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Feds Hand Out Funds To Be Used For 'Traffic Safety;' Local Agencies Buy License Plate Readers Instead

from the protective-non-custody dept

Thu, Jul 30th 2015 11:02pm — Tim Cushing

The National Highway Transportation Safety Association (NHTSA) is supposed to be focused on one thing: safety. For crying out loud, it's right in the middle of its cumbersome name. But the federal funding it hands out to state and local governments is being used for surveillance devices with no discernible "safety" purpose: automatic license plate readers.

The NHTSA is funding license plate readers for highway safety purposes only, but it’s far from clear how law enforcement agencies are interpreting this and whether they are using the funding to buy license plate readers for non-safety uses. The NHTSA should not be funding police technology for surveillance purposes and it should not let law enforcement apply for funding to decrease traffic fatalities and then turn around and use those funds to track people not suspected of any crime.

This is how things are supposed to run versus how things actually run. This funding dodge is pretty much indiscernible from law enforcement agencies obtaining DHS/DoD grants for Stingrays and Bearcats to combat "terrorism," and then using the equipment to do banal, routine policework, like tracking down drug dealers.

So, in the name of "safety," local agencies are asking for federal funding, and then using the subsidization to deploy new surveillance tech. Standard operating procedure. And the companies manufacturing this equipment clearly recognize these exploitable funding opportunities and target prospective purchasers accordingly.

Private license plate reader manufacturers have further facilitated NHTSA granting funds for license plate reader systems by connecting state and local law enforcement agencies with the funding streams. In one 2012 email exchange, an employee of an ALPR maker advises the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles that “NHTSA funding is available for traffic safety” and provides contact information. Indeed, the company has a whole page of its website devoted to connecting law enforcement agencies with sources of funding.

In essence, the companies are telling agencies this equipment is pretty much free. And it is, as long as you don't think too hard about the original source of the funding: taxpayers. Exploiting this federal funding allows agencies to claim safety is a priority while not actually moving towards that goal. Instead, they get the location tracking technology they want and allow the public to pick up the tab. Then this equipment is turned around and pointed at the same people paying for it, sometimes literally as a tool of tax collection.

And it looks as if this broken, abused system will only get worse. The ACLU reports the NHTSA is soliciting bids for a study into the use of license plate readers to improve driver safety. That this obviously arrives well after NHTSA funds have been used to purchase plate readers is already problematic. Beyond that, any conclusions drawn from the report will simply provide law enforcement agencies with handy citations to use when requesting funding for equipment they have no interest in using for "public safety" reasons.

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Filed Under: alpr, license plate readers, traffic safety

19 Comments

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Whoever, 30 Jul 2015 @ 11:07pm

Am I too cynical?
Am I too cynical if I think that the real purpose of all this surveillance gear is to gather information that will be used to blackmail politicians and other people in positions of power?
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Anonymous Coward, 30 Jul 2015 @ 11:24pm

Well, it's practically traditional by now. A very great percentage of American "foreign aid" dollars goes from the Treadury directly to American arms manufacturers chosen by Americans (and a heck of a lot of the rest props up the Israeli economy, which in turn provides welfare so that lots of able-bodied men can study the Torah all their lives, but that's another story).
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Digitari, 30 Jul 2015 @ 11:25pm

Re: Am I too cynical?
And folks wonder why some folks just snap at a theater, or join an insane cult.

too much pressure.

"I always feel like somebody's watching me"
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Anonymous Coward, 30 Jul 2015 @ 11:25pm

There were some child murders around me a few years ago and amber alerts are still reaching my phone.

There are actual laws in some places against using cameras/readers to go after drivers after the fact for a simple traffic violation (ie running a red light). I like those laws. If they deployed them properly they actually could improve traffic safety.
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Digitari, 30 Jul 2015 @ 11:27pm

Re:
also krav maga.....

always remember that.
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Anonymous Coward, 30 Jul 2015 @ 11:47pm

Will they ever stop throwing money away like this?
A much better system would be SUBMITTING A REQUEST FOR FUNDING AND STATING WHAT THAT MONEY WOULD BE USED FOR!!!!

Then there could actually be consequences for misusing funds, because if you get approved to use it for one thing, but spend it else where, then there is clear evidence you just lied
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toyotabedzrock (profile), 31 Jul 2015 @ 2:15am

I want to know which person in Congress slipped this into an appropriations bill.
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Lurker Keith, 31 Jul 2015 @ 2:24am

better use for the funds
A better use for the funds would be to pay off some of the Nation's Trillions of Dollars of Debt. Or just give the money back to the Taxpayers, which could stimulate the economy a bit. Rather than borrow more money, making the debt that much larger, for technology that's likely to be ruled Unconstitutional, at some point, & banned from the uses they were actually bought for.
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Anonymous Coward, 31 Jul 2015 @ 3:04am

Re: better use for the funds
No technology is unconstitutional, specific uses of said technology are unconstitutional
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ThatFatMan (profile), 31 Jul 2015 @ 4:39am

I see what happened
You see, our government loves acronyms and obfuscation. NHTSA is really a cleverly disguised division of the FBI created in the wake of 9/11 and we've all been duped.

Here, NHTSA is the National Homemade Terrorist Surveillance Association and the funding is used to push the FCC agenda (Find, Create, Convict).
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Pixelation, 31 Jul 2015 @ 7:19am

Next time they come looking for money the NHTSA ought to give them $78,467 worth of safety cones instead of cash.
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Gwiz (profile), 31 Jul 2015 @ 8:10am

Re:
If they deployed them properly they actually could improve traffic safety.

I highly doubt that. Multiple studies have shown that red light cameras actually increase accidents.

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20060405/1345216.shtml
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John Fenderson (profile), 31 Jul 2015 @ 8:40am

Re: better use for the funds
Or fix the damned roads & bridges.
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Charles (profile), 31 Jul 2015 @ 9:37am

Re:
"I want to know which person in Congress slipped this into an appropriations bill."

A Congress person with a license plate reader manufacturer in their district.
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Uriel-238 (profile), 31 Jul 2015 @ 11:39am

It sounds like the NHTSA grants were merely mislabeled.
Given that the National Highway Transportation Safety Association's oversight of their grants is allowing for law enforcement agencies to buy license plate readers, there are obviously some exceptions to the for highway safety only provision.

I wonder if they provide grants for Las Vegas junkets too.
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Coyne Tibbets (profile), 31 Jul 2015 @ 2:42pm

Back to the future
Biff [knocking on head while shouting]: "Hello! Hello! Safety from terrorists! Safety from terrorists!"

(This joke should not be taken as a claim that Biff is as dumb as government.)
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Anonymous Coward, 31 Jul 2015 @ 7:26pm

Re: Re:
I was talking about catching kidnapped children in cars before they are murdered.
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Uriel-238 (profile), 31 Jul 2015 @ 10:03pm

Kidnapped children in cars
How many lives per capita are we talking about here? Most kidnappings are parental. Giving the police everyone's travel information seems a high price to pay for a couple hundred lives.

And in today's clime, I wouldn't expect law enforcement to actually persue missing persons in time enough to rescue them when drug raids are far more profitable.
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hugh (profile), 17 Nov 2019 @ 6:51pm

If they deployed them properly they actually could improve traff
I highly doubt that. Multiple studies have shown that red light cameras actually increase accidents.

https://www.sztigerwong.com
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