DEA stores American's license plates, direction of travel and GPS coordinates for up to two years.
Salt Lake City, UT - The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency has withdrawn its request to install stationary license plate readers on I-15 in Beaver and Washington counties, Sen. Todd Weiler, R-Woods Cross, said Monday.
But that doesn't mean the DEA is abandoning the plan.
"From our very first discussions in early May about this, I was informed that it was the DEA's position that they didn't need our permission (to install the license plate readers)" Weiler said, "that they were asking our permission as a courtesy."
Last month, DEA and law enforcement officials met with the Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Interim Committee, seeking permission to install the technology on the freeway.
The primary purpose, they said, would be to nab drug traffickers, violent offenders and kidnappers. State lawmakers have been hesitant to support the idea, citing privacy issues.
DEA officials were expected to meet again with the legislative committee next week. When legislative staff called to confirm that DEA representatives would be returning for the June 20 meeting, "they said they wouldn't be there," Weiler said.
"And when we asked why, they said they were withdrawing their request," he said.
Weiler said he expects to learn more Tuesday about what the DEA's action means.
"I don't know if they're backing off or if they're saying, 'Hey, we tried to be nice … but we're going to do it anyway,'" he said. "At this point, I just don't know."
The scanners capture license plates, direction of travel and GPS coordinates, agency officials told the committee in May. The information would be stored in a DEA database in Virginia for two years.
The DEA uses the technology along the U.S. border in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California. Moving into the country's interior along known drug trafficking routes is the second of a three-phase project that would end with scanners being placed along the country's northern border, DEA officials said.
The DEA desires to sidestep the requirements of the Privacy Act altogether by arguing that no personal data is being collected, only the tag of the vehicle. This argument is clearly grasping at straws, as it implies that the car must have registered itself, as well as having the capability to drive itself.
A license plate contains a vast amount of personal information about who exactly is responsible for that vehicle, regardless of who is driving it at the time. Moreover, people have a right to privacy under the 4th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, as well as additional rights pertaining to data collection afforded by the Privacy Act.
Regardless, the ACLU has noted that:
we were not able to find a Privacy Act notice anywhere in the Federal Register in which the DEA describes any collection of license plate data. (The two recent DEA Privacy Act notices we found do not mention the practice.) [source]
In addition to reading license plates, the ACLU refers to testimony where Justice Dept. officials point to the ability to take photos of drivers and compare all data collected with various databases in order to ascertain true identity. Until now, this has been justified by what the ACLU has labeled the Constitution-Free Zone; a 100-mile swath that encircles the country and includes 2/3 of the U.S. population.
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865557302/DEA-withdraws-request-to-install-license-plate-readers.html
http://www.aclu.org/blog/technology-and-liberty-criminal-law-reform/have-state-legislators-staved-dea-license-scanning
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/54291064-78/scanners-county-noel-plate.html.csp
http://www.activistpost.com/2012/05/border-control-measures-move-inland.html