% approval rate in polling averages but a 70% disapproval rate on the economy. People prioritize different issues or just confidence in the man versus what they can see happening day-to-day with their own eyes...
The most common and Stark example of this are people wh
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No, we don't want to be tracked.
What we want doesn't matter. What people with money want is control of you and I, and might makes right, so they will get it. Enjoy.
Big Brother can watch THIS! (Score:1)
I trust those guys as far as I can throw Donald, and I have a bad back.
Re:Big Brother can watch THIS! (Score:4, Funny)
Price (Score:5, Interesting)
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$36 million seems far too low for this data.
I came here to say the same. It's awfully dispiriting to know that the FBI and marketplace place as much value on the civil rights of everyone as it spends on Kash Patel's and his girlfriend's travel and security.
Federal Bribery and Taxpayer Abuse. (Score:5, Insightful)
FBI Wants to Buy Nationwide Access to License Plate Readers
Translation: A Federal agency purposely fucking bound by Constitutional limits within the Bill of Rights, is now so openly corrupt that they are brazenly requesting to spend taxpayer money in order to buy that which they are not allowed to legally capture.
You want new toys to do your job? Start remembering the fucking law first, children.
We the People, need to end the data broker loophole.
Re:Federal Bribery and Taxpayer Abuse. (Score:5, Insightful)
They've been doing it for dozens of years. I'm 100% with you. How are companies like Flock and Motorola Solutions allowed to do this? If We the People were being represented, we'd have strong privacy laws, and no crooked company would be allowed to record us.
Re: Federal Bribery and Taxpayer Abuse. (Score:4, Insightful)
Came here to say essentially this, it's not my country but I still wish collecting this kind of information on this kind of scale were illegal. In every country.
The other thing is, making it illegal only works as long as you don't have authoritarians in power. Once they are in power, they will allow it and everyone is fucked. Imagine if Nazis had access to modern technology when they were tracking every Jewish person.
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Imagine if Nazis had access to modern technology when they were tracking every Jewish person.
We don't have to imagine, we have an apartheid regime including ubiquitous tracking and an ongoing genocide which we can just look at.
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Imagine if Nazis had access to modern technology when they were tracking every Jewish person.
They *are* in power. And they *are* tracking every Jewish person. And Muslim person. And Catholic person. And Protestant person. Etc.
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Imagine if Nazis had access to modern technology when they were tracking every Jewish person.
I get your point, but it's worth noting that they had access to modern technology for the time: punched card machines. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust [wikipedia.org]. I don't think they could have done what they did at the same scale without at least that level of data collection and automation.
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Re: Federal Bribery and Taxpayer Abuse. (Score:3)
Should it matter? The founders weren't gods, they did their best for their time. They made mistakes, and times have changed. Amend the constitution, make it illegal.
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Should it matter? The founders weren't gods, they did their best for their time. They made mistakes, and times have changed.
It really should matter. If we can just decide the text means whatever we want it to mean, what's the point in writing it down?
Amend the constitution, make it illegal.
Yes! This is the way. Unfortunately, our system is so dysfunctional we can't even pass normal laws now, much less enact and ratify constitutional amendments.
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If we can just decide the text means whatever we want it to mean, what's the point in writing it down?
It's not a religion, the actual meaning is more important than the specific words. Reinterpreting some line as "the government cannot collect X by paying its own agents, but it's fine to pay private sector", is corrupting the meaning of your text. If they wrote government cannot collect X, it obviously extends to all means of collecting X, not just the limitative list of what they had in mind at the moment of writing. They would not waste time to write a Constitution that has obvious loopholes. Different to
Re: Federal Bribery and Taxpayer Abuse. (Score:5, Informative)
It really should matter. If we can just decide the text means whatever we want it to mean, what's the point in writing it down?
As clearly shown by the current hacks on the Supreme Court. "Privacy in the 9th Amendment? Never heard of it." "Limited government? What's that?"
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Unfortunately they are right on the Constitution here and it is a loophole that the founders didn't consider.
Unfortunately? What part of unreasonable search and seizure is hard to understand? You know how the Founding Fathers fixed what is accurately called an oversight? They’re called Amendments.
And we have plenty that should be preventing this abuse. Even written while the Founding Fathers were still around to declare “oh crap, we thou fucked up.”
If you need to use the term “loophole” to describe your job, then the only “job” you’re doing is marketing the bu
Re:Federal Bribery and Taxpayer Abuse. (Score:5, Informative)
At the moment the Roberts administration appears to be interpreting the constitution as "Whatever the administration says it is, because we've made it nearly impossible to enforce" thanks to a serious of malicious rulings that seem to mean that any decision that finds a law unconstitutional only finds it unconstitutional for the specific person suing.
Hell, legally Trump isn't even supposed to be president because he's convicted of leading an insurrection which specifically disqualifies him, but the roberts court decided that seemingly nobody is allowed to sue to enforce it.
America does not have a constitution anymore. Not in any sense that counts. Why americans are not flipping cop cars in open rebelion is beyond me. You had a good thing, then you let it go.
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Typo: By "Roberts Administration", read "Roberts court".
But since it seems that the court has practically nullified any oversight by congress, it might as well be the Roberts Administration.
GG America. You got played.
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Re:Federal Bribery and Taxpayer Abuse. (Score:4, Informative)
I prefer to think of it as Robert's Corrupt Enterprise. His wife runs a lawyer company which pitches cases to the Supreme Court, and makes a nice tidy profit on the endeavor. The rest of the Nazis on the Supreme Court are in on the action. Thomas has been bought and paid for by some billionaire. Alito never saw a junket he could reject. The other Nazis take their direction from the Federalist Society, dedicated to providing the U.S. with a dictator regime for the rest of its existence, which may not be very long given the National Debt.
As an aside, el Bunko's latest scam is to pull back his $10 Billion lawsuit against the IRS because some of his tax returns got outed. Now he's replaced it with a $1.8 Billion "settlement" with his own Justice Dept. to be paid into a fund he controls for paying off his supporters who claim the Biden Admin showed them wearing dainty pink panties. And that includes the Jan. 6 insurrectionists. He wants to use your tax money to pay for his thugs. And his personal wealth has increased about $6.8 Billion since he was elected to fuck up America the second time. Funny how he manages to do that will salary $300K.
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Translation: A Federal agency purposely fucking bound by Constitutional limits within the Bill of Rights
Who cares? The only thing that is now 100% certain given the actions of the past few years is that the Constitution is more of a "voluntary guideline".
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No.
The problem is they decided the fourth does not apply to you in public.
Then they decided data collected by third parties about you is entirely theirs and has no right to privacy.
This was all done for this purpose.
Is it right? No. It's a technical slap in the face to the constitution. Blame every single elected offical on both sides that have only pushed this. Every republican that acts like it's bad, probably voted for it. Every democract that speaks out against it probably voted for it.
When both sides w
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Every republican that acts like it's bad, probably voted for it. Every democract that speaks out against it probably voted for it.
You can't count on voting records to mean anything, thanks to the "designated villains:" the politicians whose job it is to tank a law that a party wants to be on record as having voted for, but don't want to pass. We're watching this happen right now with votes on the Iran war. Democrats don't want them to pass. What they want is to be on the record as being against it and want Republicans to be on the record as supporting it, even though there is no chance they'll do anything to stop it if they get the po
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Until the politicians can be recalled the secondary line of change that should be brought up if a council and / or police are asking for these cameras (or refusing to re
Let me guess ... (Score:5, Insightful)
The FBI says it intends to award the contract to a single vendor, ...
Like with re-surfacing the Reflecting Pool, Trump will "know a guy, that's done work for him" - that he'll later say he's never heard of - and it will end up being be a no-bid contract for $35M, that will end up actually being a large multiple of that, which we find out from a reporter who Trump will call treasonous and/or stupid - for pointing out inconvenient facts/truth. In any case, just another avenue for corruption, at our expense. /s
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Assuming the contractor actually gets paid.
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Assuming the contractor actually gets paid.
Trump has no compunction about giving contractors your money, especially is he's "a friend of ours [brave.com]"
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There's no need for a sarcasm tag on your 100% factual post that definitely applies to this (and virtually every other) contractual arrangement from this government.
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If you're only outraged now, it's either because you're ignorant of history, in which case you should also be angry at all past presidents now that said ignorance has been dispelled, or you have TDS.
Crowd sourced license plate database (Score:3, Interesting)
If you can't beat em might as well join em. Everyone should just create a network of spy cameras /w opencv or something and let anyone browse the database. That should piss off enough people to end this madness.
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Except when they make that illegal. They could do do by requiring a license to operate such a data collecting operation.
Regulatory capture combined with rent seeking.
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I don't think you get it.
It will NEVER be illegal. They will NEVER outlaw data collection. Law enforcement wants it. Big business wants it. They both want it for different reasons...but they want it.
The Fourth basically only applies within the walls of your own home...and not even then in some cases. If it can be seen from public...then it's not protected. This includes your yard, your street, inside any open windows....anything.
The minute you leave your house...your cell phone is reporting where it is just
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I don't think you get it.
I don't think you get it. It's already "illegal" to do things like publish the whereabouts of ICE or Musk's private jet, for varying definitions of "illegal".
Indiscriminate sharing of location information that includes those in power will not be tolerated. And the public has no ability to differentiate between "us" and "them" without capturing the whereabouts of "them".
I mean (Score:2)
they're not just going to subpoena it? Use a FISA (warrantless) "warrant"?
It's very attractive (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't monitor all the ALPR in the nation live - you set up a system where every ALPR installation has a 'wanted' database and reports hits. Typically the list would be updated daily and be built from a mix of local, state/province, and federal records. The systems have a mandatory retention policy to only keep hits against the wanted list.
But then you get somebody who catches on to the great idea that it should be retroactive. Force all those endpoints to hold their plate data for as long as the storage holds out - so you can search for where a plate has gone over the course of the last few weeks, or months... hell, maybe years. And you don't just watch for hits against the wanted list, you want to be able to send out queries like, "select all plates in common between these sites and dates" so you can find what vehicle was at every similar crime you've just figured out is probably the work of the same person or crew.
Then they want to throw the retention idea out the window and put cameras at every intersection and highway on or off ramp, and nobody involved worries about how that's absolutely going to be abused by everyone who has access to it.
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When there's a serial killer on the loose or someone has kidnapped a child every media outlet along with every man and his dog is screaming at the FBI for their inability to find the perp. Those will be the same media and folks who object to number plate tracking.
Reverse lookup of telephone numbers, number plates, social security numbers, and drivers licenses have always been very closely controlled to mitigate abuse. There's nothing new here.
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I think of it like this: life is dangerous. You can surrender freedom for safety, but there's a balance point beyond which you're losing more than you gain.
I don't want to live in a world where I'm watched everywhere I go and there's a constant risk that someone will access data on me to cause me some kind of harm. And the risk will always be there with an omnipresent surveillance state.
I'm OK if the cops have to work harder to catch criminals and a few more people are hurt by criminals if it means we all
Doesn't bother me. (Score:2)
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I am not for this, but that does not matter! (Score:2)
No one was ever held accountable for the history of fake evidence and outright lies used to get FISA judges to hop to so the FBI could attack their political enemies.
The FISA court is a joke and a lie.
nothingburger (Score:2, Insightful)
Everyone is already tracked by their cellphone anyway. Who cares about license plates, the FBI can track any individual with a phone in their pocket or a "smart" watch on their wrist.
Posted AC to preserve mods, sorry.
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Lol, "Who cares, we've lost the privacy war already, just relax and spread your butt cheeks and welcome the fucking!" *posts anonymously, supposedly for Internet points*
Get the fuck out of here.
Really? (Score:2)
How do we know they do not already have have access?
The USA is a surveillance network (Score:1)
CALEA (1994) set the standard in allowing any agent (cop) in the country to demand free
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Speaking of the EPA, they now want to relax controls on forever chemical in our water supply and environment. That's some mighty find governing there, I wonder how much el Bunko got paid to tell the EPA to do that.
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forever chemicals
Steel-making waste by-products, like fluoride.
Trump's FBI: UnAmerican, Immoral and Unconstiional (Score:3)
I guess (Score:3)
..the crime organizations are buying ebikes like crazy.
Wow bat crazy (Score:1)
FBI trying to bypass the constitution. (Score:3)
It doesn't matter who collects the data, if you are searching through said data, it is a defacto search and gains 4th amendment protections. A third party cannot wave someone else's 4th amendment rights.
They have been doing fine without it (Score:2)
Yeah, it makes things easier. Don't we have amendments against this? If we let this cat out of the bag it's not coming back.
Remember? (Score:2)
Hooray for surveillance states (Score:2)