Time stamps I spoke at:
42:57 58:50 1:20:45
Not at all my first meeting nor my first time speaking by a long shot. First time wearing a name tag though.
……
I’m speaking at the first council meeting in June about ALPR. I’ve spoken before about it. I will reference two abuses that took place in KS. I wanted to paste my notes here for later reference
Automatic License Plate Readers are going to court as a 4th amendment violation in Norfolk VA. It’s probably not the first time, but it’s only getting more notable.
Merriam is subject to the same constitution.
Actual district court case: https://ij.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/2024.10.21-1-Complaint.pdf
I have asked our police chief to disclose in the annual report, the number of ALPR and other cameras used by his department to surveil peaceful, law-abiding free people in public places. Darren has so far not been forthcoming with that information.
He has gone to council to request funding for new ALPR installs before, so I was very surprised when one day I was preparing to speak to council about it and the receptionist at MPD told me that was secret information (just asking the NUMBER of active cameras) and I never got an answer out of the cheif either. That’s fishy.
The number of cop cars or cops should also not be secret. We’re not operating a nuclear submarine here in Merriam. We should be open and transparent. We should be proud and our public officials proud, of every part of their department. And if we’re not proud of the number of ALPR cameras we have, we should reduce that number not conceal it.
The problem I have with ALPR is that the government should not indiscriminately create specific, identifiable, and searchable records of law abiding people without their consent. It’s ripe for abuse, and not what my tax money is for. Law was enforced plenty well before it, and we should not be dependent on it now.
The lawsuit goes into more detail about this and other violations. If they ever put out a call for plaintiffs in Kansas, you can bet I’ll be all over it.
And Kansas may be on their radar… An officer, and also a chief in Kansas have already been caught using ALPR data to stalk their exes https://www.kansas.com/news/politics-government/article291059560.html If two were caught just this year in Kansas there are no doubt more than two who got away with it.
ALPR systems do not require officers to submit probable cause to a neutral judge!
In a similar case (Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle v. Baltimore Police Department) the Fourth Circuit struck down an aerial surveillance program precisely because it created record of where everyone in the city of Baltimore had gone over the past 45 days. Surveilance from high altitude of people in public. ALPR is just that, at ground level. And it is just as wrong.
SOME of the ALPRs in Merriam today: https://deflock.me/#map=15/39.015233/-94.691076
other abuse:
https://www.kwch.com/2022/10/31/kechi-police-lieutenant-arrested-using-police-technology-stalk-wife