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Police Have Used License Plate Readers at Least 14x to Stalk Romantic Interests
- mulderc 5mo agoI am not against Plate Readers in theory but feel like you should have to have a warrant to look things up in the database.
- AngryData 5mo agoI don't see why any plates should be looked up for any reason without evidence of a crime. If someone isn't enough of a problem for their plate to be flagged otherwise, it is not the governments business to know who is where or when.
- virgil_disgr4ce 5mo agoIs there a framework—any framework, however hypothetical—that actually makes police accountable and subject to the laws they supposedly enforce?
- infecto 5mo agoI have always gravitated towards a market model. Force police, like doctors, to have malpractice insurance. Let for-profit insurance companies model what that risk looks like. Now cities have to make a financial decision when hiring cops that is directionally accurate to the risk of said cop. Imperfect but I don’t believe perfect systems exist. But this goes back to government agencies never thinking about budgets. Modern politics is about marketing a tax reduction but never how that impacts the budget.
- danaw 5mo agoyeah market models are working so great everywhere else...
- infecto 5mo agoInstead of being hyperbolic why don’t you share your idea then? Markets are not perfect but on average they do a decent job of finding equilibrium. “Democracy is the worst form of government—except for all the others that have been tried.”
- anonymars 5mo agoI'll join in to proffer that where they lack, it's often exactly the sort of thing you describe: some externality is missing in the price
- infecto 5mo agoAgree but better than the system we have today. There will always be issues with it but I think on average it would better incentivize hiring lower risk employees.
- malcolmgreaves 5mo agoAbsolutely! This would also mean when cops break the law taxpayers don't pay out. Their privately held insurance does. Enough bad behavior and a criminal cop becomes uninsurable. This also prevents the abuse where a criminal cop gets fired, then moved over to another jurisdiction to repeat the process all over again. The insurance companies should have to share history with one another. Perhaps the only tweak would be to regulate these insurance companies to control their profit margins. We don't want to end up in the same situation as medical insurance in the US. Tax payers will have to pay some of the insurance premiums indirectly. So this idea can work well so long as insurance is in that goldilox zone: enough to provide incentive for the companies to exist, but not so much that their greed creates an even worse system.
- komali2 5mo ago> but not so much that their greed creates an even worse system. The market model won't work because greed isn't real when discussing corporations. That's like calling a tree growing towards the sun "greedy." No, the tree is fulfilling it's biological imperative: put more leaves closer to the sun. Corporations must maximize profit. The corporation that maximizes profit best is the one that can consume other ones and tend towards monopoly, the perfect state. All actions are permitted when fulfilling biological imperative. So, trying to fenangle a market based solution to police brutality issues will result in a couple predetermined outcomes: insurance payouts won't happen because why would they voluntarily pay, furthermore, cop insurance companies would leverage their superior capital to lobby the government to protect their profit margins, which individuals can't prevent through market efforts or individual actions since the corporation's power is so much greater.
- AngryData 5mo agoThat might help for straight up murder cases, but I think it leaves a LOT of room for continued abuse of position and power with the only real risk being a small increase in monthly payment to offenders that makes it seem acceptable.
- infecto 5mo agoThen what is your proposal? I actually think a system like this does a lot better than you might imagine. There are quite a few lawsuits for abuse of power beyond murder cases. It’s far from perfect but helps set the directional cost.
- parineum 5mo agoThis is pretty straightforward actually. The third party doctrine [1] has been extrapolated to the digital age to the massive detriment of privacy. All it takes is for Congress to pass a law clarifying to the courts that the third party doctrine isn't correct. There's also an alteration to the interpretation of "reasonable expectation of privacy" that could be made (again, by Congress) to account for the total sum of information, rather than each individual piece of information in isolation. For example, I have no expectation of privacy that people don't see my license plate when I'm driving but I don't expect that a single person/entity would have all of the locations my license plate has been in the last 3 days. The other clarification/change Congress could make would be to change the "reasonable expectation" test to something less susceptible to erosion over time. (I didn't used to expect I'd be tracked in certain way because I thought it would have been illegal but now I do expect it even though I still feel it's illegal). The reasonable expectation test encourages normalizing surveillance for as long as possible before it gets to court so that it's unreasonable to expect otherwise. All of these things, of course, would be still within the grasp of investigators with a simple warrant which would normally take less than an hour to attain. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-party_doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-party_doctrine
- cucumber3732842 5mo agoA storage locker or bank deposit box is private property even if it's effectively held by a 3rd party. There's no reason the same doctrine couldn't extend to digital papers and effects.
- parineum 5mo agoI'm not a lawyer or anything but the third party doctrine holds because you're willingly and knowingly giving your information to said third party. I expect that the difference there is that the contents of a storage locker or safety deposit box are explicitly confidential from the company their are leased/rented from.
- sidewndr46 5mo agothere's never been a point human history where the ruling class was subject to its rules. so no.
- catlover76 5mo ago[dead]
- skeaker 5mo agoI feel like this actually isn't that complicated. Just remove any special protections that they get on the judicial end. The judicial is already there with the intention of balancing the powers of the executive, it just doesn't do that currently because they limply decided that the executive can go and do whatever the hell they please.
- JohnMakin 5mo ago"at least" is doing a lot of work here. That's just what was analyzed. You have to assume the behavior is much more prevalent.
- busterarm 5mo agoWhy? Is there something about their dataset and/or methodology that you can identify as deficient that would indicate that the rate is much higher than what was published? I agree with the sentiment, but if you want anyone to do anything about it we need evidence and not vibes. I'm trying to help you make your case. So far the only comments in this thread are the most low-effort reactions that don't say anything substantive.
- loteck 5mo agoThe data set IJ is providing here is situations where stalking was reported/suspected, investigated, discovered, and prosecuted. Other stalking cases could fail any one of those stages and be invisible to the public.
- busterarm 5mo ago> Other stalking cases could fail any one of those stages and be invisible to the public. "could" is doing a lot of work here... > where stalking was reported/suspected, investigated, discovered, and prosecuted. No, that's not what IJ said. From the article: "Nearly all of these officers were criminally charged and lost their jobs, either by resigning or getting fired." So not all 14 of these were "reported/suspected, investigated, discovered, and prosecuted". If you're trying to make significant social change, make the strongest argument that you are capable of.
- jasonlotito 5mo agoFor those following along, this was the original comment: > Other stalking cases could fail any one of those stages and be invisible to the public. > "could" is doing a lot of work here... I'd be careful replying to someone commenting and editing with such large diffs without calling it out. Fairly deceptive.
- jmclnx 5mo agoIn other news, the Sun rises in the East. Nice it was highlighted but the big question, will something be done about this ? I think we all know the answer to this. The only surprise is "14 times", I would expect hundreds of times.
- loteck 5mo agoIn my town, we have Flock. I request the audit logs that show how police are searching the Flock system. In November 2025 and prior, the logs were listed by USERID and I could independently correlate quantity of searches by USERID to detect unusual search behavior. This same methodology has been used to catch police stalking in at least one other city. In December 2025, Flock decided to "improve" its system. All searches on the audit log are now completely serialized, anonymized. This "improvement" came after 2025 turned out several cases of police stalking using Flock.
- tfrancisl 5mo agoI would guess the only way to make this data available long term is by regulation. Then again, I would hope Flock is subject to FOIA already if they are collaborating with state or local law enforcement...
- wahnfrieden 5mo agoYC CEO funded Flock and is involved in politics to remove police regulations To quote him responding to criticism against Flock: "You're thinking Chinese surveillance. US-based surveillance helps victims and prevents more victims."
- echelon 5mo agoCameras are free speech and are a shield against property crimes and assault. Our building complex has rampant break-ins. We've needed more cameras for years and we're only now starting to add them. Worse, someone recently someone set fire to the roof which caused a 12-hour long debacle. Not sure what the "#-of-alarms fire" ranking it was, but several people lost their homes to months of remediation and they tore apart the roof. Cameras would have implicated the contractor responsible (we know it was a contractor, but there were no cameras or access logs). One theory as to why the number of violent crimes is going down in this country isn't that we just de-leaded the water and taught better conflict de-escalation, but that there are cameras and smartphones everywhere. All of that said - camera networks in the hands of an all-powerful state are bad. The state does not need access to these systems outside of a rigorously documented system with proper judicial oversight. We need regulations and even civil liberties that limit the scope of state access and state dragnets to these camera networks. But individuals, companies, and communities should be at liberty to hire surveillance tech to protect their persons and their property.
- therobots927 5mo agoWelcome to the panopticon, everyone! Law abiding citizens have nothing to fear. Keep drinking the kool-aid and don’t look behind the curtain.
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- randusername 5mo agoThis man alleges Flock employees show up in the logs snooping in on private business feeds for pools, gymnastics studios, etc. https://substack.com/home/post/p-193593234 https://substack.com/home/post/p-193593234 If you build it they will come.
- rounce 5mo agoWorth noting that these weren't low level employees watching the children's gymnastics areas but included the accounts of the Director of Growth, and the VP of Strategic Relations and Business Development among several other staff members. You really have to wonder what these people mean when they say "think of the children".
- j-bos 5mo agoGives the heebeejeebies, how is it that so many companies are so casual with spying.
- hk1337 5mo agoI wouldn't say I am a huge proponent of Flock, especially considering their lack luster security for the individual cameras at least in my area, but the title makes it sound like it's an institutional procedure that the department stalking their romantic interests instead of individual officers that need to be properly reprimanded.
- apwheele 5mo agoIt is institutional in the sense that Flock and the individual PDs have not put steps in place (either post auditing or pre not allowing bad queries) that prevent the abuse. Post auditing is obviously not taken seriously by these departments, and Flock could build tools to do this out of the box (identify weird search patterns) if they wanted to. Edit -- I see Flock does have some audit tools, https://www.flocksafety.com/trust/compliance-tools https://www.flocksafety.com/trust/compliance-tools. If those work as they should, it is more on PDs to use them properly.
- goolz 5mo agoPolice abuse of power in the US is a systemic problem. Your opinion is akin to thinking the Catholic church bears no burden for all the diddling they neglected to observe.
- busterarm 5mo agoDo you make any distinction between sheriff's departments that are elected into their office (e.g. Jacksonville Sheriff's Office) vs commissioned LEOs?
- goolz 5mo agoHonestly, a great question that I would have to think on. Whatever limits both their power, haha. Not really an answer, but I think what it boils down to is accountability. I work with a lot of state and federal cops. They are good people for the most part with good hearts. I am still incredibly weary of police on the whole. It seems that both commissioned and elected LEO lack the right level of accountability and we would do well to curb their immunity.
- childofhedgehog 5mo agoIt’s not surprising that no one is reviewing usage of these tools proactively, but it is disappointing. EDIT: typo
- assimpleaspossi 5mo ago>>media reports has identified at least 14 cases nationwide...since 2024. >>Nearly all of these officers were criminally charged and lost their jobs, either by resigning or getting fired.
- rationalist 5mo ago> by resigning Ah, so then they just resumed another law enforcement job in the next town over like so many do, whose investigations into their criminal activity was terminated because they resigned, and because they were never charged or fired, then they have a clean record to apply elsewhere.
- assimpleaspossi 5mo ago[flagged]
- rationalist 5mo agoLast line: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- rocketvole 5mo agocould try lobsters, pretty much everything posted is the same
- mring33621 5mo agosounds way low to me
- calvinmorrison 5mo agotime to get rid of license plates
- rationalist 5mo agoThese cameras record bumper stickers, dents, accessories, etc. Many vehicles can be uniquely identified by a computer without a license plate.
- calvinmorrison 5mo agoDo you think given how ubiquitous cameras and microphones are now, that we should change the doctrine around right to record in public, or the expectation of privacy? For example, I have no problem with people recording in public a news cast, or even taking down a sick trick on a skateboard, but I think generally people would say ' a camera that tracks my movements' violates my privacy in some way, even though I understand someone theoretically could post agents on every block and do so
- stronglikedan 5mo agoI'm shocked that one of the most abusive groups of people have engaged in such behavior!
- giraffe_lady 5mo agoI've mentioned this before but I've been a volunteer court watcher for domestic violence court for some years now. Cases where a state surveillance tool or database was used to stalk or harass the victim are completely routine. Very often it is someone in an administrative role who has access to the tool, and I think they get caught more often because it's easier for automated audits to flag their use as clearly unnecessary. LEOs have a lot of benefit of the doubt on that and, from what I can tell, are pretty much free to do what they want with these tools. I do follow up on cases, I'm not supposed to participate in court but I can contribute community impact statements about systemic patterns I've observed. I haven't so far ever seen one of the cops in front of another court for this behavior, even when it was clearly documented by an order of protection being granted in DV court. I assume this problem is far far worse than I can perceive. Victims will only bring this to court with a lot of support and clear evidence, and even then with the offender being police, it's risky and frightening. Our police are automatically placed on administrative leave if served an order of protection, so the local judges are extremely resistant to ever actually granting one.
- CobrastanJorji 5mo agoCan you tell me more about what a volunteer court watcher does? That sounds fascinating. What do you do when you see something questionable in a court? Are there broader organizations you raise concerns with or submit statistics to?
- giraffe_lady 5mo agoI volunteer for a local organization, most areas have one. Some are specialized around a specific kind of court, others are big enough to be broad and then have specialized training, usually following however your local jurisdiction divides up its courts. I fill out a form for each session and case and write descriptive notes about what happens in court, including things like language and tone of the judge, conduct of the counsel, etc. I don't evaluate "questionable" myself and I do nothing personally with the notes. They are submitted to the organization and eventually in aggregate make their way into data used by researchers, journalists, law schools, legislators.
- joecool1029 5mo agoAround me these Flock cameras are spreading like fleas. Also, local psycho cop incidents seem to be on the rise. Last year a veterinarian and her bf were murdered by her ex (a state trooper) that blew his brains out after[1]. Just a month ago next town over one of the officers was arrested for placing tracking devices on his ex. [2] Around a decade ago I was harassed through the mail after a road-rage incident (plainclothes dude ran up to my car window after I parked to go to gym and claimed I cut him off, said: 'I'll remember you, you should be more careful'). He ran my plate and sent a vaguely threatening anonymous letter to my car's registered address. I opened a case with the Somerset County prosecutor's office of internal affairs. The prosecutor's office claimed there were no hits through the federal NCIC system, but in-state there was no audit log of plates checked through NJMVC, and even if there was a smart cop (or MVC employee, lots of people have access to it) could just ask a dispatcher to run it over the radio. They claimed that this system was getting moved to the New Jersey State police and it was expected this would have an audit log. So no resolution there, I found out who the guy was years later by chance when I saw him writing parking tickets and got his name off a ticket. I informally reported it to prosecutor's office at this point and they said something to the effect of 'Yeah, nobody likes the parking enforcement guy, if he pulls shit like this again let us know and we'll put an end to it' [1] https://nypost.com/2025/08/06/us-news/screaming-and-gunshots-heard-from-murdered-nj-vet-lauren-semanchiks-home/ https://nypost.com/2025/08/06/us-news/screaming-and-gunshots... [2] https://nj1015.com/clinton-police-stalking-arrest/ https://nj1015.com/clinton-police-stalking-arrest/
- AlexeyBelov 5mo agoCops have a disproportionally high level of spouse abuse.
- petiepooo 5mo agoA surveillance technology, intended only for lawful use, is being used unlawfully. Huh. Who could have seen that coming?
- tremon 5mo agos/intended only for/instituted under the guise of/ FTFY.
- Suppafly 5mo agoHonestly, it wouldn't surprise me to learn that the unauthorized uses outnumber the legitimate ones.
- zombot 5mo agoJust as NSA employees use their toys to spy on their romantic interests. Surveillance tools without strict oversight and effective disciplinary measures will create abuse as sure as one plus one equals two.