Law enforcement is using license plate readers to “grid” entire neighborhoods. So, What does gridding mean?
The Arizona Mirror describes gridding as:
“Part of the training for the ALPR systems, Chandler police officers are taught to “grid” neighborhoods during their downtime – systematically driving up and down every street in an area, indiscriminately scooping up information on vehicles.”
Gridding entire neighborhoods allows Big Brother to form a detailed and highly accurate pattern of everyone’s driving habits day and night, 24/7.
Police gridding allows Big Brother to create secret mini-surveillance zones of entire neighborhoods.
American police “gathering intel” on the public is a mirror-image of China’s “People’s Armed Police” or the United Kingdom’s “Metropolitan Police” who spy on their citizens for the government.
There is no defense for police gathering intel on innocent people, but that does not stop them from making up absurd excuses to justify it.
Chandler Police Department Commander Ed Upshaw compares police “gridding” to a YouTuber who records someone in public.
“If your vehicle is parked in a public place or visible from a publicly accessible place, it can be recorded by anyone. Is there a reason a YouTuber can record but police cannot?”
Comparing systematic police surveillance to a YouTuber recording people in public is like comparing apples to oranges.
Another bogus excuse by Big Brother was reinforced by Federal Massachusetts Judge Robert Rufo, who ruled that police ALPR’s on bridges “was legal because the cameras only track movements on and off the Cape, and not movements across the state.”
What Rufo failed to mention is the only way for motorists to access the Cape is by traveling over those bridges. It might not be mass surveillance of motorists statewide but it is certainly “Mass.” surveillance of Cape Cod motorists. (pun intended.)
Fast-food drive-thrus are also planning on using ALPRS and facial recognition to identify drivers and passengers according to an article in Zero Hedge.
According to the article, customers can sign up to be spied on using a company’s loyalty rewards program much like Hertz Global Holdings. Fast food restaurants will use 5Thru.com’s ALPRS to identify customers.
Is there any way to opt out of being tracked once you drive onto their property? What do you think?
Big Brother’s appetite for mass surveillance is appalling and it affects everyone’s ability to travel freely.
Jared Keenan, Criminal Justice Staff Attorney at ACLU of Arizona warned that “police could grid low-income or minority neighborhoods more often, which could lead to over-policing of those neighborhoods—even if there are just as many crimes in rich, white areas.”
There is simply no excuse to “grid” entire neighborhoods or train police to “gather intel” on Americans without a warrant. Has law enforcement become a three letter word? Have they become DHS, FBI, CIA, DEA or ICE pawns?
Editors Note: This ALPR data likely ends up in federal databases. As reported in the Wall Street Journal, the federal government, via the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), tracks the location of millions of vehicles through data provided by ALPRs operated on a state and local level. They’ve engaged in this for nearly a decade, all without a warrant, or even public notice of the policy. State and local law enforcement agencies operate most of these tracking systems, paid for by federal grant money. The DEA then taps into the local database to track the whereabouts of millions of people – for the “crime” of driving – without having to operate a huge network itself.
I took up investigative blogging because there are very few independent reporters left in our country.
I am also a member of the Digital Fourth. (https://warrantless.org/)
- Company Turns Any Camera Into an Automatic License Plate Reader - September 10, 2021
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- Biden Gives “Five Eyes” Surveillance Consortium Access to Everyone’s Social Media - August 3, 2021