Seventy eight (National Network) fusion centers in America but we only have 50 states

The House Homeland Security Committee report on National Network of fusion centers:

In the aftermath of the information sharing failures leading to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in New York City, at the Pentagon, and in a Pennsylvania field, States and localities across the United States established what are known today as State and Major Urban Area Fusion Centers (fusion centers). Collectively known as the National Network of Fusion Centers, many of these – now numbering 78 – fusion centers are still in their infancy.

Summary of Findings

• The Committee strongly believes that the National Network is a National asset that needs to realize its full potential to help secure the Homeland. Based on the Committee’s long history of oversight of the fusion centers’ development, it appears that the National Network is on a path of continued growth, improvement, and increasing value to both the Federal Government and the fusion centers’ individual customers. In addition to significant numbers of State and local partners represented, site visits revealed over 20 different Federal offices and agencies with personnel assigned across the 32 visited fusion centers, suggesting that fusion centers provide value to a wide variety of Federal agencies.

• The strength of the National Network lies in individual fusion centers’ unique expertise; their independence from the Federal Government; and their ability to leverage the State and local perspective on behalf of the National homeland security mission, which includes counterterrorism. Formally standardizing all aspects of fusion center operations would be disadvantageous. Over the past three years, the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) efforts have been targeted to assist fusion centers in developing plans, policies, and standard operating procedures. The goal has been to achieve capacity and standardized capability – namely the Critical Operational Capabilities – across the National Network, while allowing individually tailored processes for each fusion center. Although much work remains, these efforts appear to have improved consistency and standardization, and have helped to establish a common “language” across the National Network.

• The Federal Government should continue to facilitate and enable fusion center development in order to ensure that centers have the capacity necessary to fulfill their role as National mission partners. This must include continued improvements in information sharing. However, State and local stakeholders, including the fusion centers themselves, must take ownership and be a driving force behind much of the requisite growth moving forward. In order for the National Network to develop fully, a greater level of commonality and unified direction is necessary.

• The lack of a comprehensive State and locally-driven National Strategy for Fusion Centers reflecting the equities of fusion centers’ diverse stakeholders is a barrier to the National Network reaching its full potential. A comprehensive Federal Strategy for Fusion Centers is also necessary to explain how and why the Federal Government engages with fusion centers, guide Federal planning, serve as the foundation to develop additional performance and value-based metrics, and drive Federal resource allocation to fusion centers. The lack of these two strategies stands in the way of maximum efficiency, effectiveness, and the ability of the National Network to provide full benefit to the National homeland security mission.

• Thus far, fusion center metrics have primarily focused on measuring capacity and capability rather than “bang for the buck.” Due to the inherent difficulty in determining the success of prevention activities, stakeholders struggle with how to accurately, adequately, and tangibly measure the value of fusion centers to the National homeland security mission, and particularly the counterterrorism mission. Although great strides have been made, the current metrics – including the five performance measures included in the 2012 annual Fusion Center Assessment – are only a partial measure, and do not alone demonstrate overall success or failure of the National Network. Future metrics should reflect the values articulated in a comprehensive National Strategy for Fusion Centers and companion Federal Strategy for Fusion Centers. Further, there are not currently any tracking mechanisms in place to provide a complete picture, even quantitatively, of how fusion center-gathered information affects Federal terrorism or criminal cases or other homeland security mission  areas. This is a significant gap that must be corrected in the short term in order to show the value of the National investment.

• Challenges remain across the National Network itself, particularly with the lack of individual fusion centers’ operational activities being universally inclusive of strategic counterterrorism threat analysis. Participation in the National Network should carry with it the expectation of National mission partnership, including the production of strategic counterterrorism threat analysis. Mature fusion centers utilize their analytic expertise,  understanding of the nuances of their local environment, and unique information to look for potential ties to terrorism, in addition to fulfilling their other State, local, and homeland security missions. However, as a true National partner, fusion centers must fulfill their individual missions in a way that trains and requires analysts to view State and local crime with an eye toward strategic National counterterrorism and threat analysis.
http://info.publicintelligence.net/CHS-FusionCenters.pdf

The National Network of fusion centers: Where we have been and where we are going:
http://info.publicintelligence.net/DHS-FusionCenters.pdf

What's wrong with fusion centers:

A new institution is emerging in American life: Fusion Centers. These state, local and regional institutions were originally created to improve the sharing of anti-terrorism intelligence among different state, local and federal law enforcement agencies. Though they developed independently and remain quite different from one another, for many the scope of their mission has quickly expanded - with the support and encouragement of the federal government - to cover "all crimes and all hazards." The types of information they seek for analysis has also broadened over time to include not just criminal intelligence, but public and private sector data, and participation in these centers has grown to include not just law enforcement, but other government entities, the military and even select members of the private sector.

Fusion centers, raise very serious privacy issues at a time when new technology, government powers and zeal in the "war on terrorism" are combining to threaten Americans' privacy at an unprecedented level.

Moreover, there are serious questions about whether data fusion is an effective means of preventing terrorism in the first place, and whether funding the development of these centers is a wise investment of finite public safety resources. Yet federal, state and local governments are increasing their investment in fusion centers without properly assessing whether they serve a necessary purpose.

There's nothing wrong with the government seeking to do a better job of properly sharing legitimately acquired information about law enforcement investigations - indeed, that is one of the things that 9/11 tragically showed is very much needed.

But in a democracy, the collection and sharing of intelligence information - especially information about American citizens and other residents - need to be carried out with the utmost care. That is because more and more, the amount of information available on each one of us is enough to assemble a very detailed portrait of our lives. And because security agencies are moving toward using such portraits to profile how "suspicious" we look.

New institutions like fusion centers must be planned in a public, open manner, and their implications for privacy and other key values carefully thought out and debated. And like any powerful institution in a democracy, they must be constructed in a carefully bounded and limited manner with sufficient checks and balances to prevent abuse.

Unfortunately, the fusion centers have not conformed to these vital requirements.

Since no two fusion centers are alike, it is difficult to make generalized statements about them. Clearly not all fusion centers are engaging in improper intelligence activities and not all fusion center operations raise civil liberties or privacy concerns. But some do, and the lack of a proper legal framework to regulate their activities is troublesome. This report is intended to serve as a primer that explains what fusion centers are, and how and why they were created. It details potential problems fusion centers present to the privacy and civil liberties of ordinary Americans, including:

• Ambiguous Lines of Authority. The participation of agencies from multiple jurisdictions in fusion centers allows the authorities to manipulate differences in federal, state and local laws to maximize information collection while evading accountability and oversight through the practice of "policy shopping."
• Private Sector Participation. Fusion centers are incorporating private-sector corporations into the intelligence process, breaking down the arm's length relationship that protects the privacy of innocent Americans who are employees or customers of these companies, and increasing the risk of a data breach.
• Military Participation. Fusion centers are involving military personnel in law enforcement activities in troubling ways.
• Data Fusion = Data Mining. Federal fusion center guidelines encourage whole sale data collection and manipulation processes that threaten privacy.
• Excessive Secrecy. Fusion centers are hobbled by excessive secrecy, which limits public oversight, impairs their ability to acquire essential information and impedes their ability to fulfill their stated mission, bringing their ultimate value into doubt.

The lack of proper legal limits on the new fusion centers not only threatens to undermine fundamental American values, but also threatens to turn them into wasteful and misdirected bureaucracies that, like our federal security agencies before 9/11, won't succeed in their ultimate mission of stopping terrorism and other crime.

The information in this report provides a starting point from which individuals can begin to ask informed questions about the nature and scope of intelligence programs being conducted in their communities. The report concludes with a list of recommendations for Congress and state legislatures.
http://www.aclu.org/files/pdfs/privacy/fusioncenter_20071212.pdf  

Fusion Center update (2008)
http://www.aclu.org/files/pdfs/privacy/fusion_update_20080729.pdf

A man was convicted of murder based on a police dog's known unreliability

California - A murder conviction based largely on scent evidence from a police dog with a history of misidentification cannot stand, the 9th Circuit ruled Monday.

Gilbert Aguilar was convicted for the first-degree murder of John Guerrero in 2001. The shooting occurred when Guerrero drove into a neighborhood of La Puente, Calif., and drew the attention of alleged gang members. Guerrero pulled into a KFC parking, where a young Hispanic male in baseball cap got out of a white Volkswagen Beetle and shot him seven times. Witnesses said the shooter then returned to the Beetle and it drove away.

About a month after the shooting, a probation officer saw a sketch based on eyewitness descriptions and thought he recognized Aguilar. Later, three eyewitnesses picked him out of a photograph lineup, but some of them would change their story at trial.

Critical to the prosecution's case was evidence that Reilly, a Los Angeles Police dog, had identified Aguilar's scent on a white Volkswagen Beetle officers impounded as stolen a few weeks after the murder.

While Aguilar's fingerprints did not match those found in car, Reilly's alert allegedly confirmed the presence of Aguilar's scent in the front passenger seat.

For his part, Aguilar argued that the real murderer was Richard Osuna, aka "Gangster," whose brother had been shot a few days before the Guerrero murder. Aguilar noted that two witnesses claimed to have seen Osuna going after Guerrero in a white Beetle.

Nonetheless, the prosecutor "expressly told the police not to pursue an investigation of Osuna," according to the ruling. At the time of the shooting, Aguilar was 20 years old and about 6 feet tall, while Osuna was 16 and no taller than 5'7.

A jury convicted Aguilar of murder and sentenced him to prison for 50 years to life. 

Later, while appealing the case in California, Aguilar's attorney discovered that Reilly had a history of misidentification.

In addition to evidence that the dog made at least two prior mistakes, Aguilar showed that prosecutors knew Reilly was unreliable at least six months before Aguilar's trial.

The California Court of Appeals nevertheless affirmed the conviction and the California Supreme Court denied review. Aguilar then filed a petition for habeas corpus, which a federal judge in Los Angeles denied in 2006.

A three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit reversed on Monday and ordered the lower court to grant Aguilar a new trial or release him.

"Reilly's scent evidence was the only evidence at trial linking Aguilar to the getaway car, as well as the only evidence corroborating strikingly weak eyewitness identifications," Judge William Fletcher for the Pasadena-based panel.

The panel found that California had downplayed the importance of Reilly's alert, and had "misstated the nature of the eyewitness testimony, making it appear stronger than it was."

"The jury was told to use the dog scent identification 'for the purpose of showing ... that the defendant is a perpetrator of the crime of murder,'" Fletcher wrote. "The State cannot now argue with a straight face that the evidence upon which it relied so heavily at trial was, in fact, not probative."
http://www.courthousenews.com/2013/07/29/59785.htm

Aguilar v. California department of corrections ruling:
http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2013/07/29/09-55575.pdf

ACLU legal director discusses how to deal with checkpoints in America

Multiple Detriot police officers suspected of armed robbery during traffic stops

Two Detroit police officers have now been arrested for robbing unsuspected drivers at gun point.

The first incident was occurred at a Citgo gas station last Sunday, where the station clerk said two white men in a black Ford F-150 with police lights, pistol whipped customers pumping gas before stealing their cash and cell phones.

In another instance man says he was pulled over by three men in a unmarked Crown Victoria, who stole his wallet and CDs.

Two different reports went out of men posing as police officers with badges, bullet proof vests and guns, robbing drivers at gunpoint. Originally these robberies were suspected of being perpetrated by "fake cops" but turned out to be real cops driving a personal vehicle.

The arrests come after a tip and a photo forwarded to the police led them to identify one of the suspects as one of their own. One of the police officers arrested was a 17 year veteran cop from Saint Clair Shores.

Police are conducting "terry stops" on Americans because a computer software program predicted they might commit a crime

Typically, police arrive at the scene of a crime after it occurs. But rather than send cops to yesterday's crime, a new trend in law enforcement is using computers to predict where tomorrow's crimes will be - and then try to head them off.

The software uses past statistics to project where crime is moving. Police in Los Angeles say it's worked well in predicting property crimes there. Now Seattle is about to expand it for use in predicting gun violence.

It all started as a research project. Jeff Brantingham, an anthropologist at UCLA, wanted to see if computers could model future crime the same way they model earthquake aftershocks. Turns out they can.

"It predicts sort of twice as much crime as any other existing system, even going head-to-head with a crime analyst," Brantingham says.

Older systems, like the famous CompStat in New York, show where crime has been. This system looks forward.

"The model will actually predict other locations, that effectively say, even though there was a crime somewhere else in your environment, the risk is still greatest in this location today for the next 10 hours or the next 12 hours," Brantingham explains.

Brantingham and his colleagues are now selling the predictive system to police departments . At this point, you may be thinking about the sci-fi movie . But this is different. No psychics sleeping in bathtubs, for one. More to the point, this doesn't predict who will commit a future crime, just where it is likely to happen.

In Seattle, police Sgt. Christi Robbin zooms in on a map of the city. Earlier this year, Seattle started using PredPol to predict property crimes. It's now the first place to try predicting gun violence with the software.

"These red boxes on the map are predictions of where the next crimes are likely to occur," Robbin explains.

At the start of every shift, patrol cops are assigned to those red boxes. "So we're asking that they spent the time in that 500-by-500-square-foot box, doing whatever proactive work they can to prevent that crime," Robbin says.

On a recent shift, officer Philip Monzon pulls up inside his box; today, it's a city block near the Seattle waterfront.

"The police want visibility, they want contacts with businesses as are appropriate, and anyone who's wandering through the area," Monzon explains.

This area has parking lots, and PredPol's forecast includes car thefts. As Monzon passes a green Honda, he pauses. The guy inside seems to be ducking under the dashboard.

"I wanna make sure to see if he's got the key or if he's gonna pull out anytime soon," Monzon says.

The car starts — the guy probably does have the key. But why didn't Monzon challenge him, just in case?

"I don't really have enough — I'm not just going to single out one guy in a Honda," he explains.

And this is where this gets tricky. The courts say police need "reasonable suspicion" in order to stop somebody. That suspicion can come from a lot of things — even someone's "furtive movements," as police like to say. 

Police need reasonable suspicion that a person may have been engaged in criminal activity otherwise known as a "Terry Stop." The issue in the case was whether police should be able to detain a person and subject him to a limited search for weapons without probable cause for arrest. The name comes from the standards established in a 1968 case, Terry v. Ohio.

But can it come from the fact that someone is occupying an imaginary red box drawn by a computer?

"Ah — no. No. I don't know. I wouldn't make a stop solely on that," Monzon says.

That's probably the right answer, says Andrew Guthrie Ferguson, a law professor at the University of the District of Columbia who has taken a special interest in the constitutional implications of PredPol. 

He says the departments using it have told police not to use it as a basis for stops. But he also wonders how long that can last.

"The idea that you wouldn't use something that is actually part of the officer's suspicion and not put that in — that may come to a head when that officer is testifying," Ferguson says. Either that officer will have to omit the fact that he or she was prompted by PredPol, he says, or that officer will admit it on the stand. "Then the issue will be raised for the court to address."

And it may be that PredPol is a constitutional basis for stopping someone. Some might consider it more objective than an individual police officer's judgment — less prone to racism or other kinds of profiling, for example.

Ferguson says that argument may have merit, but that police and society still need to be careful.

"I think most people are gonna defer to the black box," he says. "Which means we need to focus on what's going into that black box, how accurate it is, and what transparency and accountability measures we have for it."

“This is the next era of policing… very soon we will be using a predictive policing model where, by studying real-time crime patterns, we can anticipate where a crime is likely to occur” said William Bratton, Former Commissioner of NYPD and Chief of LAPD.

The LAPD’s Captain Sean Malinowski envisions a time when the police will issue crime forecasts the same way the National Weather Service issues storm alerts.

http://www.npr.org/2013/07/26/205835674/can-software-that-predicts-crime-pass-constitutional-muster

About PredPol:

"In contrast to technology that analyzes and maps past crime for some hints at the future—a kind of rear view mirror policing—PredPol tells law enforcement what is coming.

Training is simple, short, and intuitive. PredPol’s tool can be set up within days and generates its actionable predictions in one click of your mouse. All our data processing facilities employ key card protocols, biometric scanning, and round-the-clock interior and exterior surveillance."

It claims PredPol has scientifically proven field results but all they mention is its built upon the same underlying technology used to predict aftershocks following earthquakes. They claim PredPol has
predicted twice as much crime as experienced crime analysts in 6 month randomized controlled trials."
http://www.predpol.com/technology/
http://www.predpol.com/results/

Dad charged with child abandonment after tow truck driver towed car with his kids inside

 

Houston, TX - Neighbors said Victor Ruiz parked his car in a no parking zone when he briefly went to his apartment with groceries Thursday and left his two young daughters in the car.

According to neighbors, a tow truck driver quickly latched onto the family's car and took off.

Court documents show the tow truck driver made the discovery and stopped about two miles away on Wheatley. Neighbors said he should have realized much earlier.

Neighbors claim they repeatedly told the tow truck driver that children were in the car.

"When he pulled into the apartments, he hurried up and hooked his thing on the car," said Sade Jones, neighbor. Jones told Local 2, "I'm like wait! Them kids in the car. He snapped the picture and hurry up and sped off with these peoples' cars."

Ruiz was charged with two counts of abandoning a child because the kids were left without supervision.

Jones asked, "How did he abandon a child if a whole bunch of people was around watching his car?"
Ruiz sat in jail on a $4,000 bond.
http://www.click2houston.com/news/dad-charged-after-tow-truck-driver-towed-car-with-kids-inside/-/1735978/21201090/-/qrsjmo/-/index.html
http://www.wblxlocal.com/national/21024-texas-father-leaves-his-children-in-car-only-to-return-and-find-they-ve-been-towed-away.html

The IRS, SEC and EPA want to read Americans emails without having to obtain a warrant

 

There’s a tie that binds the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s separate probes of SAC Capital Advisors LP founder Steven A. Cohen and Fabrice Tourre, the former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. vice president.

It’s old e-mails, which feature prominently as evidence in SEC enforcement actions.

How the agency obtains e-mails has become the subject of a Washington debate, pitting Wall Street’s top regulator against privacy advocates and Internet companies, which say the information they store should be as secure from government seizure as documents in a desk drawer.

The SEC is fighting legislation that would trim government access to personal and corporate e-mail kept for customers by third-party providers, such as Amazon.com Inc. and Yahoo! Inc.
 
Bipartisan legislation requiring agencies to get warrants to access e-mails could have “a significant negative impact” on enforcement efforts, SEC Chairman Mary Jo White said in an April letter to Congress. The SEC, a civil regulatory agency, doesn’t have authority to obtain warrants. 

“I think there’s critical mass to get this legislation through,” Kevin Richards, senior vice president for federal government affairs at TechAmerica, a Washington-based trade group with members including Microsoft Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co. and International Business Machines Corp., said in an interview.

Reduced access to e-mails could harm some investigations, Steve Crimmins, a former SEC trial attorney who is now a partner at law firm K&L Gates LLP in Washington, said in an interview.

“In dealing with large corporations which have responsibly maintained e-mail communications, the SEC will be able to get all the e-mail it needs,” Crimmins said. “But in cases with less responsible entities or investigations just involving individuals, the SEC will be severely hampered in getting the evidence it needs to bring a case.”

The SEC has authority to issue administrative subpoenas, which require the recipient to hand over all relevant documents. However, many SEC probes are covert, so investigators subpoena information from third parties, such as trading records from a brokerage or e-mails from a third-party Internet service provider, without tipping off the subject.

The Senate measure would update a 1986 law by extending its warrant requirement for recent e-mails to those older than 180 days, which weren’t shielded when the statute was written.

“The bill as currently constituted could have a significant negative impact” on enforcement efforts, White said. She proposed allowing access to communications from Internet service providers if agencies first meet a judicial standard comparable to the one for criminal warrants.

White’s proposal is opposed by companies, including the biggest U.S. Web portal Yahoo, online storage provider Amazon.com Inc., electronic market hub EBay Inc., personal-finance software provider Intuit Inc., and search-engine leader Google Inc., in addition to groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the American Library Association. They said in a July 12 letter to Congress that the SEC sought a “sweeping change” that would allow other agencies conducting civil investigations, such as the Internal Revenue Service and the Environmental Protection Agency, to get e-mail without warrants. 

“It will no doubt be dubbed ‘the IRS exception’ because it would give all federal agencies including the Internal Revenue Service access to e-mail and internal communications without a warrant,” said Gregory Nojeim, senior counsel at the Washington-based Center for Democracy & Technology.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-26/sec-fraud-probes-said-to-suffer-if-e-mails-kept-private.html
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/04/11/can-the-irs-read-your-emails-without-a-warrant-or-does-it-at-least-think-it-can/

DHS is now regulating live entertainment in the U.S.

Muncie, Indiana - A local band leader and downtown bar operator is challenging the Indiana Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) authority to regulate and permit live entertainment.

Last April, IDHS through its fire and building safety division found Mike Martin of the Folly Moon violated state law by failing to obtain an entertainment permit for live music at the downtown establishment.

State law requires places of amusement and entertainment to have permits subject to the inspection of state fire and building inspectors. And the law defines entertainment places as night clubs, dance halls or cabarets.

Martin filed an appeal to the permit, saying he operated a bar and restaurant with occasional music played by his band, The Mike Martin Band, and others.

And in the challenge before an administrative law judge, Martin believed the state was not enforcing the law uniformly, only requiring permits for live music instead of electronic or even Karaoke that is also played at the Moon.

And the law really does not apply to restaurants or bars, he adds, along with concerns that the IDHS is trying to shut down small business with outdated laws.

John Erickson, IDHS spokesman, said it was up to the state to enforce the law.
http://www.munciefreepress.com/node/29089

The Department of Homeland Security says it is illegal to freely play music in The United States:

The Department of Homeland Security (An agency enacted through the Patriot Act) is now demanding through enforcement from The State Fire Marshalls that all live music played in the U.S. must have a permitfrom DHS.

This is an outrage to freedom and the ideals of the American people and our quickly evaporating rights. 

This is just the start to the reality of what DHS is going to do to the American citizens. The DHS is actually saying it is illegal to play music or operate a business where music is played for any reason without paying The Department of Homeland Security, and giving them much personal and private information. If The DHS can regulate the performance of a song where do you think they will stop?

The Department of Homeland Security does not have the jurisdiction to enforce laws in The United States. They have purposefully and misleadingly attached themselves to The Fire Marshall to circumvent American constitutional rights and automatically give themselves jurisdiction in every business in The United States. This is enforced through the Fire Marshall’s inspection of commercial public businesses.

Please stand with me, American Citizens everywhere, and business owners in demanding that we will not allow The Department of Homeland Security in our businesses and homes. We need all US Citizens and our elected officials to stand united against the unlawful abuses of The Department of Homeland Security and this increasingly fascist government. The Patriot Act is the only reason The Department of Homeland Security has any jurisdiction. This is intentional. This is the first bold and aggressive move by them. Please stand with us! Our children and grandchildren need us!

I and my business Folly Moon (a restaurant in downtown Muncie, IN) have a hearing with The Department of Homeland Security at The Indiana State House on Friday Aug. 2nd at 10a.m.
http://iamnotanonymousblog.com/?p=216

Police departments want bars to follow a no-serve list for drunks:

Wisconsin - The Janesville Police Department has joined several other Wisconsin law enforcement agencies in asking local taverns and liquor stores not to serve people who are habitually intoxicated.

Similar "no serve" policies exist in Green Bay and other areas, and a pilot program is planned for Milwaukee.

More departments likely will follow their example, said the executive director of the state's largest law enforcement group.

"We think these are very positive approaches to combat the widespread abuse of alcohol," Jim Palmer of the Wisconsin Professional Police Association said Wednesday.

"It is perhaps the beginning of a larger statewide trend, and I think you will see more departments explore this kind of approach."

Under Janesville's policy, an individual who has three or more alcohol-related incidents that result in a police call within a six-month period is placed on the no-serve list. If a person wants to contest the decision to be placed on the list, he or she can appeal to the city's Alcohol License Advisory Committee.

One person has opted to do that and has been left off the list until the committee can make a decision, said Deputy Chief Dan Davis. That leaves 10 people on the "no serve" list, which will be updated every six months.
http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/some-police-departments-want-bars-to-follow-a-no-serve-list-for-drunks-b9961415z1-216848591.html

Your cable TV box may soon be spyng on you and your family

News that Google Inc. may be developing a television set-top box with a motion sensor and video camera has rekindled the debate over technology that can record so-called ambient action. Should a TV-mounted box have the ability to track our movements, record our voices and monitor our behaviors? Should cable providers and tech companies be allowed to collect such information without our consent?

In November, the Microsoft Corp. filed a patent application for a system that would use its Kinect camera to monitor users’ behavior. Kinect will come attached to Microsoft’s forthcoming Xbox One game consoles. Its always-on sensors can read body behavior, track eye movements and listen for commands. It even knows how many people are in the room. As Polygon reported, the device has raised numerous concerns among privacy advocates, particularly in light of Microsoft’s reported compliance with the National Security Agency’s PRISM program.  

Lawmakers and privacy advocates are asking such questions as companies continue to experiment with data collection that will extend beyond our gadgets and into our living rooms and bedrooms. On Thursday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Google privately showed off a prototype device at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last January. The company is one of many tech players looking to compete with pay-TV providers, who themselves have been exploring new ways to capture information about viewers’ behavior.

In November, Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ) filed a patent application for a set-top box that delivers advertisements based on users’ behaviors. For instance, two people cuddling on sofa watching TV might see a commercial for a romantic Disney cruise, while an arguing couple might see a pitch for couples’ therapy. The device would use a combination of motion and audio sensors to collect information about what viewers are doing as they watch TV.

Creeped out yet? You’re not alone. News of Verizon’s plans brought countless headlines about the potential for Orwellian cable boxes and digital video recorders, spying on us during our most intimate moments. And legislators have been quick to respond. Last month, two U.S. congressmen, a Democrat and a Republican, introduced a bill that would require such devices to be opt-in, meaning consumers would have to grant explicit consent before companies could collect data on ambient action. The bill -- dubbed the “We Are Watching You Act of 2013” -- would also require that devices flash on-screen warnings whenever they are recording such information.

Reps. Michael E. Capuano, D-Mass., and Walter Jones, R-N.C., who sponsored the bill, called such technology an “invasion of privacy.” In a statement, Jones even acknowledged the data collected through such devices could be potentially abused by the government itself. “When the government has an unfortunate history of secretly collecting private citizens’ information from technology providers, we must ensure that safeguards are in place to protect Americans’ rights,” he said.
http://www.ibtimes.com/your-cable-box-spying-you-behavior-detecting-devices-verizon-microsoft-others-worry-privacy-1361587

"Smart homes" are easily hacked:

The home automation market was worth $1.5 billion in 2012 according to Reuters; there’s been an explosion in products that promise to make our homes “smarter.” The best known is Nest, a thermostat that monitors inhabitants’ activity, learns their schedules and temperature preferences and heats or cools the house as it deems appropriate. Many of these products have smartphone apps and Web portals that let users operate devices, cameras, and locks from afar. Getting to live the Jetsons’ lifestyle has downsides though; as we bring the things in our homes onto the Internet, we run into the same kind of security concerns we have for any connected device: they could get hacked.

Googling a very simple phrase led me to a list of “smart homes” that had done something rather stupid. The homes all have an automation system from Insteon that allows remote control of their lights, hot tubs, fans, televisions, water pumps, garage doors, cameras, and other devices, so that their owners can turn these things on and off with a smartphone app or via the Web. The dumb thing? Their systems had been made crawl-able by search engines – meaning they show up in search results — and due to Insteon not requiring user names and passwords by default in a now-discontinued product, I was able to click on the links, giving me the ability to turn these people’s homes into haunted houses, energy-consumption nightmares, or even robbery targets. Opening a garage door could make a house ripe for actual physical intrusion.

Thomas Hatley’s home was one of eight that I was able to access. Sensitive information was revealed – not just what appliances and devices people had, but their time zone (along with the closest major city to their home), IP addresses and even the name of a child; apparently, the parents wanted the ability to pull the plug on his television from afar. In at least three cases, there was enough information to link the homes on the Internet to their locations in the real world. The names for most of the systems were generic, but in one of those cases, it included a street address that I was able to track down to a house in Connecticut.

The Insteon vulnerability was one of many found in smarthome devices by David Bryan and Daniel Crowley, security researchers at Trustwave. Bryan got one of Insteon’s HUB devices in December, installed the app on his phone, and began monitoring how it worked.

“What I saw concerned me,” he said. “There was no authentication between the handheld and any of the control commands.”

“You could put someone’s electric bill through the roof by turning on a hot tub heater,” says Bryan. He contacted Insteon support by email and asked how to enable a username and password, and Trustwave recently sent the company a full advisory as to its vulnerabilities. The company later fixed the problem with HUB, issuing a recall for the devices in early 2013, though it did not inform customers that the security vulnerability was one of the reasons for that recall.

The problem with Insteon products that don’t have password protection by default is similar to one found with Trendnet IP cameras a few years ago; a lack of authentication meant that anyone who figured out the IP address for a particular camera could watch the camera’s stream—some streams were rather intimate. Even without a public-facing website, a vulnerability like this means that anyone who figures out how to identify the addresses for vulnerable systems – as happened with the Trendnet cameras –  could get access to and control of people’s homes.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2013/07/26/smart-homes-hack/

Coming to a city and town near you "Domain Awareness Center" spying

California - Across the Bay Area -- from Pittsburg to San Francisco, from Tiburon to Gilroy -- you're being watched.

And it's not just the National Security Agency secretly vacuuming up your personal data. Local police agencies are increasingly adopting Big Data technologies such as automatic license-plate readers that gather information about everyone, whether they've broken the law or not.

A lot of the information ends up on the 14th floor of a federal office building in San Francisco, where a "fusion center" run by state and local law enforcement agencies combines the data with a plethora of personal information about you, from credit reports to car rentals to unlisted phone numbers to gun licenses.

"No one has any idea of the scale of information being gathered," said Mike Katz-Lacabe, of San Leandro, who discovered this in a very personal way.

A San Leandro school board member, Katz-Lacabe said a comment he heard about license-plate readers at a city council meeting prompted him to file public-records requests that revealed not only that his Toyota Tercel's license plate had been photographed all over town, but also that it and all kinds of other information were being collated at the fusion center. "I was a little shocked," he said.

Along with many of the nation's 77 other fusion centers, the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center was created after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks as an anti-terrorism intelligence hub. And like many of the other centers, it has morphed into a huge data center whose purpose is to solve and prevent all kinds of crimes -- from terrorist bombings to car thefts.

The latest Bay Area trend allows patrol officers to view surveillance video 24/7 on their smartphones. Many Bay Area police agencies now have at least some cruisers fitted with automatic license-plate readers to scan every car they pass. This and reams of other data from 15 other counties are fed to the fusion center, where analysts search for patterns indicating suspicious activity.

Mike Sena, the Northern California fusion center's director, said his agency is simply centralizing law-enforcement information that was fragmented in the past.

Tiburon in 2010 installed cameras on the only two roads in and out of town so police now record the license plate of every car that enters and leaves, creating what some say is a virtual gated community.

Video cameras have become commonplace in many homes and almost every business, ATM or public building. Yet many people might not realize that police across the Bay Area use their own video surveillance systems to keep tabs on public areas, too.

A consultant's recent report to the Oakland Police Department urged it to "significantly increase the camera-monitoring capabilities of the OPD in commercial areas throughout the city to provide identifications and evidence in robbery, burglary and some shooting cases. Cameras would be monitored and recorded at the Domain Awareness Center that is currently under construction."

The Oakland Domain Awareness Center currently does not have privacy guidelines or limits for retaining the data it collects, raising concerns from civil libertarians and privacy advocates. Eighteen license-plate readers mounted on Oakland police vehicles and city infrastructure already collect and retain millions of license-plate records.

Palo Alto, Redwood City, San Pablo, Pinole, Martinez and other Bay Area cities have cameras, too, but most don't mention it on their websites. You wouldn't know about the cameras unless you specifically asked police or city officials.

Camera systems already in place can have software added later that will recognize people's faces or specific objects, making all that recorded footage much more searchable and potentially invasive. It's a booming business: Intelligent video surveillance and analytics software is a $13.5 billion industry projected to almost triple to $39 billion by 2020, according to a March report from Homeland Security Research, a market research firm.

http://www.mercurynews.com/crime-courts/ci_23569173/look-around-bay-area-youre-being-watched

Oakland surveillance center progresses amid debate on privacy, data collection:
http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Oakland-Surveillance-Center-Progresses-Amid-Debate-on-Privacy-Data-Collection-217185161.html

Oakland moves forward with citywide surveillance center despite data collection, privacy controversy:
http://endthelie.com/2013/07/27/oakland-moves-forward-with-citywide-surveillance-center-despite-data-collection-privacy-controversy/#axzz2aMEwxMW8

The FBI has used drones to spy on Americans 10 times but the details are a secret

You may recall a few weeks ago that FBI Director Robert Mueller admitted to using drones to spy on Americans (and that there were no rules about using those drones). In response, Senator Rand Paul asked Mueller for details and those have now been sent, saying that the drones have been used 10 times, though they're very, very, very quick to play down the significance of this (and to highlight how they were used to recover a kidnapped 5-year-old -- "for the children!"). 

The FBI uses UAVS in very limited circumstances to conduct surveillance when there is a specific, operational need. UAVs have been used for surveillance to support missions related to kidnappings, search and rescue operations, drug interdictions, and fugitive investigations. Since late 2006, the FBI has conducted surveillance using UAVs in eight criminal cases and two national security cases. For example, earlier this year in Alabama, the FBI used UAV surveillance to support the successful rescue of the 5-year-old child who was being held hostage in an underground bunker by Jimmy Lee Dykes. None of the UAVS used by the FBI are armed with either lethal or non--lethal weapons, and the FBI has no plans to use weapons with UAVs. The FBI does not use UAVs to conduct "bulk" surveillance or to conduct general surveillance not related to an investigation or assessment.
Of course, they follow that up by also saying they can't really talk about how they use drones, because, you know, that's secret. 

While we share your interest in transparency concerning the use of law enforcement and national security tools, we are not in a position to disclose publicly more detailed information concerning the Bureau's specific use of UAVS. Such additional information is "Law Enforcement Sensitive" or, in some cases, classified, based on the need to protect the effectiveness of this capability in law enforcement and national security matters. We have enclosed a classified addendum that provides more detailed information in response to your inquiry. We request that you not disseminate the information in the addendum without prior consultation with the FBI. 

Click on the link to read the DOJ's documents about the FBI's drone usage:
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130726/12513523962/fbi-has-used-drones-americans-to-save-child-rest-is-secret.shtml

"Police state" drivers license checkpoints set up in Virginia

Albermarle County, VA - Joe Draego refused to show a police officer his driver's license at a recent checkpoint. He says he was threatened that his window would be broken if he didn't roll it all the way down and that he would be arrested.

"I asked him if I was being detained," recounts Draego of his encounter with Albemarle police on Old Brook Road off East Rio Road. "He said no. I said, can I go? He said no."

Draego estimates that after 15 to 20 minutes, he was allowed to leave. He returned with a sign: "This is how it began in Nazi Germany— police state checkpoints."

"I'll be honest," he says. "I've had enough of this. We have to stand up and say, you've gone too far."

Police solicited most drivers for their “ID” or “drivers license;” however, some motorists were asked to also produce vehicle registration documentation.

Compliance with police requests was nearly 100%, but Joe Draego said, “no.” Claiming he’d done nothing wrong and verifying with police that he’d not committed a crime, Draego would not display his ID to the requesting officer. As a result of his resistance, Mr. Draego was threatened with a “warrant,” to be delivered to his home the following day.

Police had no reason to arrest Draego, says the attorney. "It's not illegal for police to ask someone if they'll answer questions, but the person approached may decline to speak and go on his way," says Heilberg. "He may not be detained without reasonable, articulated suspicion" Hook legal analyst David Heilberg said.

Draego was one of 262 people stopped at the July 11 checkpoint, where 18 tickets were written, according to Albemarle police spokesperson Carter Johnson. Six police officers and one supervisor were on hand for the checkpoint that ran from 1pm to 4pm, she says. And she says the reason for the checkpoint: Nearby residents had complained about traffic safety.

Draego is not one of those residents, and he says he doesn't buy the idea that it took seven cops— the same number the ABC had on hand April 11 for an underage beer-buying sting at Harris Teeter that landed a water-buying UVA student in jail— to catch speeders. "Set up a speed trap," he suggests.

"Don't put up a checkpoint that's punishing and intimidating everyone."
http://www.newsplex.com/home/headlines/Man-Refuses--215323751.html

One man stand: Albemarleman resists police license checkpoint:
http://www.schillingshow.com/2013/07/12/one-man-stand-albemarle-man-resists-police-id-checkpoint/

Police provocateur: Man say's no to police to license checkpoint:
http://www.readthehook.com/109892/police-provocateur-man-says-no-license-checkpoint

TSA is making airport valets search your trunk:

A New York woman who used a valet service recently to park her car at Greater Rochester International Airport discovered upon her return, through a notice left on her car, that it had been searched under TSA regulations without her consent. Furious, she got in touch with a local TV station, and the story went viral. TSA quickly put out a statement saying that its agents don't search cars—but searches can be included in a TSA-approved security plan. Mother Jones has found that not only does TSA approve searches of the trunks and interior of unattended cars in an undefined perimeter that's considered dangerously close to the airport—like a car left with valet parking—but if a valet attendant finds illegal drugs instead of bombs, they will call the police. Privacy experts say these searches could be a violation of a person's Fourth Amendment rights.

"We search every car, we open the trunk and take a look around," says Saour Merwan, a keymaster at the valet service at San Diego International Airport. "We were told by airport authority to do that, since about two years ago. [We] keep an eye out for something suspicious, like wires and cables. The airport has security regulations and we have to follow them." Merwan says the service doesn't inform anyone that they're checking out the inside of the vehicles, and when asked what he'd do if he found illegal drugs, he says, "Of course we'd call the police."

"This is exactly what the Fourth Amendment was designed to say the government can't do, generally search everything without suspicion," says Fred H. Cate, a professor at the Maurer School of Law at Indiana University. "At the same time, the Supreme Court has made an exception to searching items that you've voluntarily given to someone else—like a car. It's a crazy argument, but that's not bothered the courts before."

As David Castelveter, a spokesman for TSA explains, each airport in the United States is required to come up with a TSA-approved plan to deal with security risks. That includes "unattended vehicles parked curbside at the terminal." Approved measures to deal with that risk can include "searches of cars queued for curbside valet parking" (not all airports have valet services, but those that do tend to leave the cars in lots close to the airport.) Mother Jones asked Castelveter whether the definition of "curbside" can include any parking lot close to the airport—including those that may contain locked, non-valet cars—but he said TSA looks at each airport security plan on a "case-by-case basis." Obviously, valet cars are easier to search than other vehicles, as the valet company has the keys.

The airports Mother Jones contacted didn't all handle valet car searches the same way. At the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, valet parking is underneath the terminal, so a security guard does a quick trunk search when the drivers are in the car. The same thing happens at the Nashville International and at Logan Airport in Boston. As Richard Walsh, a spokesman for Massachusetts Port Authority explains, "If a driver does not wish to participate in this procedure, he/she will be directed to park in the Central garage." An attendant for the valet at San Francisco International Airport said "yes, we can search" before changing his mind and adding "we just check the outside of the car. We just take down license plates. I'm not allowed to give you an answer." At Los Angeles International Airport, the valet attendants open the trunk to search for valuables that might be stolen while the person is gone, and list them on a piece of paper, but don't "look for specific stuff" related to security, according to an attendant.

The problem, from a privacy perspective, occurs when cars are searched without the driver's consent. "If you pop your trunk, you've consented to the government looking into your car, and you've waived your Fourth Amendment right," says Ben Wizner, the director of ACLU's speech, privacy & technology project. "But no court has ever indicated that TSA can conduct unwarranted searches, without suspicion, for anything other than explosives at the checkpoints where people are actually getting on the plane...this raises serious constitutional questions."
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/07/tsa-car-searches-airport-fourth-amendment

 Stop and Frisk Watch App:

“Stop and Frisk Watch” is a free and innovative smart phone application that empowers New Yorkers to monitor police activity and hold the NYPD accountable for unlawful stop-and-frisk encounters and other police misconduct.

The app is available in English on both Android and iPhone devices and Spanish in the Android version, thanks to a translation by Make the Road New York. Stop and Frisk Watch allows bystanders to fully document stop-and-frisk encounters and alert community members when a street stop is in progress.

It has three primary functions:

• RECORD: This allows the user to film an incident with audio by simply pushing a trigger on the phone’s frame. Shaking the phone stops the filming. When filming stops, the user immediately receives a brief survey allowing them to provide details about the incident. The video and survey will go to the NYCLU, which will use the information to shed light on the NYPD’s stop-and-frisk practices and hold the Department accountable for its actions.
• LISTEN: This function alerts the user when people in their vicinity are being stopped by the police. When other app users in the area trigger Stop and Frisk Watch, the user receives a message reporting where the police stop is happening. This feature is especially useful for community groups who monitor police activity.
• REPORT: This prompts the survey, allowing users to report a police interaction they saw or experienced, even if they didn’t film it.

 http://www.nyclu.org/app?goback=.gmp_1829117.gde_1829117_member_261007056

Freedom of the press in jeopardy as the Obama administration wants journalists locked up

Jeremy Scahill blasted the Obama administration on Thursday for its opposition to the release of Yemeni journalist Abdulelah Haider Shaye from prison.

Shaye was jailed on terrorism charges after he reported on an American cruise missile strike in Yemen that killed many civilians. Though the charges were widely seen as trumped up, Shaye remained in prison at the behest of President Obama, who told Yemen's president that he should back off of a planned pardon of the journalist.

Shaye was finally freed on Tuesday; the White House said it was "concerned and disappointed" about the release.

Speaking on "Democracy Now," Scahill said that Shaye had been imprisoned "because he had the audacity to expose a U.S. cruise missile attack that killed three dozen women and children, and the United States had tried to cover it up." He harshly criticized Obama for pressing for his continued imprisonment.

"My question for the White House would be you want to co-sign a dictator's arrest of a journalist, beating of a journalist, and conviction in a court that every human rights organization in the world has said was a sham court?" he said. "That's the side that the White House is on right now. Not on the side of press freedom around the world. They're on the side of locking up journalists who have the audacity to actually be journalists."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/25/jeremy-scahill-abdulelah-haider-shaye_n_3653414.html

Obama 'concerned and disappointed' after journalist who exposed US war crimes freed:

The White House is "concerned and disappointed" over the news that Yemeni Journalist Abdulelah Haider Shaye, who was kept in a Yemeni jail for three years per the request of the Obama administration after he exposed a deadly U.S. drone strike, was released Tuesday.

Following news of Shaye's release, journalist Jeremy Scahill, who has written extensively about Shaye's story, contacted the White House for a comment.

The White House's response was brief and alarming:

We are concerned and disappointed by the early release of Abd-Ilah al-Shai, who was sentenced by a Yemeni court to five years in prison for his involvement with Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

According to Scahill and numerous other journalists who have followed the story, Shaye's only involvement with Al Qaeda was conducting interviews with their members for major news outlets that included the Washington Post, ABC News and the New York Times.

Shaye's legal troubles only arose after he uncovered the deadly U.S. strike that killed dozens of innocent Yemeni civilians, after which he was thrown in prison. At one point Shaye was slated for early release, but a phone call from president Obama urged Yemeni officials to keep him behind bars.

"We should let that statement set in," Scahill said of the White House's response. "The White House is saying that they are disappointed and concerned that a Yemeni journalist has been released from a Yemeni prison."

"This is a man who was put in prison because he had the audacity to expose a U.S. cruise missile attack that killed three dozen women and children." 

Farea al-Muslimi, a Yemeni youth activist and writer who testified before Congress this year on the impact of US drone operations in his country,reacted, “After FOUR years of jailing him by order from Barack Obama, Yemeni government releases journalist Abdulelah Shaea.” He also said, “Only Barack Obama can compete with Yemen’s dictators (throughout history) in jailing journalists and killing civilians in Yemen,” and, “What a great Iftar Shaea’s kids might be having today; having their father back with them after 4 years in prison.” 

It takes courage to do what Shaye was doing before he was imprisoned in Yemen. Sadly, when he wound up in prison, US media outlets virtually abandoned him. He had contributed to outlets such as theWashington Post and ABC News but they apparently did not ever find it appropriate to raise their voices to get answers from the administration on why a journalist was being kept in prison.
https://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/07/25-8 
http://www.globalresearch.ca/jailed-journalist-only-obama-can-compete-with-yemens-dictators-in-jailing-journalists-and-killing-civilians/5343676

Reporter had his car hacked to show how easy it is

The inaccuracy of police drug dogs and how it affects the justice system

When we think dogs are using their well-honed noses to sniff out drugs or criminal suspects, they may actually be displaying a more recently evolved trait: an urgent desire to please their masters, coupled with the ability to read their cues.

Several studies and tests have shown that drug-sniffing dogs, scent hounds, and even explosive-detecting dogs are not nearly as accurate as they have been portrayed in court. A recent Chicago Tribune survey of traffic stops by suburban police departments from 2007 to 2009, for example, found that searches turned up contraband in just 44 percent of the cases where police dogs alerted to the presence of narcotics. (An alert is a signal, such as barking or sitting, that dogs are trained to display when they detect the target scent.) In stops involving Hispanic drivers, the dogs' success rate was just 27 percent. The two largest departments the Tribune surveyed—the Chicago Police Department and the Illinois State Police—said they don't even keep track of such information.

But don't blame the dogs; their noses work fine. In fact, the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency recently conceded, after 12 years and millions of dollars of research, that the canine snout, fine-tuned by millions of years of evolution, is still far more sensitive and reliable than any technology man has been able to muster when it comes to detecting explosives in places such as Iraq and Afghanistan.

The problem is our confusion about when dogs are picking up a scent and when they are responding to cues from their handlers. The Economist's "Babbage" blog summarizes a recent study led by Lisa Lit, a neurologist (and former dog handler) at the University of California-Davis, that demonstrates the startling consequences of that confusion:

Researchers asked 18 professional dog handlers and their mutts to complete two sets of four brief searches. Thirteen of those who participated worked in drug detection, three in explosives detection, and two worked in both. The dogs had been trained to use one of two signals to indicate to their handlers that they had detected something. Some would bark, others would sit.

The experimental searches took places in the rooms of a church, and each team of dog and human had five minutes allocated to each of the eight searches. Before the searches, the handlers were informed that some of the search areas might contain up to three target scents, and also that in two cases those scents would be marked by pieces of red paper.

What the handlers were not told was that two of the targets contained decoy scents, in the form of unwrapped, hidden sausages, to encourage the dogs' interest in a false location. Moreover, none of the search areas contained the scents of either drugs or explosives. Any "detections" made by the teams thus had to be false. Recorders, who were blind to the study, noted where handlers indicated that their dogs had raised alerts.

The results? Dog/handler teams correctly completed a search with no alerts in just 21 of the 144 walk-throughs. The other 123 searches produced an astounding 225 alerts, every one of them false. Even more interesting, the search points designed to trick the handlers (marked by the red slips of paper) were about twice as likely to trigger false alerts as the search points designed to trick the dogs (by luring them with sausages). This phenomenon is known as the "Clever Hans effect," after a horse that won fame in the early 1900s by stomping out the answers to simply arithmetic questions with his hoof. Hans was indeed clever, but he couldn't do math. Instead he was reading subtle, unintentional cues from the audience and his trainer, who would tense up as Hans began to click his hoof, then relax once Hans hit the answer.

In her wonderfully written (but strangely titled) book Inside of a Dog, Columbia University psychology professor Alexandra Horowitz further illustrates how humans can unconsciously influence canine behavior. She describes various tests in which researchers measure the problem-solving skills of domestic dogs in comparison to wolves. The tests include activities in which dogs and wolves are tasked with finding a ball or treat hidden in a room, tucked behind a screen, or sealed in a container. When the task involves minimal human contact, domestic dogs perform about as well as their more primitive cousins. But the more the experiments incorporate interaction with humans, the more poorly domesticated dogs fare. They tend to give up, then simply wait for the human researcher to get the prize for them. Horowitz explains:

By standard intelligence tests, the dogs have failed...I believe, by contrast, that they have succeeded magnificently. They have applied a novel tool to the task. We are that tool....We solve the puzzles of closed doors and empty water dishes....We humans are brilliant enough to extract hopelessly tangled leashes from around trees.…Dogs are terrific at using humans to solve problems, but not as good at solving problems when we're not around.

It is hard to overstate the implications of these findings for the use of dogs in police work. The dogs who failed Lit's scent tests did not lose their sense of smell. But in the process of domesticating dogs, we have bred into them a trait that tends to trump most others: a desire to please us—and toward that end, an ability to read us and a tendency to rely on us to help them solve their problems. Any training program that does not take this tendency into account will produce dogs who frequently issue false alerts.

The consequences of those mistakes are profound. As my colleague Jacob Sullum has explained, the U.S. Supreme Court says a dog sniff is not invasive enough to qualify as a "search" under the Fourth Amendment, so police do not need a warrant or probable cause to have a dog smell your luggage or your car. At the same time, however, the courts treat an alert by a drug-sniffing dog as probable cause for an actual, no-question-about-it search, the kind that involves going through your pockets, opening your luggage, looking in your trunk, and perusing your personal belongings. The problem is that a dog barking or sitting may be responding not to a smell but to his handler's hunch about a suspect's guilt. The reason we have a Fourth Amendment is precisely to prevent searches based on hunches.

The consequences of misusing police dogs go well beyond unconstitutional searches. A drug dog's alert can help establish a connection between a suspect's property and drug activity, allowing police to seize the property for possible forfeiture. Even if the owner is never charged with a crime, the burden is on him to go to court to win back what was his, a process that often costs more than the property is worth. In a case I reported last year, for example, college student Anthony Smelley had $17,500 in cash that he'd won in an accident settlement seized when police in Indiana pulled him over and a drug dog alerted to Smelley's car. It took Smelley more than a year to win the cash back in court, even though a subsequent hand search turned up no illegal substances.

Canine testimony can also play a key role in murder cases. Last September the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals overturned the 2004 murder conviction of Richard Winfrey Sr. because the case against him was based on an unreliable, pseudoscientific "scent lineup" in which Fort Bend County Deputy Sheriff Keith Pikett (now retired) claimed his team of bloodhounds alerted to the murder victim's scent on Winfrey's clothing. Pikett and his dogs have assisted in thousands of criminal investigations by police departments all over Texas. As late as last year, prosecutors were trying to use the results from one of Pikett's scent lineups to retry Anthony Graves after a federal appeals court threw out his murder conviction. Graves, who served 18 years on death row, has since been exonerated and freed.

In 2006 University of North Carolina law professor Richard Myers conducted a statistical analysis (PDF) of police dog accuracy tests and concluded that the animals were not reliable enough to produce probable cause for a search, let alone serve as the cornerstone of a conviction. At least five states have banned or restricted the use of scent lineups in criminal cases, but they are still frequently used in courtrooms across the country.
http://reason.com/archives/2011/02/21/the-mind-of-a-police-dog
http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/crime-courts/legal-challenge-questions-reliability-police-dogs

Knowing police are tracking our driving has a "chilling effect" on our liberties

Knowing or suspecting that we're being watched can stop us from engaging in certain kinds of behavior, even when it's perfectly lawful. For example, it might affect our decision to go to a certain barber (what would my other barber say?), meet up with a friend (what would my mom say?), eat at a restaurant (what would my trainer say?), or take the scenic route (is it suspicious that I'm not using my normal route?). Surveillance changes the way we make daily decisions—the same way that a rapidly approaching police car in your rearview mirror may make you feel nervous even when you are driving completely lawfully.

And it doesn't necessarily matter that it's not your mom or your trainer behind the license plate reader pointed at your car. Once your location information is collected and stored by a third party, you have lost control over it, and there is no way to know whose hands it will end up in. We acknowledge this instinctively when we feel discomfort about being watched or followed by anyone, not just those who are most consequential in our lives. When people feel that their movements may be recorded, they feel less comfortable traveling freely and engaging in activities that might be controversial or stigmatizing, even when those activities are important or beneficial.

Even the police have acknowledged the chilling effects of surveillance. A 2011 report by the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) noted that individuals may become "more cautious in the exercise of their protected rights of expression, protest, association, and political participation" due to license plate reader systems. The IACP report continues: 

Recording driving habits could implicate First Amendment concerns. Specifically, LPR systems have the ability to record vehicles' attendance at locations or events that, although lawful and public, may be considered private. For example, mobile LPR units could read and collect the license plate numbers of vehicles parked at addiction counseling meetings, doctors' offices, health clinics, or even staging areas for political protests.

“Government tracking is not just happening at the NSA level; it’s happening at your state and local level. And there’s something that our state legislatures can do about that,” ACLU advocacy and policy strategist Allie Bohn said. “Legislators can’t regulate the NSA, but they certainly can regulate what their state and local law enforcement agencies are doing with license plate readers, and for that matter what their state and local law enforcement agencies are doing with cellphone location tracking, and I hope that they will.”

This chilling effect may be especially pronounced for license plate reader data collection, where information about where you travel can be used to infer information about who you are. In some cases, merely having your car parked in a certain area may be enough to gain law enforcement scrutiny. The IACP report remarks that it may be useful to know whether a car was parked near a domestic violence call or previous crime scene, whether or not the owner of that vehicle was involved.

Unfortunately, these examples are far from improbable. In New York City, police officers used unmarked vehicles with license plate readers to track congregants at local mosques. In Colorado, as one of our public records requests revealed (page 7933 of this document), the Adams County Sheriff's Department demonstrated license plate reader technology by singling out music lovers for surveillance, sweeping a rave party and a concert at a country-western bar (first it's the line dancers, next they'll come for the swing dancers, and then the bedroom mirror dancers?).
http://www.aclu.org/blog/technology-and-liberty-national-security/chilling-effects-license-plate-location-tracking
http://truth-out.org/news/item/17749-license-plate-scanners-black-boxes-track-location-of-millions-of-motorists

ACLU report reveals police are sending our driving habits to fusion centers:

Sensitive ALPR data is shared with other counties and potentially the federal intelligence community through a “fusion center.” A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed by Daly City describes an ALPR database shared by a Bay Area fusion center and fifteen Northern California counties. Under the plan, participating counties get continuous access to each other’s data with no clear limits on what it can be used for. By combining records from multiple jurisdictions, this database has the potential to contain extensive records of motorists’ travels throughout Northern California. The U.S. Senate concluded in 2012 that fusion centers fail to make us safer, tend to be mismanaged, and needlessly intrude on Americans’ privacy, so the suggestion that counties are sharing Californians’ data en masse is particularly concerning.

ALPR technology should be used to accomplish specific law enforcement goals, not deployed as a tool for dragnet surveillance. As it stands, lax safeguards on the use of ALPR and the availability of collected data to the federal intelligence system raise substantial privacy concerns. Real safeguards formed through democratic debate can shed light on the technology’s use, and prevent future misuse.

The starting point for establishing these safeguards is to have an open discussion with local government and citizens about the risks and benefits of ALPRs. Driving may be a privilege, but privacy is a right.
http://www.aclu.org/blog/technology-and-liberty-national-security/use-automated-license-plate-readers-expanding-northern

Police spying on drivers is worse than you think: "A parody message to Massachusetts motorists"
http://massprivatei.blogspot.com/2013/07/a-parody-message-to-massachusetts.html

Police departments are using DHS grants to expand government surveillance:

A 2012 report by Senator Tom Coburn on the DHS Urban Areas Security Initiative (UASI) grant program provides good insight into that problem, pointing out that DHS does not require grantees to provide line item budget reports about how its funds were spent. To learn about how agencies spent those funds, Coburn’s staff had to go from the bottom up, asking individual departments for records containing details about grant spending. That's not a very efficient means of investigation -- and makes highly unlikely the emergence of hard statistics about the impact of federal funding programs nationwide.

But it was through this kind of bottom-up investigation that Coburn’s office learned that DHS funding included monies for license plate readers:

In Louisiana, Jefferson Parish officials sought to spend nearly $45,000 for license plate readers that have been used not to stop terrorists, but to catch car thieves.

While most of the details in the Coburn report come from local agencies, the Senator reported that the DHS Inspector General tracked down some funds spent on license plate readers. But Coburn was not pleased to discover that DHS did not measure how grant funds achieved terrorism-related public safety gains. His report comments:

Audits conducted by the DHS Inspector General (IG) reveal serious shortcomings about the benefit of certain expenditures. For example, a recent IG audit on UASI grant funding revealed that a Californian urban area purchased a license plate reader system for $6.2 million but could not explain how this acquisition identified or contributed to the prevention or investigation of terrorist attacks. Instead, the system was used to locate stolen cars or to identify vehicles with excessive traffic violations. As the IG report pointed out, measuring the contribution this program made toward first responder preparedness might include data on the number of stolen vehicles recovered or suspects apprehended, and how the system contributed to the investigation of a terrorist incident that was prevented or actually occurred. However, neither the State nor the urban area had established such indicators.

Documents returned to the ACLU by ICE suggest that ‘indicators’ of anti-terrorism success may not be what DHS is after when it funds local department acquisitions of license plate readers. That’s because, regardless of whether or not those local departments catch any terrorists with license plate readers, the federal government often gets a very specific and significant return on its investment when it showers state and local law enforcement with money for license plate readers. It gets data – a lot of data.

ICE and the FBI have lots of agents, but the police officer population in the United States dwarfs their numbers. These federal agents are not in every county and town in the United States, and so they are not in an ideal position to collect detailed data about the movements of motorists at the local level. But nearly every city and town has a police department. 

When the federal government gives out money to state and local law enforcement for the purchase of electronic fingerprint or license plate readers, those very same federal agencies are likely to reap the long term benefit of access to exponentially more massive data pools containing information from every city, county and state than anything they could collect on their own.
http://privacysos.org/node/1126 

UK Information commissioner blasts license plate readers:

The United Kingdom's Data Protection Act Europe's most surveilled society forbids "excessive" collection of data "in relation to the purpose or purposed for which they are processed." Police officials were unable to provide a reasonable explanation for their actions, and the unnecessary collection increases the risk that the data will be misused or unlawfully accessed by others. The issue was brought to the commissioner's attention through a complaint filed by Big Brother Watch, Privacy International and No CCTV.

Police could be forced drastically to scale back their use of ‘Big Brother’ road cameras which record the movements of millions of motorists every day.

In a landmark ruling, the privacy watchdog declared that a ring of cameras installed around the quiet market town of Royston in Hertfordshire was unlawful and excessive.

"This sends a clear message that the blanket logging of vehicle movements is not going to be within the law and it is now essential that the ICO ensures other police forces are abiding by the law," Big Brother Watch director Nick Pickles said in a statement. "Yet again we find the public placed under surveillance when the police force was unable to justify why the surveillance was necessary or proportionate. Whoever took the decision to press ahead with this ring of steel and to ignore the law so brazenly should be clearing their desk today."

Critics say the cameras amount to an ‘automated checkpoint system’.

The commissioner warned police agencies that the license plate cameras cannot be used without a clear purpose and a privacy impact assessment.
http://thenewspaper.com/rlc/docs/2013/uk-icoanpr.pdf
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2377083/Police-forced-axe-Big-Brother-road-cameras-Town-wins-landmark-victory-blanket-use-number-plate-spies.html

British Columbia, Canada privacy commissioner rules Victoria Police use of license plate scanners violates the law:
http://www.thenewspaper.com/rlc/docs/2012/can-vicalpr.pdf