In a chilling sign of how far law enforcement surveillance has encroached on personal liberties, 404 Media recently revealed that a sheriff’s office in Texas searched data from more than 83,000 automated license plate reader (ALPR) cameras to track down a woman suspected of self-managing an abortion. The officer searched 6,809 different camera networks maintained by surveillance tech company Flock Safety, including states where abortion access is protected by law, such as Washington and Illinois. The search record listed the reason plainly: “had an abortion, search for female.”
If those cameras were in France they would rip them up and set them alight in a bonfire on the Champs-Élysées.
Doesn’t France have extensive camera coverage of public areas? Though for sure the French would riot were they misused in this fashion.
There’s a big difference between a passive surveillance camera and a network of devices that logs every time you go past one of the 83k+ spots or a car equipped with them. It’s warrantless tracking and a constitutional violation. They’ve already been declared illegal in several criminal cases, but it hasn’t reached a higher court yet. There is a lawsuit over these but I haven’t heard anything about it in awhile.
Edit: It survived a motion to dismiss and is moving forward in federal court.
www.yahoo.com/news/flock-camera-case-could-local-190000699.html
Sorry but no there is no difference other than the words you use to describe them. Camera networks is surveillance.
A bunch of privately owned camera systems and one controlled by the government are vastly different.
the difficulty to search is a significant difference: there’s practical way to search 83,000 cameras manually… automation makes it a problem more than the cameras themselves
Aren’t those just ALPR camera’s? France has those too.
To have them without being a police state you need a short strict list of things cops are allowed to use them for. Like the article says basically.
Which is funny since Americans always called French cowards. But who are the real cowards?
Of course the people opposing an illegitimate war are the cowards. Not those ordering poor people to die on the other side of the world.
Freedom fries indeed.
It’s Texas. Most of those people approve of this.
If it happened in LA, you’d see more than cameras on fire.