Drive in Philadelphia? You are under criminal investigation

[D5CAV]

Police State USA in the "City of Brotherly Love"

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150 ... data.shtml

City officials argue in their response that every metro driver is under investigation

Here's the relevant citation:

records “relating to or resulting in a criminal investigation” are exempt from disclosure under the Act, in particular “nvestigative materials, notes, correspondence, videos and reports.” 65 P.S. § 67.708(b)(16)(ii). Such individual license plate readings and accompanying information are investigative materials that relate to individual criminal investigations, and, as your request indicates, these investigations may result in vehicle stops, arrests, or other police actions..

In other words, Philadelphia PD has expanded the old criminal non-statute of "Driving while African" (the crime of Walter Scott) to "Driving". If you are driving, you are under "criminal investigation".

[evan price]

Well, then:
http://gizmodo.com/5498412/sql-injectio ... ic-cameras

[HTRN]

Philly PD is showing their ass?

Color me shocked.

[g-man]

The great part about the 'summary data' released by the PPD is there is absolutely ZERO context. Were 420 stolen autos recovered directly as a result of a ALPR hits? Is that in the 2 week period requested, or over the entire period the ALPR has been in use?

A quick google-fu inquiry returns an average of 24k auto thefts in Philly annually, with 60% being recovered (14.4k). If you're talking about the 2-week period, then those 420 cars represent 420/553 (#recovered by scans / average 2-week recoveries), for a percentage of nearly 76%. If (as it appears given the total number of scans) those 420 cars are for the total period scanners have been in use, that percentage drops to 420/57k, (# recovered by scans / average 4-year total recoveries), for a percentage of 0.73%. So, either these things are killer for recovering stolen vehicles, which would make one wonder why car theft hasn't plummeted. Or, they've gone big-brother to the tune of 7 million scans a year, and moved their recovery percentage up less than 1%. If it were the former, I'm pretty sure they'd be trumpeting that shit from City Hall like they were rock stars.

But. They. Aren't.

Which implies the latter scenario: The scanners are NOT useful, and PPD is likely ass-raping the Constitution (I'd say 14th amendment 'Equal Protection' vice 4th Amendment 'Search and Seizure') in their deployment of these things. "Show me you're using these things equally across the city." is a pretty reasonable request. I'd venture a guess that they're distinctly NOT equal in the deployment of these things, even AFTER normalizing for high crime areas.

[Termite]

Yet another reason to have your automobile registered to an LLC.......

[308Mike]

Yet another reason to have your automobile registered to an LLC.......

AYUP - as much as possible!!!!