September 15, 2006 2:29 PM PDT
Police blotter: When can cops run license-plate searches?
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What: A Michigan man who was arrested after a police officer checked his license plate against a computer database tried to suppress that evidence on privacy grounds.
When: The 6th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Sept. 5.
Outcome: Defendant loses when appeals court rules that Americans have no Fourth Amendment protection against computer checks--even extensive ones--of their license-plate numbers.
What happened, according to court documents:
When Officer Mark Keeley of the Farmington Hills, Mich., police department was driving around a local shopping center, he noticed a white van idling in the lane closest to the stores. A man was inside and the lane was marked with "Fire Lane" and "No Parking" signs.
Keeley entered the vehicle's license-plate number into his patrol car's Law Enforcement Information Network (LEIN). According to the Michigan state government's Web site (PDF), LEIN databases include missing persons, Michigan state criminal history, prison and parole information, and a list of wanted people from the National Crime Information Center.
The LEIN search showed that the vehicle was registered to Curtis Ellison, a black man who had an outstanding felony warrant. Keeley called for backup, approached the van and arrested Ellison. During the arrest, Ellison was found to have two firearms. He was later indicted for being a felon in possession of a firearm in violation of federal law.
The trial judge ruled, however, that the van was not parked illegally and therefore Keeley did not have probable cause to run the LEIN check of the van's license plate. Therefore, the judge reasoned, the results of the LEIN check should be suppressed, including the discovery of Ellison's two firearms.
The U.S. Attorney's office appealed, saying that Americans have no reasonable expectation of privacy in their license-plate numbers, and therefore police need no probable cause to conduct computer checks.
In a 2-1 ruling, a three-judge panel from the 6th Circuit agreed. They said that "a motorist has no reasonable expectation of privacy in the information contained on his license plate under the Fourth Amendment...The very purpose of a license plate number, like that of a Vehicle Identification Number, is to provide identifying information to law enforcement officials and others." (The majority also rejected Ellison's argument that he was racially profiled because he was black.)
In a dissent, however, Judge Karen Nelson Moore said the U.S. Attorney raised the argument at a late stage and it should be rejected. Without more information collected by the trial judge, such as how much information on the general public is available on the LEIN system, Moore said, it's impossible to evaluate how intrusive the computer check is.
Moore said that the key point was not whether police could read someone's license plate but under what circumstances they could perform an extensive search of computer databases. She said the FBI's National Crime Information Center system contains more than 23 million records about people and vehicles--not all accurate or up-to-date--and "allowing the information contained therein to form the basis for a seizure without any other heightened suspicion, let alone probable cause, compounds the risk of privacy intrusions that errors in these databases impose."
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From what I read, the vehicle in question could have been ticketed for where it was parked. As a matter of routine procedure a check would have been run and the identity of the driver would inevitably have been discovered.
The problem of defending what "privacy" expectations and rights should be is the thoughtless veal with which so many elected and appointed officials are working towards legitimizing the ever increasing power and reach of various governmental agencies. As citizens increasingly become accustomed to greater scrutiny and surveillance made possible by technological advances it becomes easier for judges to proclaim that there is little or no "expectation" of privacy in a given situation. We become familiar with being continuously observed by greater use of technical devices so it follows that government intrusion and investigation is reasonable.
The uphill battle of preserving privacy rights in this country is in large part due to how such actions are characterized by politicians and legal authorities who dislike the restraint of their power by a Constitutional abstract. To defend the rights of undesirable suspects is to be "soft on crime, terrorism, fill in the blank". Government agencies will always crave and try to employ new tools to further their goals. Intentions may be good and hearts may be pure but history's pages are filled with abuses.
The problem of defending what "privacy" expectations and rights should be is the thoughtless veal with which so many elected and appointed officials are working towards legitimizing the ever increasing power and reach of various governmental agencies. As citizens increasingly become accustomed to greater scrutiny and surveillance made possible by technological advances it becomes easier for judges to proclaim that there is little or no "expectation" of privacy in a given situation. We become familiar with being continuously observed by greater use of technical devices so it follows that government intrusion and investigation is reasonable.
The uphill battle of preserving privacy rights in this country is in large part due to how such actions are characterized by politicians and legal authorities who dislike the restraint of their power by a Constitutional abstract. To defend the rights of undesirable suspects is to be "soft on crime, terrorism, fill in the blank". Government agencies will always crave and try to employ new tools to further their goals. Intentions may be good and hearts may be pure but history's pages are filled with abuses.
So the cop runs the plate and it turns out the man that OWNS the van is wanted. If you wanted to challenge the fact of running the plates than what the hell is the technology there for? That is the question you need to be asking. If you going to question the validity of the technology against something that was created TOO MANY years ago then you might as well throw away the technology.
So in retrospect something needs to be changed. Is it the Fourth Amendment Right that needs to be changed or cops running plates?
OneWithTech
BUT
>>>The trial judge ruled, however, that the van was not parked illegally and therefore Keeley did not have probable cause to run the LEIN check of the van's license plate.<<<
If I parked in a fire lane which had a strict no parking sign on it... I would expect to be arrested.
Apparently this judge is living in another world!!!
Walt
"An individual operating or traveling in an automobile does not lose all reasonable
expectation of privacy simply because the automobile and its use are subject to
government regulation. Automobile travel is a basic, pervasive, and often necessary
mode of transportation to and from one?s home, workplace, and leisure activities.
Many people spend more hours each day traveling in cars than walking on the
streets. Undoubtedly, many find a greater sense of security and privacy in traveling
in an automobile than they do in exposing themselves by pedestrian or other modes
of travel. Were the individual subject to unfettered governmental intrusion every
time he entered an automobile, the security guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment
would be seriously circumscribed."
not a right, 2nd I'd rather have the bad guys off the streets by
merely running plate checks rather creating crimes (particularly
violent ones), 3rd what do you have to hide anyway?
Those of you whining about your rights would be the first ones
to cry and wimper when some guy(s) robs you and/or your
family at gunpoint. It's funny how much you want the police
when you've been violated by a thug but please stay out my
rearview mirror right. Despite what the movies portray Cops are
the good guys. Stop assuming the worst from them. Majority
become police officers to help people.
On the first hand, the man was parked illegally. That gives the officer the right to run the plates.
HOWEVER...the plate run is exclusive and limited to the sole purposes of (1) identifying its owner, (2) seeing if it's stolen, and (3) verifying its registration status. Everything else should be suppressed, as it's not relevant to the reason the cop ran the plate: a parking violation.
So, the cop was right in being able to run the plate. That's not the issue. The issue is whether the other information farmed from the plate can be used against the man, and I say no.
So where do we draw the line? Is any activity in a public place subject to monitoring? If so, what is a public place? And, if so, to what extent?
I feel a license plate itself is public property and can be scanned. However, the contents of the person's vehicle and such are private property and need a compelling need to search (i.e. a warrant).
However, I feel any monitoring MUST be judged on its benefit to society at large --- if it merely "moves" crimes, it has no benefit. That is what happens with the many cameras in the UK---they merely move the crimes to non-camera areas.
I feel if a type or degree of monitoring does not provide compelling success, the rights of privacy for all people must be paramount.
This not only helps us to determine how to approach the situation, but also if something happens to us and we are unable to respond to the radio, the dispatcher has a record of what we were doing, where we were, and what vehicle was stopped. That gives other officers a starting point to try to figure out what happened and who to contact.
Do we run plates just out of curiosity? Yes, there are times when you do because the way a car is being driven or something about the driver just makes you suspicious. Most people will look at a patrol car when it's on the road. Those that go out of their way to pointedly NOT look are suspicious and you run the plates just to be sure. Most of the time everything is fine. Sometimes you run across that vehicle that has someone in it you are looking for. You don't know until you check.
It's for both the public and officer's safety to check these things out.
So, then, what is the fundamental difference between this acceptable behavior and automated scanning of faces at a mall, stadium, airport, or any other public place? All you are doing is replacing human eyes with a camera, human memory with computer memory, and human recognition algorithms with computer recognition algorithms.
And the same argument holds for license plates, or VINs, or anything else that is plainly visible. So, it is perfectly acceptable for police to look through the window into my car to see if there is something suspicious. They don't even need probable cause. But they can't force me to open the trunk without a warrant.
You might try to argue that, in running plates, police are making use of info that is unavailable to the general public. That's not quite true. If I see a neighbor driving dangerously, I can write down the plate number and call the police, who will then run the plate number. If the person turns out to be wanted, they'll tell me to call them when he returns home and then they'll move in. And if he is not wanted, I can still swear out a complaint against him. If several people are witnesses, you can get someone ticketed with no police witnesses. So clearly the license plate info is available to and can be used by the general public, just not directly.
- My Crazy Ex has been Doing it for Some Time!
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by
September 19, 2006 8:22 PM PDT
- My crazy ex has been doing that sort of thing for sometime, trying to convince me that it's God and the like [she's suffers from Narcassistic Personality Disorder - Evangelical]... From time to time, if I change my tags, she would 'befriend' some dumb cop and have him run them in an attempt to find out if the car's actually mind and/or to find out where I live...
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