The Down Range Forum
Member Section => Down Range Cafe => Topic started by: Tyler Durden on April 20, 2023, 01:07:18 AM
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Hi everybody,
I know I have not been around for a while.
But I thought it was really important to get the word out about this.
To make a long story short, I am involved in some other legal thing. It is NOT related at all to firearms. But during the discovery process, my lawyer received a packet of papers. Amongst these papers were several sheets showing the queries to my NCIC file in 2022.
That is
National
Crime
Information
Center
Which should not be confused with the NICS system for when you buy a gun at an FFL.
There were a total of 4 queries to my NCIC file last year. One of those was a legit police interaction. One query is kinda wishy washy as to legit-ness.
But the last 2….
Well, all 4 are date and time stamped and have a column for the “department” making the query.
Yeah, those last two….I was able to determine that they came from Automated License Plate Reader cameras (ALPR’s).
No big deal….right?
WRONG!
These two cameras caught me driving to/from two different gun ranges on two different dates.
This new revelation bothered me so much that I went back to this members only range last Friday April 14th. I tried looking for cameras mounted on the telephone poles. No luck there. But on the way back to the gun club, I spotted this weird cart in somebody’s driveway:
I will try to attach it here.
I know I don’t have to preach to you all the Big Brother implications of the .gov tracking lawful gun owners legally and responsibly exercising their Second Amendment rights.
(i.e. how many ALPR’s are positioned outside of abortion clinics? Or Christian churches? Or mosques?)
I am hoping to be back at a later time with hopefully a streamlined way for you to see your own NCIC file and its queries. But in the meantime, if you frequent a public range or a private members only range keep your eyes peeled for ALPR’s.
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Hi, Tyler. Long time no see. I thought maybe you suffered a major loss in competition and died of embarrassment. ;D
Hmm. Mysterious cart with solar panel, battery, unknown electronics, and wheels to make it portable/easily aim-able. ???
Quoted below is from the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
https://www.eff.org/pages/automated-license-plate-readers-alpr
Also, if you aren't using their Privacy Badger and HTTPS Everywhere browser add-ons, why not? Major browsers finally offer native support now for an HTTPS only mode, so you don't need the HTTPS Everywhere browser add-on IF you turn it on, but Privacy Badger or something like it is a must for all web browsers, unless you want advertisers and trackers secretly tracking where you go and what pages you look at on the web.
https://www.eff.org/pages/tools
Threats Posed by ALPR
ALPR is a powerful surveillance technology that can be used to invade the privacy of individuals as well as to violate the rights of entire communities.
Law enforcement agencies have abused this technology. Police officers in New York drove down a street and electronically recorded the license plate numbers of everyone parked near a mosque. Police in Birmingham targeted a Muslim community while misleading the public about the project. ALPR data EFF obtained from the Oakland Police Department showed that police disproportionately deploy ALPR-mounted vehicles in low-income communities and communities of color.
Moreover, many individual officers have abused law enforcement databases, including license plate information and records held by motor vehicle departments. In 1998, a Washington, D.C. police officer “pleaded guilty to extortion after looking up the plates of vehicles near a gay bar and blackmailing the vehicle owners.” Police officers have also used databases to search romantic interests in Florida. A former female police officer in Minnesota discovered that her driver’s license record was accessed 425 times by 18 different agencies across the state.
In addition to deliberate misuse, ALPRs sometimes misread plates, leading to dire consequences. In 2009, San Francisco police pulled over Denise Green, an African-American city worker, handcuffed her at gunpoint, forced her to her knees, and searched both her and her vehicle—all because her car was misidentified as stolen due to a license plate reader error. Her experience led the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to rule that technology alone can’t be the basis of such a stop, but that judgment does not apply everywhere, leaving people vulnerable to similar law enforcement errors.
Aggregate data stored for lengthy periods of time (or indefinitely) becomes more invasive and revealing, and it is susceptible to both misuse and data breach. Sensible retention limits, specific policies about who inside an agency is allowed to access data, and audit and control processes could help minimize these issues. One of the better privacy protections would be for police to retain no information at all when a passing vehicle does not match a hot list.
Speaking of data breaches, my personal information was up for sale again on the dark web, and I've gotten dozens of phishing emails at my Comcast address. It used to be a "clean" address, compared to my Outlook address which gets tons of spam. But this has gone beyond the typical spam to phishing for sensitive information, or trying to get me to click on something to start installing malware such as ransomware. I planned on starting a post about it and some of the things you can do to minimize your risk, but haven't gotten around to it yet.
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"They who can give up liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Djj2PrA_91k
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Even GA DOT is in on it by way of their PeachPass which lets you use the express and toll lanes. At first they installed readers outside the toll lanes to get a sense of how many possible users weren't opting to pay. (Toll lanes around ATL have "market based" pricing that changes depending on demand.) Then they started installing readers all around as a tool for monitoring traffic patterns. All sounds very useful and benign util they admitted that when court ordered they've given up travel locations of individuals.
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See above picture. Orwell was prophetic. Even attorneys FOR the surveillance have admitted its Orwellian resemblance.
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I added to the top and sides of the picture to make it 1920x1080 pixels, perfect for a 16:9 desktop background picture.
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Good to see you back, Tyler.
I do look forward to more info.......the SOB's have cameras everywhere. Folks would be surprised at the places you find them if you take the time to pause and scrutinize surroundings.
Heck, they have car-mounted cameras that can scan and verify license plated on the go....so if they can do that, I guarantee they can monitor way more than that and log data.
Interesting times we live in.
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Good to see you back, Tyler.
Interesting times we live in.
Yep. Just like the Chinese curse!
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Politics makes for strange bedfellows.
I contacted or attempted to contact some folks who might be interested in my story.
The only reply I got back was from Senator Josh Hawley.
Yes, I do realize he is from Missouri. But Missouri is very pro-2A.
It was just a form letter type reply.
I tried contacting the editorial staff at Ballistic magazine and Iain Harrison of Recoil magazine.
So about the bedfellows….
I contacted the Illinois chapter of the ACLU.
As soon as they see anything about guns, they will hit the delete button.
But I did try to leverage my argument this way:
The same government that ordered these ALPR’s to be placed outside of gun ranges can just easily order them to be placed in other locations.
Like abortion clinics.
Mosques.
LGBTQ+ rallies
I also emailed the NRA-ILA.
Wouldn’t it be funny if the ACLU got back in touch with me sooner than all the pro-2A people?
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The ACLU already has a brochure for people to read about what a threat these automated license plate readers are... to everyone else but gun owners. They should change their name to Janus. They're just as two-faced as the Roman god. Like the politicians that cause most of our problems.
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I have tried to reach out to several people / entities , but basically got nothing back as a response.
It’s like this scene from the original Jurassic Park movie:
https://youtu.be/WohcOQZBJas
“See? No one cares!"
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The ACLU sent me their version of a “Dear John” letter.
:(
Sad that nobody cares.
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I guess it's not high profile enough to get any attention for them in the MSM. They don't worry about right and wrong any more...just what gains them time in the press.
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The ACLU sent me their version of a “Dear John” letter.
:(
Sad that nobody cares.
Was it something like a Far Cough letter? ;)
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The email reply was actually kinda professional.
A form letter , but a good let down nonethe
To be blunt, I think it all comes down to money and proving that some people have somehow been damaged
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License plate cameras are far more common than anyone thinks and most do not know they exist.
And no, Tyler, you aren't going to get a response. Don't you know these are necessary to track the populace and, in the future, as a tool for control?
Good to see you back by the way. I've been away a couple of months myself. Keep stopping by.
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Given the rapid capture of the mass shooter in Atlanta last week utilizing license plate scanners and security cams it's impossible to argue against their widespread use. While I didn't see anything about it I wouldn't be surprised if they also used toll road transponders to track the stolen vehicle as well.
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This is from a link at one of the earlier articles. I kept it as a reminder of what was going on
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I would suppose they are looking for a good excuse to ramp up the political anti-gun agenda.
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I would suppose they are looking for a good excuse to ramp up the political anti-gun agenda.
Oh they are. I suspect a playbook went out to all anti-gun politicians and journalists a while back and they're waiting for a shooting in their area to start their attacks. In ATL we had a patient go crazy in a hospital <edited> shooting 5 people. The anti-gun rhetoric began within hours of the attack. Before the crime scene was released by CSI, our US Senator was in the well of the Senate making an impassioned plea for more gun control. The local paper has been relentless in its editorials, "articles", and headlines. And there have been local protests and calls for a special session of Ga Legislature to ban some guns, start universal background checks, require licenses to own and to repeal constitutional carry, if not all public carry.
It is, I believe, all part of a well oiled, well coordinated, national gun control strategy.
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You are so right.
Every death is a tragedy but the actual % of the affected population is quite small compared to the alternative possibilities of an unrestricted totalitarian government.
History means nothing to people because, "It can't happen here." or "This is America not Russia we are different here." Which goes to show many people don't have enough sense or desire to use the sense that God gave them to actually think and they should not vote. Universal suffrage is not a good idea.
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I would suppose they are looking for a good excuse to ramp up the political anti-gun agenda.
In reality, they're all bad excuses.