ALPR NEG
Forfeiture DA
Forfeiture DA 1NC
Asset forfeiture is disrupting drug trafficking now
ONDCP 2015 (Office of National Drug Control Policy, “International Money Laundering and Asset
Forfeiture,” Date is date accessed, July 17, https://www.whitehouse.gov/ondcp/international-moneylaundering-and-asset-forfeiture)
In FY 2010, DEA maintained 21 money laundering investigative groups to support its Financial Attack Strategy. Through several
national initiatives focused on targeting the bulk cash derived from drug proceeds, DEA seized $736.7 million in FY 2010. Further,
DEA denied total revenue of nearly $3 billion from drug trafficking and money
laundering organizations through asset and drug seizures in FY 2010.
The Department of Homeland Security has also intensified its efforts to combat the flow of illicit proceeds across the border with
Mexico. In March 2009, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reestablished an Outbound Enforcement Program in order to
increase outbound enforcement activities and obstruct illegal currency and weapons being smuggled from the United States into
Mexico. Results include a dramatic increase in outbound currency and inbound drug seizures. For FY 2010, the CBP Office of Field
Operations seized a total of $28.9 million in currency at land border ports of entry at the Southern border. In addition, the U.S.
Border Patrol seized $7.9 million in currency at the Southern border.
With regard to financial investigations, ICE’s
Cornerstone Initiative focuses on coordination and
cooperation with other domestic and foreign law enforcement agencies and the private
sector to eliminate vulnerabilities in U.S. financial systems and disrupt and dismantle
alternative illicit financing mechanisms. ICE’s Trade Transparency Unit (TTU) and Money Laundering
Coordination Center (MLCC) provide the analytical infrastructure to support financial and trade investigations. The TTU has the
unique ability to not only analyze domestic trade and financial data, but also trade and financial data of foreign cooperating
partners. ICE also conducts specialized investigative training focused on bulk cash smuggling for state and local police officers and
Assistant U.S. Attorneys.
The Foreign Narcotic Kingpin Designation Act provides a statutory framework for the President to institute economic sanctions
against foreign drug kingpins in order to deny their front organizations access to the U.S. financial system and benefits from U.S.
trade. Once
locked out of American trade, criminal organizations have difficulty
participating in open commerce. The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) blocks all
assets and payments belonging to these kingpins and their associated entities.
DEA license plate monitoring is key to asset forfeiture
NEWSWEEK 2015 (“Asset Forfeiture Drives Justice Department's License Plate Tracking,” Jan 27,
http://www.newsweek.com/asset-forfeiture-drives-justice-departments-license-plate-tracking-302621)
The Justice Department is building a national database that tracks vehicles’ movements
around the U.S. in real time using information obtained from the Drug Enforcement Agency’s
(DEA) license plate scanning program, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The program not only tracks
car, driver and passenger locations via high-tech cameras along highways, but uses data mining “to identify travel patterns.”
According to the newly uncovered documents, the
primary goal of the program is to seize assets, such as
cars and cash, to combat drug trafficking. But former and current officials told the Journal that the
database’s use has expanded to hunt for automobiles associated with a slew of other
crimes.
Asset forfeiture has been widely covered in the news in recent months after a Washington Post investigation showed that police have
seized almost $2.5 billion in cash from drivers without search warrants or indictments since September 11, 2001. In April 2013, for
example, two professional poker players had $100,000 seized by Iowa state troopers at a traffic stop on their drive home to
California. The troopers had no warrant but suspected the men may be involved in drug trafficking.
Asset forfeitures often go toward paying for salaries, equipment and perks in many
jurisdictions. The American Civil Liberties Union contends that, “when salaries and perks are on the line, officers have a
strong incentive to increase the seizures, as evidenced by an increase in the regularity and size of such seizures in recent years.”
Federally, it provides a stream of revenue.
Though Attorney General Eric Holder’s new policy to limit the practice was met with praise earlier
this month, further analysis of the policy’s language shows the limits will only apply to a small number of
cases, meaning the database can continue to be used for warrantless asset forfeitures.
When the program began in 2008, little information was shared with the public. Information did trickle out over the years, but a
2013 ACLU report called You Are Being Tracked found that license plate reader technology was being widely adopted by local
and state law enforcement agencies.
New documents obtained by the ACLU confirm that these agencies contribute
data to the program, as do
federal agencies such as Customs and Border Patrol, which collects “nearly 100 percent
of land border traffic,” or more than 793.5 million license plates between May 2009 and May 2013.
The DEA also shares the information it collects with other agencies of all stripes, which
are allowed to conduct searches in the database.
Asset forfeiture is a key law enforcement tool—it deters, disrupts, and
punishes crime and is just because it compensates victims and punishes
criminals
CASSELLA 2004 (Stefan, Dept. Chief of Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering Section of the DoJ
and JD from Georgetown, “Overview of Asset Forfeiture Law in the United States,” January,
http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1008&context=stefan_cassella)
Asset forfeiture is an integral part of federal criminal law enforcement in the United States. This
brief introduction to federal forfeiture law attempts to answer three questions: 1) Why is asset forfeiture important to law
enforcement? 2) What types of property are subject to forfeiture, and in what circumstances? and 3) How is forfeiture
accomplished?
Why do forfeiture?
There are many reasons to include the forfeiture of assets as part of a criminal case. First,
law enforcement agents and
prosecutors want not only to arrest wrongdoers and put them in jail for some period of time, but also to remove the tools
of the crime from circulation so they cannot he used again, either by the wrongdoers themselves once
they have gained their release, or by members of their organisations. Thus, law enforcement wants to seize and
forfeit the guns. the airplanes, and the cars with concealed compartments that are used for drug smuggling: it wants to take the
computers, printers, and other electronic devices used in child pornography, counterfeiting, and identification fraud cases: and it
wants to shut down the crack house’ where drugs are distributed to children on their way to school, to confiscate the farm used for
the marijuana-growing operation, and to close down the business used to commit insurance fraud, telemarketing fraud or to run a
Ponzi scheme. In this sense, asset
forfeiture is a form of incapacitation.
Secondly. in any case where the crime involves innocent victims, such as property offences and fraud, asset forfeiture
turns out to be the most effective means of recovering property that may used to
compensate the victims. Indeed, restoration of property to victims in white-collar cases is the first
priority of law enforcement when it comes to disbursing forfeited property. 2 and much time and effort is expended in
such cases to ensure that the wrongdoer’s assets are preserved pending trial so that they remain available to he used for this purpose
once the case is over.
Thirdly. asset forfeiture takes the profit out of the crime. Obviously, there is an element of
simple justice in ensuring that wrongdoers are deprived of the fruits of their illegal acts.
But there is also an element of general deterrence as well. Surely the incentive to engage in
economic crime is diminished if persons contemplating such activity understand that there is high
likelihood that they will not be allowed to retain any profits that might flow from their temporary
success. Conversely, convicting defendants hut leaving them in possession of the riches of
wrongdoing gives others the impression that a life of crime is worth the risk.
There is also the matter of the message that is sent to the community of law-abiding citizens when a
notorious gangster or fraud artist is stripped of the trappings of what may have appeared to he an enviable lifestyle. Criminals
typically spend their spoils on expensive homes, airplanes. electronic goods and other toys’ that everyone else wishes that they had
the resources to acquire. Taking the criminals’ toys away, as law enforcement agents typically put it, not only ensures
that criminals’ enterprises are deprived of their economic resources, and that funds are available for restitution to the victims~it also
sends a signal to the community that the benefits of a life of crime are illusory and temporary
at best.
Law enforcement professionals would much prefer that persons passing an expensive cliffside mansion on the Pacific Coast say,
‘Remember Mr Big that used to control the syndicate here? There is the house he used to own. The government has it now.’ and not
‘There is Mr Big’s house. What a place! And he still owns it too!’
Finally, asset forfeiture constitutes a form of punishment. While taking the instrumentalities of crime out of
circulation, obtaining funds for restitution, taking the profit out of crime and achieving some measure of deterrence all constitute
remedial aspects of forfeiture, it cannot he denied that depriving wrongdoers of the accoutrements of an expensive lifestyle, or the
items that gave them the leverage, prestige or wherewithal to commit criminal acts, is a form of punishment or retrihution exacted
by the criminal justice system. Forfeiture,
in other words. gives criminals their just deserts.
Forfeiture DA Links
License plate tracking is a key measure in asset forfeiture
PURSELL 2015 (Robert, “License Plate Scans Allow Government, Companies To Track Where You
Go, What You Do,” Daily Caller, Jan 27, http://dailycaller.com/2015/01/27/reports-license-plate-scansallow-government-companies-to-track-where-you-go/)
Every day across the country, high-speed license plate cameras are being used by both
law enforcement officials and private companies to track the movement and activity of
citizens across the country.
That information is being stored in massive governmental and private databases, where it is
subsequently sold to third-party companies for commercial usage or used by law enforcement officials to assists
in arrests and seizures. And, for the most part, there is no oversight on the practice.
According to a report by The Wall Street Journal, and through information obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union through a
Freedom of Information Act request, the government program is a function of the
Drug Enforcement
Administration, and its stated goal is to aid law officers in combating drug trafficking.
The practice was originally started around the Mexican border in areas where the drug trade is rampant, but in the years since
has expanded nationwide, and is currently employed by law enforcement officials to aid in the investigation
and prosecution of crimes beyond the realm of narcotics.
A main goal of the program is the pursuit of asset forfeiture, a practice through which law-enforcement
agencies seize property and cash from suspected criminals.
Asset forfeiture has come under intense criticism for its lack of regulation and how
alarmingly difficult it is for ultimately law-abiding and innocent citizens whose property
has been wrongly seized to recover their assets.
Forfeiture Solves Drugs
DEA asset forfeiture is key to combat drug trafficking
DEA 2015 (Drug Enforcement Administration, “DEA Programs: Asset Forfeiture,”
http://www.dea.gov/ops/af.shtml)
DEA is the premier drug enforcement organization in the world and is responsible for
conducting national and international investigations targeting global drug trafficking
networks and drug-related terrorism involved in the illegal growing, manufacture, or
distribution of controlled substances appearing in or destined for illicit traffic in the
United States. A component of DEA’s strategic mission is the use of the Asset Forfeiture
Program. Working with other local, state, national, and international law enforcement
agencies, DEA has seized records amounts of cash, assets, and other drug-related
proceeds. By attacking the financial infrastructure of drug trafficking organizations
world-wide, DEA has disrupted and dismantled major drug trafficking organizations
and their supply chains, thereby improving national security and increasing the quality of life for the
American public.
Forfeiture is key to disrupt drug trafficking and organized crime
DOJ 2008 (U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General Audit Division, ASSETS
FORFEITURE FUND AND SEIZED ASSET DEPOSIT FUND ANNUAL FINANCIAL STATEMENT
FISCAL YEAR 2007, March,
http://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/afp/legacy/2009/03/10/fy2007_afs_report.pdf)
The primary mission of the Department of Justice (DOJ or the Department) Asset Forfeiture
Program (AFP or the Program) is to prevent and reduce crime by disrupting, damaging, and
dismantling criminal organizations through the use of the forfeiture sanction. This is
accomplished by means of depriving drug traffickers, racketeers, and other criminal
syndicates of their ill-gotten proceeds and instrumentalities of their trade. Components
responsible for the administration and financial management of the AFP are charged with lawfully, effectively and efficiently
supporting law enforcement authorities in the application of specified forfeiture statutes. The Assets Forfeiture Fund (AFF or the
Fund) and Seized Asset Deposit Fund (SADF) together comprise a single financial reporting entity of the DOJ, which includes the
specified funds, property seized for forfeiture, and the transactions and program activities of DOJ forfeiture program components
and other participating agencies as described more fully herein.
Forfeiture is important in the War on Drugs
McDowell 96 – Chief, Asset Forfeiture & Money Laundering Section, Dept. of Justice
Washington (Gerald E. “Why Prosecutors Choose Civil Forfeiture,” The New York
Times, July 5th, 1996, http://www.nytimes.com/1996/07/05/opinion/l-whyprosecutors-choose-civil-forfeiture-063487.html)BC
Prosecutors choose civil forfeiture not because of the standard of proof, but because it is often the only
way to confiscate the instrumentalities of crime. The alternative, criminal forfeiture, requires a criminal trial
and a conviction. Without civil forfeiture, we could not confiscate the assets of drug cartels
whose leaders remain beyond the reach of United States extradition laws and who cannot be
brought to trial.
criminal forfeiture reaches only a defendant's own property. Without civil
forfeiture, an airplane used to smuggle drugs could not be seized, even if the pilot was arrested, because
Moreover,
the pilot invariably is not the owner of the plane.
Nor could law enforcement agencies confiscate cash carried by a drug courier who
doesn't own it, or a building turned into a "crack house" by tenants with the knowing
approval of the landlord.
By a vote of 8 to 1, the Supreme Court has rightly reaffirmed its historic approval of civil
forfeiture as a way to take the profit out of crime and to take the instrumentalities of
crime out of circulation. What we must focus on is not whether civil forfeiture is a proper tool of law enforcement but on
making sure that the forfeiture procedures operate fairly.
The Justice Department has proposed legislation that would enhance the due process rights of property owners by creating a
uniform "innocent owner" defense and placing the burden of proof on the Government in civil forfeiture cases.
In this way, we
can improve the forfeiture laws while keeping them intact to seize the profits
of drug traffickers, money launderers and swindlers.
Forfeiture is key to fight drug trafficking – specifically the Mexican cartels
Jany 14 – Minneapolis reporter (8/26/2014, Libor, Star Tribune, “Drug war asset forfeitures draw scrutiny”,
http://www.startribune.com/drug-war-asset-forfeitures-draw-scrutiny/272760391/ // SM)
In a separate operation earli-er this month, the
task force arrested four people with suspected ties to
Mexican drug cartels and seized $10,000 in cash and 7 pounds of crystal
methamphetamine with a street value of about $75,000, said Sgt. Jim Gabriel, of the
Dakota County Sheriff’s Office. The cases are wending their way through federal court. If the four are
convicted, their assets will be sold and the proceeds turned over to authorities, said Gabriel,
the task force’s recently appointed commander. “Forfeiture funding is a big part of our operation here,”
Gabriel said. The task force con-sists of 15 full-time agents and one part-tim-er, coming from every department in Dakota
County. Scott County’s lone representative in the unit is from the Savage Police Department. Most of the proceeds from
the forfeitures from those op­er­ations wind up in the task force’s bank account. The coun-ty
attorney’s office also gets a cut, about 20 percent, while the state receives 10 percent. And police watchdogs are calling for great-er
transparency in the proc-ess. Asset
forfeiture is an indispensable tool in the war on
drugs, authorities say. Not only does it discourage criminal activity, it also makes it
harder for criminals to continue their illegal activities by stripping them of the
equipment they use and the proceeds of their crimes. “The forfeitures are a byproduct of
a drug trade. And the whole thought proc-ess is ... how can we positively impact the drug
trade?” said Dakota County Sheriff Dave Bellows. “How can we stop it? How can we
make it painful for the drug deal­er? And forfeitures are part of that.” Bellows said
many law enforcement agencies rely on forfeiture money — from the sale of confiscated
cars, jewelry and houses — to supplement their dwindling budgets. Taxpayers benefit, too, he said. While
most police departments in Dakota and Scott counties have received mon-ey from forfeiture,
the drug task force has received the lion’s share. In 2013, seizure mon­ey accounted for
about 33 percent of the task force’s budg­et. Most went toward “gang officer reimbursement,” “contracted
services” and “other expenses,” records show. This year, that ratio rose to 47 percent.
Forfeiture Solves Crime (General)
Asset forfeiture is critical to solve crime and there’s oversight to protect
suspects
Thompson 14 – Interim executive director of the National Sheriffs' Association (John
W., “Asset forfeiture deters criminals: Opposing view,” USA Today, November 19th,
2014, http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/11/19/asset-forfeiture-nationalsheriffs-association-editorials-debates/19299825/)BC
Asset forfeiture is a strong tool that strikes at the economic foundation of criminal
activity, acting as both a powerful deterrent and lesson.
Asset forfeiture is a truly effective lever for tackling sophisticated, well-funded drug
traffickers, organized crime and ordinary street thugs. It makes communities safer by enhancing
critical law enforcement efforts and supporting regional law enforcement task forces.
Using a criminal's illegal profits allows law enforcement to target crimes that might
otherwise strain taxpayers.
OUR VIEW: When police play bounty hunter
Drug crimes are often a focus, but other crimes are also addressed, removing a
criminal's financial incentives and making his activity a lose/lose. It turns assets into a weapon
against crime, making it a win/win for crime prevention and taxpayers.
Most important, many criticisms of asset forfeiture were addressed and corrected in the Civil
Asset Forfeiture Reform Act of 2000.
And the Justice Department is acting on issues raised in a 2012 Government Accountability Office report on equitable sharing to
improve federal policy and practice.
Constant oversight and review of asset forfeiture programs helps ensure that
property owners are protected and receive due process.
Sheriffs and police chiefs across the country have developed asset forfeiture programs that promote fairness,
protect property owners' rights, meet legal requirements and successfully target
criminal activities. Sheriffs and chiefs often stress seizing drugs over assets, as removing
illegal drugs from American streets is the critical priority.
Enforcing laws in a democratic society can create opportunities for misuse and abuse. Unfortunate cases of misguided execution
should be swiftly addressed. Thus, the National Sheriffs' Association and the Major County Sheriffs' Association support
examination of best practices, judicial review, local legislative oversight and scrutiny from the press and voters.
But addressing misapplication
or abuse by the few should not ignore the vast body of lawful,
fair and appropriate use, or overlook the many benefits of asset forfeiture as a law
enforcement tool.
Money Laundering Key
Money laundering is the key support for international drug trafficking
ONDCP 2015 (Office of National Drug Control Policy, “International Money Laundering and Asset
Forfeiture,” Date is date accessed, July 17, https://www.whitehouse.gov/ondcp/international-moneylaundering-and-asset-forfeiture)
The United States engages in international and domestic efforts to disrupt the flow of illicit capital, track criminal sources of funds,
forfeit ill-gained assets, and prosecute offenders. Money
laundering plays an integral role in the illicit
narcotics industry, in that it enables the organizations that supply drugs to finance their
ongoing operations and conceal their enormous profits from the reach of law
enforcement.
Terrorism Impact
Asset forfeiture fosters cooperation between federal, state, and local law
enforcement
Hartman 1 – J.D., C.P.A, Former Forfeiture coordinator for the FBI in Houston (Victor
E., “Implementing an Asset Forfeiture Program,” Pop Center, 2001,
http://www.popcenter.org/Responses/asset_forfeiture/PDFs/Hartman2001.pdf)BC
Asset forfeiture laws at the federal level, and in most states, allow law enforcement to use proceeds of
certain seizures for equipment and other needs, especially when the seized property is drug related and there are no victims
to compensate. Since the inception of the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) asset forfeiture fund in the mid-1980s, almost
$2.5 billion have been shared with state and local agencies. Further, asset forfeiture
fosters cooperation among federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies
through the use of adoption and equitable sharing. When the federal agency agrees to
process the seizure under federal forfeiture provisions and remits the proceeds back to the
originating agency, this process constitutes equitable sharing. In on statutory requirement for sharing,
the U.S. Attorney General must assure that the sharing will encourage further cooperation
between the department seizing the assets and the sponsoring federal law enforcement
agency
Law enforcement cooperation is crucial to prevent terror attacks
DHS 15 – The Department of Homeland Security (“Law Enforcement Partnerships,”
Last Published February 26th, 2015, http://www.dhs.gov/topic/law-enforcementpartnerships)BC
Our law enforcement partners at the federal, state, local, tribal and territorial levels are
the backbone of our nation’s domestic defense against terrorist attacks. They
are this country’s eyes and ears on the ground, and the first line of detection and prevention.
They are a vital partner in ensuring public safety, in every American community.
To support these partners and carry out our missions, almost 90 percent of DHS employees are stationed outside Washington, D.C.,
in communities across the country.
Building Partnership
Homeland security begins with hometown security. As part of its commitment to
hometown security, DHS has worked to get tools, information, and resources out of
Washington, D.C. and into the hands of our federal, state, local, tribal and territorial law enforcement
partners.
It is vital that DHS law enforcement partners have a clear understanding of the tactics,
behaviors, and other indicators that could point to terrorist activity. The Department works to:
Improve how it communicates and shares information
Enhance the kind of federal resources and support it provides through grants, training, and other means
Strengthen its analytic capabilities to achieve better awareness of new and emerging threats
Partnership Successes
DHS has made progress in improving its domestic capabilities to detect and prevent
terrorist attacks against America’s people, communities, and critical infrastructure.
We have brought resources and expertise to our law enforcement partners and built new mechanisms to share information. This
includes investments in training for local law enforcement and first responders of all types in order to increase expertise and
capacity at the local level.
Information sharing between law enforcement solves terrorism
ISE no date – Information Sharing Environment (“Law Enforcement Information
Sharing,” http://www.ise.gov/law-enforcement-information-sharing)BC
Law Enforcement Information Sharing
Law enforcement information
sharing has expanded significantly across all levels of government, improving law
enforcement's ability to detect, prevent, and respond to acts of terrorism. The
sharing of law enforcement information is not a single integrated process. Rather, it cuts across
business processes in multiple communities and at all levels of government. But these
seemingly unrelated efforts share many features in common. A fundamental component of effective enterprise-wide information
sharing, for example, is the use of information systems that regularly capture relevant data and make it broadly available to
authorized users in a timely and secure manner. Although the focus of the ISE is terrorism-related information, many
of the
techniques used to improve sharing of terrorism information are also applicable to other
types of crimes and vice versa. Criminal history records, law enforcement incident reports,
records of judicial actions and decisions, and watch lists of known and suspected
terrorists are all essential sources of vital data that provide accurate, timely, and complete
information to law enforcement officers across the country.
A2: Forfeiture Unjust
CAFRA solves abuses of forfeiture
DUNN 2014 (Kyla, “Reining in forfeiture: common sense reform in the war on drugs,”
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/drugs/special/forfeiture.html)
This bleak picture began to change in April of this year, however, when the
Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act
was finally signed into federal law. The success caps a nearly decade-long crusade, and is the result of cooperation
between some truly unlikely allies who, only by working together, could overpower Congress' fear of looking "soft on crime". Henry
Hyde, a conservative Republican from Illinois and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, was joined by the House Judiciary
Committee's ranking Democrat, John Conyers of Michigan, to spearhead the effort--which united politicians as diverse as outspoken
conservative Bob Barr of Georgia with Democratic liberal Barney Frank of Massachusetts. An equally impressive coalition formed in
the Senate around the issue.
Joining in support were organizations as wide-ranging as the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Rifle Association, the
American Bankers Association, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the United States Chamber of Commerce, the
Americans for Tax Reform, and organizations representing groups like pilots, boaters and hotel owners.
The new law requires the government to have much stronger evidence of wrongdoing
before it can seize a person's property--raising the burden of proof from "probable cause" to "a preponderance of
the evidence" that the property is linked to a crime. What's more, it shifts the burden of proof to the
federal government, meaning that the government must now prove in court that the
property was involved in crime...instead of the property owner needing to prove the opposite.
Equally important for people like Rudy Ramirez, the new law removes many of the onerous financial
hurdles involved in contesting a forfeiture. It refunds lawyers' fees to property owners
who successfully challenge a seizure in court, and in some cases provides government-paid lawyers to the
indigent. Furthermore, it eliminates the requirement that property owners post a
sometimes hefty bond before they can fight to get their property back.
A2: Militarization
Alt cause – federal grants
Jany 14 – Minneapolis reporter (8/26/2014, Libor, Star Tribune, “Drug war asset forfeitures draw scrutiny”,
http://www.startribune.com/drug-war-asset-forfeitures-draw-scrutiny/272760391/ // SM)
Authorities argue that most
of the military gear is being acquired with federal grant
money, rather than proceeds of forfeitures. Without the military-transfer
program, many departments couldn’t otherwise afford the crime-fighting equipment
required of policing in the 21st century, they say. “I wish the public wouldn’t be scared or
intimidated by this equipment but under­stand that they’re necessary tools we need to
do our jobs safely and to help protect both the police and the community,” Gabriel said.
A2: WOD Immoral
All of their turns assume previous enforcement mechanisms—Obama
strategy shift solves
Bridy 14- Alan G. Shepard Professor of Law, University of Idaho College of Law
(Annemarie, “CARPE OMNIA: Civil Forfeiture in the War on Drugs and the War on
Piracy”, Arizona State Law Journal, http://arizonastatelawjournal.org/wpcontent/uploads/2015/01/Bridy_Final.pdf)//WK
The 2008 presidential election precipitated a significant policy shift in the war on drugs.
In 2009, Obama drug czar Gil Kerlikowske told a journalist that the “war on drugs” was an unproductive
metaphor because it translates inevitably in the public imagination into a “war on people.”164 In May of 2010,
Kerlikowske formally announced an end to the executive branch’s forty-year focus on
enforcement, committing the administration to a new drug control strategy oriented
toward prevention and treatment.165 Instead of viewing drug addiction primarily as a
criminal justice issue, Kerlikowske said, the ONDCP would approach it going forward as a
public health and public safety issue.166 The new strategy telegraphed a conclusion about
drug control policy that had become obvious over the decades following Nixon’s declaration of war on drugs: interdiction
and expansive criminalization have proven ineffective.167 Displaced from the realm of drug control policy,
the criminal justice approach to eliminating black markets has found a new home in the
war on IP crime. In the waning days of the Bush presidency, Congress enacted the Prioritizing Resources and Organization
for Intellectual Property (PRO-IP) Act of 2008, which provided for “enhancements” to civil and criminal intellectual property laws,
including civil and criminal forfeiture of property tainted by IP crime.168 The PRO-IP Act was
intended to leverage and focus the resources of the federal criminal justice system to decrease the supply of infringing goods and to
impose harsh sanctions on those who produce and distribute them.169 By
expanding the penalties for civil and
criminal infringement and creating a federal bureaucracy for coordinating criminal IP
enforcement, Congress delivered a major public subsidy to corporate IP owners and
greatly increased their access to the government’s coercive power.170 The PRO-IP Act required
appointment of the IP czar, known officially as the Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator (IPEC), to oversee the
coordination of law enforcement efforts across a wide range of federal agencies.171 To fulfill her mandate, the first IPEC, Victoria
Espinel, created the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center (IPR Center).172 The IPR Center is a multi-agency
task force that runs criminal investigations and enforcement operations from within the Department of Homeland Security.173 The
IPR Center self-identifies as an entity focused on interdiction, with a supply-side focus borrowed from a bygone era in the war on
drugs.174 Operation In Our Sites (IOS), which began in June of 2010, was among its first high-profile enforcement initiatives.
A2: AF Fails
Their evidence cherrypicks flawed examples—data shows asset forfeiture
has a net positive effect on deterring crime
Miceli and Johnson 15- *Department of Economics, University of Connecticut,
**Lecturer in Residence, Department of Economics (Thomas and Derek, “ASSET
FORFEITURE AS A LAW ENFORCEMENT TOOL”, Contemporary Economic Policy,
Wiley Online Library)//WK
Government seizure of capital assets used in the commission of an illegal act has a long his-tory in AngloAmerican law, but it has received renewed attention due to its revived use, especially in the war
on drugs. This paper has examined the impact of asset seizure on deterrence by
incorporating it into the standard economic model of crime. In the model, certain crimes require
criminals to use a capital asset as an input, which they rent from unsuspecting capital owners. If and when the crime is
detected, the asset may be seized, in whole or part, from the owner in conjunction with
the overall enforcement policy. The question is whether this threat, even though directed at
someone other than the offender, can enhance deterrence.15. In contrast, the forfeiture rate is
maximal in this case because an increase in q yields a dollar-for-dollar increase in revenue, but only reduces crime in proportion
to θ < 1. Thus, expected revenue is increasing in q, all else equal. The answer turns out to be a qualified
“yes,” though the optimal extent of the seizure depends on the type of sanction with which it
is paired and the motivation of the enforcer. In particular, we showed that when seizure is paired with a
fine, the socially optimal fine should be maximal but the optimal seizure rate should
generally be partial. This is true because, while raising a fine is costless, increasing the extent of seizure imposes a
deadweight loss on the capital market. Thus, it should only be used up to the point where the
marginal deterrence benefit equals the marginal welfare loss. In contrast, when seizure is paired with
prison, it may be socially optimal to seize the complete value of the asset. This is true because raising either the prison term or the
seizure rate is costly, so whichever is less costly to increase should be maximal.
Our data set includes impacts on third-parties
Miceli and Johnson 15- *Department of Economics, University of Connecticut,
**Lecturer in Residence, Department of Economics (Thomas and Derek, “ASSET
FORFEITURE AS A LAW ENFORCEMENT TOOL”, Contemporary Economic Policy,
Wiley Online Library)//WK
The analysis is related to economic models of law enforcement in which, in addition to facing
criminal punishment, offenders must surrender (or disgorge) their ill-gotten gains upon capture(Bowles, Faure, and Garoupa 2000;
Tabbach 2009)
Our model differs from this literature in that it focuses on the
deterrent effects of forfeiture of assets used in the commission of a crime when those
assets are owned by someone other than the offender. For example, if a drug dealer
operates out of his apartment or his parent’s home, the government may seize the
building in addition to punishing the offender. Our analysis also relates to the paper by Baumann and
Friehe (2014), which shows that deterrence of crime can be enhanced by regulation of an
inherently harmless activity if that activity is complementary to crime. The difference is
that we focus on an essential input into the “production” of crime that can also be used
for legal purposes. The threat of seizure therefore potentially distorts the market for that
input in a socially undesirable way, which, as we will show, limits the usefulness of the strategy. Finally, our
analysis is related to the papers by Mungan (2011) and Kaplow (2011) which show that erroneously imposed
criminal sanctions can have the effect of chilling otherwise beneficial activities. Optimal
procedural rules in judicial proceedings should therefore reflect that cost, which the
authors argue helps to explain the high standard of proof for criminal convictions.
A2: DEA not Key
ICE collection of plate information was cancelled – the link isn’t inevitbale
Nakashima and Hicks 14 – national security reporter for The Washington Post
focusing on issues relating to intelligence, technology and civil liberties AND covers
Maryland politics and government for The Washington Post (Ellen* AND Josh**,
“Department of Homeland Security cancels national license-plate tracking plan,” The
Washington Post, February 19th, 2014,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/dhs-cancels-nationallicense-plate-tracking-plan/2014/02/19/a4c3ef2e-99b4-11e3-b9310204122c514b_story.html)BC
Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson on Wednesday ordered the cancellation of a plan by the
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency to develop a national license-plate tracking system
after privacy advocates raised concern about the initiative.
The order came just days after ICE solicited proposals from companies to compile a database of
license-plate information from commercial and law enforcement tag readers. Officials said the database
was intended to help apprehend fugitive illegal immigrants, but the plan raised concerns
that the movements of ordinary citizens under no criminal suspicion could be scrutinized.
The data would have been drawn from readers that scan the tags of every vehicle crossing their paths, and would have been accessed
only for “ongoing criminal investigations or to locate wanted individuals,” officials told The Washington Post this week.
“The solicitation, which was posted without the awareness of ICE leadership, has been cancelled,” ICE
spokeswoman Gillian Christensen said in a statement. “While we continue to support a range of technologies to help meet our law
enforcement mission, this solicitation will be reviewed to ensure the path forward appropriately meets our operational needs.”
Other Case Neg
Status Quo Solves
Status quo accountability measures solve privacy concerns
Lord 4/5 – Reporter on the project team at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, focused on data, privacy and security.
(2015, Rich,
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, “Recording license plates can help solve crimes. But what becomes of all that data?”, http://www.postgazette.com/local/region/2015/04/05/license-plate-recognition-homeland-security-privacy-data/stories/201504030307 // SM)
Ms. Catron of Homeland Security said safeguards were in place in potential government
use of data. “Among other protections designed to guard against potential misuse, access
would be strictly limited to those ICE employees properly trained and authorized to use
the database and will include internal controls, like an audit trail, to ensure the database
is only used for official, sanctioned, law enforcement activity. Accountability, including
potential disciplinary measures, will also exist for personnel who abuse or violate the rules
associated with access to license plate reader data. These restrictions will provide
essential privacy and civil liberty protections, while enhancing our agents’ and
officers’ ability to locate and apprehend suspects who could pose a threat to national
security and public safety.”
Privacy Not Absolute
Privacy can be violated for the common good—our disads show a balancing
act where individual rights can be outweighed by broader societal harm
McFARLAND 2012 (Michael McFarland, S.J., a computer scientist with extensive liberal arts
teaching experience and a special interest in the intersection of technology and ethics, served as the 31st
president of the College of the Holy Cross., “Why We Care about Privacy,” June,
http://www.scu.edu/ethics/practicing/focusareas/technology/internet/privacy/why-care-aboutprivacy.html)
But...Privacy
is not Absolute
When we speak of privacy, particularly as a right, we focus on the individual. The individual must be
shielded from the prying curiosity of others and from prejudice and discrimination. The individual's autonomy and control over his
or her person must be preserved. The individual must be protected from intimidation and coercion by government.
These are important considerations; but not the whole story. For the
human person does not exist purely as
an individual. People live their lives as members of society. In fact they are members of many societies,
which may include families, circles of friends, work organizations, churches, voluntary associations, civic organizations, city, state
and nation. 33 These associations are not merely preferences or matters of convenience. To
be human is to be in
relationship. Therefore social obligations, that is, all that is required to maintain the complex Web of
relationships in which each person lives, are fundamental human obligations. Moreover each individual
has an obligation to contribute to the good of society, the so-called "common good."
These obligations include the sharing of personal information, which is a necessary part of any
meaningful relationship, whether it is personal, community, political or bureaucratic. Friendship necessarily requires self-revelation,
as do family relationships on an even more intimate level. Belonging to a voluntary association entails sharing something of one's
history, one's ideas and aspirations, and one's current circumstances. And government
requires a certain amount
of information on its citizens in order to govern efficiently, provide for their security and
distribute benefits and obligations fairly. The same in general can be said of employers and their employees.
The obligation to share information for the common good does not always take precedence over the
right to privacy. Rather the two must be held in balance, for both are necessary for a fully
human life. According to John B. Young, in his book on privacy,
The right to privacy is inherent in the right to liberty, but the
life of the individual in all societies has to
strike a balance between freedom and discipline. Insufficient freedom will subdue the spirit of enterprise
and resolution on which so much of civilized progress depends, whereas unbridled freedom will clash inexorably
with the way of life of others. It is inevitable therefore that there must be some measure
of restraint on the activities of members of a community, and in order to control people in a modern and
complex society information about them and their behavior is indispensable. The concomitant price which the
individual must pay can be measured in terms of loss of privacy. 34
Even Alan Westin, the great privacy advocate acknowledges,
The individual's desire for privacy is never absolute, since participation in society is an equally powerful
desire. Thus each individual is continually engaged in a personal adjustment process in which he balances the desire for privacy with
the desire for disclosure and communication of himself to others, in light of the environmental conditions and social norms set by
the society in which he lives. 35
These considerations lead to the following principle on information privacy: Just as the human person pursues personal freedom
and self-realization in the context of relationship, with all the obligations, constraints and tensions that that entails, so the
right
to privacy coexists with, and is circumscribed by, the obligation to serve the common
good.
privacy is dead – Americans don’t care about violations of privacy
Kelly 13 [Heather, "Some shurt at NSA snooping: Privacy's already dead", CNN,
6/10/13, www.cnn.com/2013/06/07/tech/web/nsa-internet-privacy/] // SKY
News of a secret U.S. government surveillance program has outraged digital-privacy advocates, but some users are unfazed. A series
of revelations about the National Security Agency's surveillance programs sparked outrage among many this week, including the
expected privacy activists and civil libertarians. But there
seems to be a gap between the roiling anger
online and the attitudes of other people, especially younger ones, who think it's just not
that big a deal. It's the rare issue that crosses party lines in terms of outrage, apathy and
even ignorance. When interviewing people about the topic in downtown San Francisco, we found a number of
people of all ages who had not heard the news, and more than one who asked what the
NSA was. The rest had various reasons for not being terribly concerned. Official: Damage
assessment over U.S. intelligence-gathering leaks Privacy is already dead When the news broke on Wednesday, a
number of people responded online by saying an extensive government surveillance
program wasn't surprising and just confirmed what they already knew. The lack of shock
wasn't limited to savvy technologists who have been following reports from
organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, or EFF, that cover possible monitoring going
back to 2007. Many people already assumed that information online was easily accessible by
corporations and the government. A survey conducted by the Allstate/National Journal Heartland Monitor just
days before the NSA news broke found that 85% of Americans already believed their phone calls, emails and online activity were being monitored. Allen Trember from San Luis Obispo,
California, said he knew when he started using the Internet that his information wasn't
going to be private, but still lamented that privacy no longer exists. "I don't like it, but
what can I do about it?" he said. "I'm just glad that we have as much freedom as we do."
Internet laughs about being spied on OK sacrificing privacy for security A national joint survey conducted in April by CNN, Time and
ORC International found that 40%
of respondents were willing to give up some of their civil
liberties for increased security. That survey was conducted after the Boston Marathon bombing and before news of
the NSA programs was public. "Out of sight, out of mind," is how Will, 28, responded to the news. The Nevada resident
said he would rather not know about the program, and thought its being public would
make it easier for criminals to circumvent the government's security programs. A Twitter
account @_nothingtohide quickly sprung up and started retweeting one of the more common reactions: People aren't
worried about the NSA monitoring their calls or online activity because they believe they
have no crimes or information to hide from the government. "If the government wants
to look at my phone records to keep me safe ... so be it. I don't have anything to hide,"
tweeted Cayla Marie. "Terror war only fought by intelligence gathering. We criticize those entrusted to keep us safe & scream when
they fail to do so," reads a tweet from Lucy Rose. Nearly half of Americans say the government would never abuse such an extensive
trove of data. The Heartland Monitor poll found that 48%
of Americans trust the government "some" or a
"great deal" with their private data. Leslie Harris, president of the civil liberties group Center for Democracy and
Technology, thinks the all or nothing view is flawed. "In a constitutional democracy like the United States, the goal is to find the
balance between security and liberty, not to sacrifice liberty for security," she said. "I think that simply giving up on our privacy
throws off the balance in a democracy between a government and its citizens." How does it affect me? Nothing I can do Recent
surveys have shown that Americans
in their teens and twenties share more of their lives online
and are less concerned about digital privacy than older Web users. For people who are
not worried about the government seeing their personal communications, the
revelations lack an immediate impact on their lives and there's no urgent push to take
action. "I think that at the moment, people may not feel the impact, but the fact that we have a secret agency that can access most
of our digital lives -- I think that the loss will be felt over time," Harris said. Even people who disagree with the program might not
think they can do anything about it. Users still don't know how the government is getting the information and what role the major
Internet companies played in the snooping. There have been vehement, similar denials from the CEOs of Facebook and Google.
These companies rightfully fear the accusations could damage their businesses, as people move to other Web services that might be
more secure. Harris recommended people who are concerned start by contacting their representatives in Congress. "We are citizens
in a democracy," she said. "We can demand from our elected officials greater transparency."
Security outweighs privacy – the risk to survival’s just more important
Himma 13 – Associate Professor of Philosophy, Seattle Pacific University (6/7/2013, Kenneth
Einar Himma, p. 921-22, “Privacy Versus Security: Why Privacy is Not an Absolute Value or Right”,
http://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=7320880240870950851120770921201020890260500640180170000180001201260
080920690041051200990220170620230570071190201170200870800880510900120160410071160731121181160080680120870
73001080122024122082067030005005030099009010029105030077014123069071073100&EXT=pdf&TYPE=2 // SM)
The point here is that the
idea that privacy and the common good or social order must be balanced
does not involve denying the thesis of this essay—namely that, other things being equal, security
trumps privacy. It might be true that social order might sometimes yield to privacy, but
the threats to the social order that rise to the level of threats to security
always win in conflicts with privacy interests that are of comparable importance relative to the
spectrum of privacy interests. When we are talking about saving innocent human lives,
the most private facts about innocent persons are just not that important; if
it is true—and this is not true as often as conservative politicians believe—that disclosure of such facts will
save those lives, then it seems clearly justified to infringe privacy interests—as long as people
are protected from any adverse consequences of those disclosures. In any event, it is clear that even on Etzioni’s more
moderate conception of commutarianism, privacy interests are not absolute and do not
necessarily trump other interests. Privacy must sometimes, even on the narrowest interpretation,
yield to social order or the common good. But once the relationship between the concepts of security, social
order, and common good are made clear, it seems reasonable to think that threats to security will win
in conflicts with threats to privacy interests that are of relatively comparable importance. Our interests
in those matters essential to physical survival and well-being, which are the subjects of
our security interests, seem to be presumptively more important, as a general matter, than our
interests in informational privacy. Informational privacy might sometimes defeat
considerations that promote the common good or social order, but not considerations that
promote or protect what is absolutely essential to physical survival and well-being.
Security trumps privacy in terms of general well-being and utilitarianism
Himma 13 – Associate Professor of Philosophy, Seattle Pacific University (6/7/2013, Kenneth
Einar Himma, p. 921-22, “Privacy Versus Security: Why Privacy is Not an Absolute Value or Right”,
http://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=7320880240870950851120770921201020890260500640180170000180001201260
080920690041051200990220170620230570071190201170200870800880510900120160410071160731121181160080680120870
73001080122024122082067030005005030099009010029105030077014123069071073100&EXT=pdf&TYPE=2 // SM)
Even so, it seems clear that privacy interests will generally receive lesser protection than security interests under such a theory. If
utility is defined subjectively, then it seems clear that this will be the case; many people in the former Soviet Union who are better off
in terms of liberty, and possibly even income, have expressed preferences to return to the totalitarian regime precisely because they
felt more secure under the protection of a police force that seemed to be everywhere. This, of course, is not an obviously irrational
preference if the intuitions I described at the beginning of this essay are correct. I
would prefer physical security over
other right—with the possible exception of a certain affluent standard of living. Indeed, despite all the
hysteria in the United States about the violation of privacy rights by laws such as the USA
PATRIOT Act, most people seem to be as happy, on any subjective measure, as always. If, on the other
hand, utility is defined objectively in terms of wellbeing, it seems clear that security is
just about any
more important than privacy. It seems very difficult to make the case that,
as an objective matter, people are better off in terms of well-being if they
sacrifice security, other things being equal, for privacy. While privacy interests seem
important in cultures like ours to well-being as an objective matter, it seems absolutely clear that security
from death or grievous bodily injury is more important than privacy interests and will trump those
interests in the event of a direct conflict, as I have defined that idea. According to utilitarian
theories of state legitimacy, then, it is reasonable to conclude that privacy interests
or rights are not absolute. Again, the claim is not that any increase in security, no matter
how small, is likely to offset any sacrifice in privacy, no matter how extensive. Doubts about the
efficacy of a law in protecting security at the expense of privacy might have the effect of
making people very unhappy even when these doubts are incorrect. But, other things being
equal, people will regard the most important security interests they have as being morally
more important than the most important privacy interests they have, suggesting that
security is more important than privacy on a subjective conception of utility; and, on an
objective conception of flourishing and well-being, that seems straightforwardly correct.
Whether the utilitarian standard is defined in terms of subjective conceptions of happiness or pleasure, or whether it is defined in
terms of objective conceptions of well-being and flourishing, a
utilitarian theory of legitimacy seems clearly
to afford more protection, other things being equal, to security interests than to privacy interests.
As I have put this idea elsewhere, security trumps privacy.
The state is morally obligated to prioritize security over privacy – security
has more widespread value and privacy’s not absolute
Himma 13 – Associate Professor of Philosophy, Seattle Pacific University (6/7/2013, Kenneth
Einar Himma, p. 921-22, “Privacy Versus Security: Why Privacy is Not an Absolute Value or Right”,
http://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=7320880240870950851120770921201020890260500640180170000180001201260
080920690041051200990220170620230570071190201170200870800880510900120160410071160731121181160080680120870
73001080122024122082067030005005030099009010029105030077014123069071073100&EXT=pdf&TYPE=2 // SM)
As is true of classical social contract theory, the
primary motivation for every rational being to move from a
presocial state of nature to a society with a central authority is to achieve more security than is otherwise possible—even
though Nozick’s conception of the state of nature is somewhat more benign than that of the classical theories. Moreover, the
minimal state is subject to the constraints of the Lockean conception of morality, which takes
the primary purpose of the state to protect property—presumably because property is
necessary to the survival of each person and is hence the most likely motivation
for persons to threaten the security—and hence rights to life of others. To prevent such
conflicts, the state must be especially concerned with protecting the right to property,
and hence, derivatively, the right to life. Although it is true that some privacy interests either fall within the
ambit of liberty interests or are prerequisites for the meaningful exercise of liberty requirements—I am less likely to freely express
my right to speech on the Internet if I feel that my movements and anonymity are tracked and compromised—it is crucial to note
that Nozick’s
theory of the legitimate minimal state, as is true of every other theory we
have considered, does not expressly name privacy as an interest or right that the
minimal state is morally required to protect as a precondition of its legitimacy. This
suggests that, for Nozick’s theory as for each other theory we have considered, security
is the most important value. Although there is no talk of a “right” to security, security provides the
morally legitimate motive for making the various transitions that move each rational
person from a presocial state of nature to life under a society with a coercive and centralized
state authority. This entails that security is the ultimate value that the state is morally
obligated to protect and that when legitimate security interests directly conflict with
legitimate privacy interests of comparable importance, the former trump the latter.
Thus, for Nozick, as with every other theorist we have considered, if there is a privacy right, it is far
from being absolute.
Privacy’s not absolute and security trumps it, classical social contract
theory proves – prefer evidence contextualized to the state’s obligation
Himma 13 – Associate Professor of Philosophy, Seattle Pacific University (6/7/2013, Kenneth
Einar Himma, p. 921-22, “Privacy Versus Security: Why Privacy is Not an Absolute Value or Right”,
http://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=7320880240870950851120770921201020890260500640180170000180001201260
080920690041051200990220170620230570071190201170200870800880510900120160410071160731121181160080680120870
73001080122024122082067030005005030099009010029105030077014123069071073100&EXT=pdf&TYPE=2 // SM)
Accordingly, the
state’s most important obligation is to protect property, on Locke’s view, precisely
because the protection of property will ensure the public peace and minimize threats to
physical security. Protection of property, though first among the state’s priorities, is a means to the
ultimate end of protecting security by ending the war of all against all that occurs in the state of nature. For
classical social contract theorists, then, the most important value that submission to state authority is
intended to pursue is security. It follows, of course, that whatever the rest of the hierarchy of
values might look like, the value of privacy is less, according to classical social contract theories, than
the value of security. The rights to life and freedom from intentionally inflicted grievous
physical injury trump the right to privacy, if such there be, when the latter comes into direct
conflict with the former. Of course, Locke would rank the right of property alongside the other rights or interests
mentioned above as constituting the right or interest in security because he believes protection of property is so important to
protection of security. But classical
social contract theories all converge in implying (1) that the
right or interest in privacy is not absolute; and (2) that the right or interest in
security trumps the right or interest in privacy when the two come into
direct conflict— though neither theory tells us much about how or when these interests might directly conflict.
Privacy has no inherent value and is only valuable as a means of protecting
security interests – thus, security outweighs
Himma 13 – Associate Professor of Philosophy, Seattle Pacific University (6/7/2013, Kenneth
Einar Himma, p. 921-22, “Privacy Versus Security: Why Privacy is Not an Absolute Value or Right”,
http://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=7320880240870950851120770921201020890260500640180170000180001201260
080920690041051200990220170620230570071190201170200870800880510900120160410071160731121181160080680120870
73001080122024122082067030005005030099009010029105030077014123069071073100&EXT=pdf&TYPE=2 // SM)
The same also seems to be true of the right to informational privacy and the right to, or interest in, security. Informational
privacy is valuable only as a means to an end. If certain pieces of information
about me were not likely to be used in ways that have damaging consequences to my
well-being, I would not care one bit whether they were widely known. My hair is dirty
blond, something I take no pains to hide because the risk that someone will use this
information to discriminate against me in some way that significantly diminishes my
well-being is virtually nil. In contrast, I care about personal information about my health because my being at high
genetic risk for a particular disease, if this turns out to be true, might lead a potential employer not to hire me. There is no
piece of personal information about myself that I value keeping private as an end in
itself; privacy is all about avoiding embarrassing and otherwise damaging social
consequences. Security, on the other hand, is something I value instrumentally because it is a precondition for
living a meaningful, enjoyable human life, but it is also something I value intrinsically. Continued
sentient existence, bodily integrity—for example, having four limbs that I can move by volition—and
financial security are ends in themselves and hence intrinsically valuable. Indeed, in many
cases, I value privacy of information as a means to protecting security interests that I
value intrinsically. Insofar as this is true, it seems reasonable to conclude that security
is a more important value than privacy from the vantage point of individual
and political morality.
Security and the right to life intuitively outweighs the right to privacy –
privacy is not absolute
Himma 13 – Associate Professor of Philosophy, Seattle Pacific University (6/7/2013, Kenneth
Einar Himma, p. 921-22, “Privacy Versus Security: Why Privacy is Not an Absolute Value or Right”,
http://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=7320880240870950851120770921201020890260500640180170000180001201260
080920690041051200990220170620230570071190201170200870800880510900120160410071160731121181160080680120870
73001080122024122082067030005005030099009010029105030077014123069071073100&EXT=pdf&TYPE=2 // SM)
V. THE ARGUMENT FROM INTUITIVE CASE JUDGMENTS
From an intuitive standpoint, the idea that the right to privacy is an absolute right
seems utterly implausible. Intuitively, it seems clear that there are other rights that
are so much more important that they easily trump privacy rights in the event of a conflict. For example, if a
psychologist knows that a patient is highly likely to commit a murder, then it is, at the very least, morally permissible to disclose that
information about the patient in order to prevent the crime—regardless of whether such information would otherwise be protected
by privacy rights. Intuitively,
it seems clear that life is more important from the standpoint of
morality than any of the interests protected by a moral right to privacy. Still one often
hears—primarily from academics in information schools and library schools, especially in connection with the controversy
regarding the USA PATRIOT Act—the claim that privacy should never be sacrificed for security,
implicitly denying what I take to be the underlying rationale for the PATRIOT Act. This also seems counterintuitive
because it does not seem unreasonable to believe we have a moral right to
security that includes the right to life. Although this right to security is broader
than the right to life, the fact that security interests include our interests in our lives
implies that the right to privacy trumps even the right to life—something that seems
quite implausible from an intuitive point of view. If I have to give up the most private
piece of information about myself to save my life or protect myself from either grievous bodily injury or
financial ruin, I would gladly do so without hesitation. There are many things I do not want you to know about
me, but should you make a credible threat to my life, bodily integrity, financial security, or health, and then hook me up to a lie
detector machine, I will truthfully answer any question you ask about me. I
value my privacy a lot, but I value my
life, bodily integrity, and financial security much more than any of the interests protected by the right
to privacy.
Security’s a pre-requisite to meaningful privacy rights and should be viewed
as morally prior
Himma 13 – Associate Professor of Philosophy, Seattle Pacific University (6/7/2013, Kenneth
Einar Himma, p. 921-22, “Privacy Versus Security: Why Privacy is Not an Absolute Value or Right”,
http://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=7320880240870950851120770921201020890260500640180170000180001201260
080920690041051200990220170620230570071190201170200870800880510900120160410071160731121181160080680120870
73001080122024122082067030005005030099009010029105030077014123069071073100&EXT=pdf&TYPE=2 // SM)
XIII. SECURITY AS A PREREQUISITE FOR THE MEANINGFUL EXERCISE OF PRIVACY RIGHTS
The last argument I wish to make in this essay will be brief because it is extremely well known and has been made in a variety of
academic and nonacademic contexts. The basic point here is that no
right not involving security can be
meaningfully exercised in the absence of efficacious protection of security.
The right to property means nothing if the law fails to protect against threats to life and
bodily security. Likewise, the right to privacy has little value if one feels constrained to
remain in one’s home because it is so unsafe to venture away that one significantly risks
death or grievous bodily injury. This is not merely a matter of describing common subjective preferences; this is
rather an objective fact about privacy and security interests. If security interests are not adequately
protected, citizens will simply not have much by way of privacy interests to protect. While it is
true, of course, that people have privacy interests in what goes on inside the confines of their home, they also have
legitimate privacy interests in a variety of public contexts that cannot be meaningfully
exercised if one is afraid to venture out into those contexts because of significant threats
to individual and collective security—such as would be the case if terrorist attacks became highly
probable in those contexts. It is true, of course, that to say that X is a prerequisite for exercising a
particular right Y does not obviously entail that X is morally more important than Y, but
this is a reasonable conclusion to draw. If it is true that Y is meaningless in the absence
of X, then it seems clear that X deserves, as a moral matter, more stringent protection
than Y does. Since privacy interests lack significance in the absence of adequate
protection of security interests, it seems reasonable to infer that security interests
deserve, as a moral matter, more stringent protection than privacy
interests.
Privacy rights are not absolute – the right to life can outweigh
Himma 13 – Associate Professor of Philosophy, Seattle Pacific University (6/7/2013, Kenneth
Einar Himma, p. 921-22, “Privacy Versus Security: Why Privacy is Not an Absolute Value or Right”,
http://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=7320880240870950851120770921201020890260500640180170000180001201260
080920690041051200990220170620230570071190201170200870800880510900120160410071160731121181160080680120870
73001080122024122082067030005005030099009010029105030077014123069071073100&EXT=pdf&TYPE=2 // SM)
But this
conceptual truth about rights does not imply rights are, by nature, absolute. The
claim that rights trump consequences implies only that some stronger consideration
than the desirable consequences of infringing a right can justify doing so. This latter
claim leaves open the possibility that there is some such consideration that would justify
infringing some rights. One such candidate, of course, is the existence of other more
important rights. It is commonly thought that at least some rights are commensurable and can be ranked in a hierarchy that
expresses the relative weight each right in the hierarchy has with respect to other rights. For example, one might think that the
right to life is at the top of the hierarchy of commensurable rights, and that
property rights are in this hierarchy also. This would explain the common intuition that one may use deadly force
when necessary to defend innocent lives from culpable attack, but not when necessary
only to defend property rights from violation. If, as seems clear from this example, it is possible for
two rights to conflict and for one to outweigh the other, it follows that rights are not, by
nature, absolute. What may explain the mistaken view that rights are necessarily absolute is confusion about the
relationship of various terms that flesh out the status, origin, and contours of moral rights and obligations. For example, rights
are frequently described as “inviolable,” meaning that a right can never be justifiably violated. This, of course, is
a conceptual truth; to say that a right is violated is to say that its infringement is without justification. But this does not
imply that rights can never be justifiably infringed; a person’s right to life can be
justifiably infringed if he culpably shoots at an innocent person and there is no other
way to save that person’s life except through use of lethal force in defense of his life. Rights
are also thought, by nature, to be supreme, relative to some system of norms—moral, social, or legal—in the sense that they cannot
be defeated by other kinds of protections; moral rights are thought to be supreme over all other kinds of considerations, including
social and legal rights. But this does not imply that rights are absolute because it says nothing about the relative importance of one
right to another; it simply asserts that, by nature, rights outweigh all other relevant considerations. Supremacy and inviolability are
part of the very nature of a right, but these properties do not entail that rights are, by nature, absolute. Of course, the negation of the
claim that all rights are absolute does not imply that no rights are absolute. The possibility of conflicts between any two rights does
not preclude there being one right that wins every conflict because it is absolute, and hence, without exception. A moral pacifist, for
example, takes this view of the moral right to life and holds that intentional killing of a human being is always wrong. Moreover, if
there are two rights that do not come into conflict with each other and win in conflicts with all other rights, those two rights might be
absolute. One might think, for example, that the rights to privacy and life can never conflict and that both are absolute. I
am
somewhat skeptical that any right is absolute in this strong sense, but if
there are any, it will not be privacy. As we will see in more detail, privacy is commensurable
with other rights, like the right to life, which figures into the right to security. It seems
clear that privacy rights and the right to life can come into conflict. For example, a
psychologist might be justified in protecting a patient’s privacy interests even though
doing so includes information that might prevent that person from committing a minor
property crime of some kind, but she would not be justified in protecting that information if
the psychologist knows its disclosure is necessary to prevent a murder. In any event, I will discuss
these kinds of examples in more detail below.
Privacy Violations Inevitable
privacy is dead – the aff can’t solve that
Morgan 14 [Jacob, "Privacy Is Completely And Utterly Dead, And We Killed It",
Forbes, 8/19/2014, www.forbes.com/sites/jacobmorgan/2014/08/19/privacy-iscompletely-and-utterly-dead-and-we-killed-it/] // SKY
Privacy…everyone keeps talking about it and apparently everyone is concerned with it, but going forward does it even matter? I
recently watched the documentary, “Terms and Conditions may Apply,” which provides a fascinating look at how organizations such
as Facebook, Google GOOGL +1.42%, Apple AAPL -4.84%, and others have changed the way they look at and approach privacy.
After watching the movie it had me wondering, “does privacy even matter anymore?”
Most of use Facebook, have iPhones, use Twitter TWTR -1.41%, search on Google, and use the hundreds of other tools and platforms
that companies have so graciously given us access to. We subscribe to newsletters, buy things online, take quizzes, allow our apps to
access third party websites, enter contests, and register for conferences. Simply
loading a webpage of any kind
tracks some kind of information about you.
All of these companies have “terms and conditions” documents that pretty much none of us read. In
effect everyone that
uses these technologies has signed away their privacy yet we still see people saying that
they want more privacy. What gives? I think we’ve clearly reached a point in today’s
world where privacy is pretty much a lost cause. Our information is already out there
and regardless of how hard we scream that we want it back or want it to be secure, it’s
not going to happen…ever. If anything we are seeing a shift towards more openness,
more transparency, and less privacy.
Most people don’t event know what information they are giving up or to whom. For example,
in their recent Privacy Index, EMC EMC +4.00% found that 51% of respondents were not willing to give up
their personal information for a better experience (27% were), however, how many of these people realize
that they are already doing this multiple times over every single day? In fact it’s safe to say that if you want privacy then
you probably shouldn’t be using the internet or own a cell phone. Privacy is even going
to become more futile with the internet of things as every device with an on an off switch
will be connected to the web. In the next few years appliance and device connectivity is
going to come standard with toothbrushes, cars, coffee makers, alarm clocks, watches,
headphones, and anything else you can think of. We will have to pay a premium for
NON connected devices.
It doesn’t appear that businesses or governments are going to protect us either, if anything there is a lack of education
and no desire to educate the masses on these issues. I’m not quite sure how we got to this point, one
minute I was filling out my profile to join Facebook and the next minute some company I’ve never heard of has hundreds of data
points on me, and on you!
Are we too far over the line to head back to the other side? Is it even possible to do so?
I’ve just talked about social media data above but what about your health records, browsing habits, purchases, financial data, or
employment information? Although some of these forms of data might be considered to be more secure than others many social
media users are actually publicly sharing this information online on their Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, Instagram photos,
Foursquare check-ins, Linkedin profiles, or anywhere else you can think of. So it’s
not just the fact that companies
have information about us that we don’t know they are collecting it’s about the fact that
we are opting in to this lack of privacy and in many case go above that by actually
purposefully sharing private information.
It seems like going forward we have two choices. We can either accept that privacy is dead and that we
now live in an open world or we can challenge this notion and continue to fight for
privacy. The second option seems to be a bit of a paradox though. We want more
security and more privacy but at the same time we want:
our corporations to be more open and transparent
to use social technologies without we don’t want being able to see our information
to be able to buy and use free products and services without giving up anything in return
to opt into using things like Google and iTunes without reading the terms and conditions agreements, assuming that they have our
best interest in mind
What’s scary is that we’ve gotten to a point where many of the things we do and the tools
we use are such a big part of our lives that we HAVE to use them today. Are you really
going to delete your Facebook account, stop using Google, no longer buy products
online, or ditch your iPhone? No, you’re not because everyone else that you know on this
planet is using those same things as well.
A large part of the issue isn’t just around the “is privacy dead?” discussion but it also centers around the fact that even if the
majority of the world’s population decided that it was time to do something about
privacy where would we even start and how effective would a “solution” be?
So is privacy dead? It sure seems that way, and we are the ones who killed it without
even knowing it.
Shift Turn
Banning license plate surveillance leads to more intrusive surveillance—
turns the aff
Janowski et al. 14- researcher working now at KT AGH (AGH University of Science
and Technology, Department of Telecommunication) in Poland (Lucjan, “Quality
assessment for a visual and automatic license plate recognition”, Multimedia Tools and
Applications January 2014, Volume 68, Issue 1, pp 23-40, Springer)//WK
The transmission of video is often used for various applications outside of the
entertainment sector, and generally this class of video is used to perform specific tasks.
Examples of these applications are security, public safety, remote command and control,
and sign language. Monitoring of public urban areas (traffic, intersections, mass events, stations, airports,
etc.) for safety threats using transmission of video content has became increasingly
important because of a general increase in crime and acts of terrorism (e.g. attacks on the World
Trade Center and the public transportation systems in London and Madrid). Nevertheless, video surveillance is also
viewed with concern by numerous civil right organizations, which see foremost the need
for the protection of citizens against Orwellian-like “permanent surveillance”. Among these,
we should mention the Liberty Group (dedicated to human rights), an Open Europe organization, the Electronic Frontier
Foundation, and the Ethics Board of the FP7-SEC INDECT (INDECT is intelligent information system supporting the observation,
search and detection of suspicious or criminal activity in order to protect the security of citizens in an urban environment) [9]. This
matter was also one of the main themes (“Citizens Security Needs Versus Citizens Integrity”) of the Fourth Security Research
Conference organized by the European Commission (September 2009) [11]. Despite this, many studies suggest that public opinion
about CCTV is becoming more favorable [14]. This
trend intensified after September 11, 2001.
Furthermore, methods do exist that partially protect privacy. They are based on the
selective monitoring of privacy information like faces or license plates. Than
automatic erasing of faces/license plates not related to the investigation is possible. One
of possible technique to achieve privacy protection is private part of image hiding using
digital watermarking. Protecting privacy is important aspect of CCTV systems but we need a working system i.e. system
which makes it possible, for authorized person, to access the full signal. Unfortunately in some cases the signal produced by a
camera is “protected” from seeing by anyone. Such situation is caused by artefacts. Anyone who has experienced artefacts or freezing
play while watching an action movie on TV or at a live sporting event, knows the frustration accompanying sudden quality
degradation at a key moment. However,
for practitioners in the field of public safety the usage of
video services with blurred images can result in much more severe consequences. The
above-mentioned facts convince us that it is necessary to ensure adequate quality of the
video. The term “adequate” quality means quality good enough to recognize objects such
as faces or cars.
Crime Turn
ALPR technology key to check sex offenders and find missing people
Gutierrez-Alm 15- Winthrop & Weinstine, Associate Attorney (Jessica, “The Privacies
of Life: Automatic License Plate Recognition is Unconstitutional Under the Mosaic
Theory of Fourth Amendment Privacy Law”, Hamline Law Review: Vol. 38: Iss. 1,
Article 5,
http://digitalcommons.hamline.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1054&context=hlr)//
WK
ALPR systems use specialized digital cameras to automatically capture images of nearby
license plates on moving or parked vehicles. When a license plate passes through the camera’s field of view,
the camera captures several digital pictures, reading the license plate numbers from the
images. The system automatically compares the resulting plate numbers to “hotlists”: lists of
license plate numbers related to stolen vehicle reports, active arrest warrants,
AMBER alerts, parolees, and known sex offenders. If the system registers a
match between a hotlist license plate and an image captured, an alert is sent to officers.
The ALPR camera systems may be either mobile or stationary. Mobile systems are mounted to the outside of
police cruisers and capture images of license plates they pass on the road. Stationary ALPR
systems have additional capabilities. They can be used to set up zones or “geo-fences” where
sex offenders, parolees, probationers, or others are not permitted to enter or leave. When
the stationary cameras register the license plate of a prohibited individual crossing such a
restricted boundary, officers are alerted. The technology was developed in Britain in 1976 and was first used in
the 1990s as a defense against Irish Republican Army attacks. Today, ALPR systems are used by numerous law enforcement
agencies across the United States, as well as in various countries. In Minnesota, the systems are currently used by the cities of
Minneapolis, St. Paul, Bloomington, Lakeville, Maplewood, Washington County, and by the State Patrol. Some stationary systems
are even being used in the private sector. Police use of the systems has been widely successful.
The most advanced systems are capable of reading 3,600 license plates per minute, and are capable of reading plates correctly at a
“differential speed” of up to 160 miles per hour. Before
implementation of ALPR technology, police
officers could only check license plates against hotlists by manually typing the numbers
into a computer database. While a typical police officer can manually check 50 to 100 license plates during a shift, an
ALPR system has the capability of processing at least 5000 license plates in the same amount of time.
Safety outweighs their vague privacy concerns – statistics
Lord 4/5 – Reporter on the project team at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, focused on data, privacy and security.
(2015, Rich,
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, “Recording license plates can help solve crimes. But what becomes of all that data?”, http://www.postgazette.com/local/region/2015/04/05/license-plate-recognition-homeland-security-privacy-data/stories/201504030307 // SM)
Technology enthusiasts in local law enforcement counter that the safety
improvements enabled by plate data outweigh vague privacy concerns. “If
you’ve got a plate [number], and a robbery, or God forbid a child abduction, wouldn’t it
be useful to have that information?” asked Washington County District Attorney Eugene
Vittone. Officer Wybranowski said that Washington County departments used the database to nab
a dog thief. The victims “were able to get a partial plate,” he said. “They described it as a green Jeep.” The department ran it
through the plate read database. “OK, here’s a green jeep that matched. We were able to, at that point, figure out that this is the
person who owns [the Jeep].” Crime solved, dog returned. Castle Shannon’s small department leased a plate camera and later
bought a used one. Two of its vehicles carry roof racks with infrared cameras pointing from all four corners, feeding photos and plate
data into the North Strabane database, said police Chief Kenneth M. Truver. As he demonstrated it one morning, one vehicle’s plate
cameras logged 569 plate numbers — none of which were associated with any violations — in under 90 minutes. “There’s
rarely a shift that goes by that those don’t activate for a suspended, stolen or expired”
plate or license, Chief Truver said. In 2013, he said, his officers initiated around
100 stops based on the plate cameras, and that number roughly doubled
last year. “If you’re not a criminal,” he said, “then you have nothing to fear.”
The crime-fighting benefits of license plate monitoring outweighs the
minimal privacy loss
Shaw 1/27 – Weekend Editor at Hot Air (2015, Jazz, Hot Air, “There’s no need to freak out over a ‘national car-tracking
database’”, http://hotair.com/archives/2015/01/27/theres-no-need-to-freak-out-over-a-national-car-tracking-database/ // SM)
There are clearly limits as to what sorts of information about us the government (at any level)
should be collecting and keeping. We don’t want a national registry of gun owners and we don’t want every phone
call and email collected and scrutinized. But those areas involve matters of private ownership, the
things we do in the privacy of our homes and citizens having the knowledge that they are “secure in their
persons, houses, papers, and effects,” as some wise person once wrote. But we should also remember that
privacy has limits. One of the most common is the fact that your right to privacy
essentially drops to zero once you leave your home and go out in the public square. Surely
our roads are about as public a space as one could imagine. And the government already
keeps a database of who owns which vehicle, which is why there are license plates in the
first place. What is it that is so private about driving your vehicle on the taxpayer funded
roadways that we don’t want that information recorded? (At least assuming you aren’t doing something
illegal.) Your movements out of doors are already tracked by numerous
security cameras, ATMs and stop light monitors. That information is useful in
numerous situations where police are trying to apprehend criminals, though it is somewhat different
when the cameras belong to private businesses and citizens. In those cases the government must (and should) obtain a warrant to
get hold of the footage. But if the government owns the cameras, that barrier would seem to evaporate. Is this a bad thing? In
terms of managing crime across the nation, the benefits of such a system
seem to outweigh any of the privacy concerns I’m seeing. When a little girl is
snatched up by a stranger and dumped into a van, you can bet I want the police to be
able to access a description and license number for that vehicle as rapidly as possible
and put some officers out there looking for it. When a criminal is in flight and crossing
state lines, the police may have no clue what direction they are heading if they escape
the immediate scene of the crime. This is an excellent tool to quickly identify where they
are going. Honestly, I just can’t get upset over a database which tracks license plates for
ninety days. And frankly I’m not sure I really want a court standing in the way of the cops accessing that information while
they wait for a warrant. Opponents will raise the cry regarding those willing to sacrifice liberty
for security, but what liberty are you really giving up by allowing the
authorities to know where your car is? And the security you obtain in trade for
that looks pretty valuable to me.
ALPR technology’s used to solve a litany of unethical crimes, not to track
people in real time – status quo protections solve data misuse
Manger et al. 3/9 – J. Thomas Manger Chief of Police, Montgomery County Police Department President, Major Cities
Chiefs Police Association, Chief Richard Beary President, International Association of Chiefs of Police, Mike Sena Director, Northern
California Regional Intelligence Center President, National Fusion Center Association, Ronald C. Sloan Director, Colorado Bureau of
Investigation President, Association of State Criminal Investigative Agencies, Sheriff Donny Youngblood President, Major County
Sheriffs’ Association, Bob Bushman President, National Narcotic Officers’ Associations’ Coalition, Jonathan Thompson Executive
Director, National Sheriffs’ Association, William Johnson Executive Director, National Association of Police Organizations, Mike
Moore President, National District Attorneys Association, Andrews Matthews Chairman, National Troopers Coalition (2015, J.
Thomas Manger, other authors listed in qualifications section of cite, ALPR Letter to Congress from Police Chiefs,
http://www.theiacp.org/Portals/0/documents/pdfs/LawEnforcementLPRLettertoCongressMarch2015.pdf // SM)
We are deeply concerned about efforts to portray automated license plate recognition
(ALPR) technology as a national real-time tracking capability for law enforcement. The fact
is that this technology and the data it generates is not used to track people in real
time. ALPR is used every day to generate investigative leads that help law enforcement
solve murders, rapes, and serial property crimes, recover abducted children,
detect drug and human trafficking rings, find stolen vehicles, apprehend violent
criminal alien fugitives, and support terrorism investigations. There is a misconception
of continuous government tracking of individuals using ALPR information. This has led to
attempts to curtail law enforcement’s use of the technology without a proper and fair effort to truly understand the anonymous
nature of the data, how it is used, and how it is protected. We are seeing harmful proposals – appropriations amendments and
legislation – to restrict or completely ban law enforcement’s use of ALPR technology and data without any effort to truly understand
the issue. Yet, any
review would make clear that the value of this technology is beyond
question, and that protections against misuse of the data by law enforcement are
already in place. That is one of the reasons why critics are hard-pressed to
identify any actual instances of misuse. If legislative efforts to curtail ALPR use
are successful, federal, state, and local law enforcement’s ability to investigate crimes
will be significantly impacted given the extensive use of the technology today.
License plate data’s key to solve stolen vehicles and burglaries – statistics
prove
Heaton 13 – Contributor to Governing. Writes for a variety of e.Republic publications, including Government Technology,
Governing, Emergency Management and Public CIO. (11/19/2013, Brian, Governing, “Cops Like What They See with License Plate
Readers”, http://www.governing.com/news/headlines/gov-license-plate-readers-privacy-concerns.html // SM)
Iowa jumped on the license plate reader bandwagon in 2011. Police in Des Moines mounted the devices on patrol cars and uses them
primarily in high-crime areas to identify those wanted by the authorities. Last year, Piedmont,
Calif., approved the
purchase of 39 license plate cameras at a cost of $679,000, for the same reason. Police Chief Rikki
Goede believed putting the readers on 30 roads leading into and out of the city might help
bring down the 50 percent increase in burglaries the city experienced between 2011 and
2012, according to Ars Technica, a technology media website. Piedmont, a wealthy Bay Area suburb with a population of
approximately 11,000, is largely residential and surrounded by the city of Oakland. Automated license plate readers can vary in cost
from $20,000 to $30,000 depending on the vendor. But many
law enforcement agencies are seeing a
dramatic increase in efficiency and effectiveness. For example, Arizona first tested
automated license plate readers in 2006, primarily to help cut the high rate of stolen
vehicles in the state. The state’s Department of Public Safety discovered after a few months that the devices were capable
of reading 1,500 plates each during an eight-hour shift. By comparison, officers manually ran approximately 40 during the same
period. Back in 2008, when
the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) had readers installed
on only 12 vehicles, Charlie Beck, now chief of police, said license plate readers helped recover
“four to five times” the number of stolen vehicles an officer would be able to
locate without the technology. Pennsylvania faced a similar issue. In 1996, runaway
auto thefts tallied 53,000. But after installing automated license plate readers on 13
squad cars, that number dropped to 28,000 in 2007.
Circumvention
Info sharing makes circumvention inevitable
Gilbert 1-30-15 – Executive Director of ACLU Vermont (Allen, “Asset Forfeiture Bill
Hits Senate Floor This Week,” ACLU Vermont, January 30th, 2015,
https://acluvt.org/blog/2015/01/30/dea-using-alprs-to-track-drivers/)BC
The DEA is also inviting federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies around the
country to contribute location information to the database. For example, the documents
show that local and regional law enforcement systems in Southern California’s San
Diego and Imperial Counties and New Jersey all provide data to the DEA. The program
was “officially opened” to these partners in May 2009. Other agencies are surely
partnering with the DEA to share information, but these agreements are still secret,
leaving the public unable to know who has their location information and how it is being
used.
Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) is one of the federal agencies that has shared information with the
DEA. An undated Memorandum of Understanding explains that the agencies will, “at regular intervals,”
provide each other license plate reader data. It also authorizes the two agencies to further
share each other’s data with other federal, state, and local law enforcement and prosecutors
as well as to “intelligence, operations, and fusion centers.” This is a lot of location points. CBP
collects “nearly 100 percent of land border traffic,” which amounts to over 793.5 million license plates
between May 2009 and May 2013, according to CBP’s response to our FOIA request.
Additionally, any
federal, state, or local law enforcement agent vetted by the DEA’s El Paso
Intelligence Center can conduct queries of the database, located in Merrifield, Va.
Private companies fill-in for the aff
Kopstein 2/12 – a cyberculture journalist and researcher from New York City. His work focuses on Internet law and
disorder, surveillance and government secrecy. (2015, Joshua, Al-Jazeera America, “Your location data is your life, and police want it
all”, http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2015/2/your-location-data-is-your-life-and-police-want-it-all.html // SM)
Private companies are helping fill in the gaps, offering law enforcement
agencies access to their massive license plate databases under strict nondisclosure
agreements. The largest, held by California-based Vigilant Solutions, boasts more than 2 billion vehicle
movement records. According to a Vigilant press release from December, its database uses
facial recognition to identify drivers and passengers who appear in license plate photos.
That data feeds into the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s nationwide facial recognition
database, which sometime this year is expected to amass as many as 52 million face
images.
Private sector circumvention turns case – no public sector accountability
Lord 4/5 – Reporter on the project team at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, focused on data, privacy and security. (2015, Rich,
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, “Recording license plates can help solve crimes. But what becomes of all that data?”, http://www.postgazette.com/local/region/2015/04/05/license-plate-recognition-homeland-security-privacy-data/stories/201504030307 // SM)
Private plate data The
plate camera industry is now eyeing the private sector.
License plate recognition “is definitely a growth market,” said Jean-Pierre Picard,
product marketing manager at Montreal-based Genetec Inc., a maker of the cameras.
Malls can use them to get educated guesses about the geographic spread of their shoppers. Casinos can detect the vehicles of selfidentified problem gamblers. The
problem with that, according to the ACLU’s Mr. Stanley, is that
private data troves aren’t subject to public sector accountability, but are ultimately
within the government’s grasp. “When private companies build up big databases
of personal information, the government can demand or buy that
information,” he said.
State and local governments will circumvent federal license plate reforms
Boehm 14 – a reporter for Watchdog.org and former bureau chief for Pennsylvania Independent (6/18/2014, Eric,
Watchdog.org, “Automatic license plate scanners ‘just like’ NSA surveillance, congressman says”,
http://watchdog.org/155127/license-plate-scanner-ban/ // SM)
Fleming, a Republican congressman from Louisiana, might not be able to do much
about the NSA, but he’s championing an effort to ban police departments from using
federal grants to buy license plate scanners. An amendment added this week to an omnibus transportation bill
working its way through Congress would also ban the use of federal money to help kick-start red light camera programs, speed
enforcement cameras and other forms of municipal-level electronic surveillance. Speaking on the floor of the House, Fleming
compared the scanners used by many police departments to the so-called “meta-data” — data consisting of phone numbers called
and the duration of calls but not the actual voice content — collected by the NSA. “Just like phone meta-data, this geo-location data
with time stamps can be used to reconstruct intimate details of our lives, who we visit, where we worship, from whom we seek
counseling, and how we might legally and legitimately protest the actions of our own government,” Fleming said. Fleming’s fears are
not unfounded: The ACLU found that state police in Virginia tracked the license plates of people who attended political rallies for
Barack Obama and Sarah Palin in 2009. On a more personal level, Watchdog.org’s Katie Watson discovered in April that police in
Alexandria, Va., captured and saved 16 photos of her license plate over the previous six months. Police say the scanners help officers
more quickly assess the potential danger of pulling someone over: Were they simply speeding or do they have a history of violent
behavior, too? Law enforcement agencies argue that maintaining records from license plate scanners can help solve crimes more
quickly, regardless of potential constitutional violations needed to achieve that goal. Stricter rules are needed to tell police how long
they can keep data obtained from scanners, said John Bowman, spokesman for the National Motorists Association, which opposes
the use of scanners because of privacy violations. “If the information isn’t immediately relevant to a crime, then there is no reason to
keep it and it should be immediately deleted,” Bowman said. Fleming said many
states don’t have rules for how
long license plate data can be kept, and he wants to start a debate about the proper role for such technology.
States and local governments may still buy license plate scanning
technology on their own, but the federal government should not use tax dollars to
subsidize those costs, Fleming said.
Lack of transparency and general secrecy mean attempts at reform will be
circumvented
Farivar 15 – Senior Business Editor for ArsTechnica (3/15/2015, Cyrus, ArsTechnica, “Cops are freaked out that Congress
may impose license plate reader limits”, http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/03/cops-are-freaked-out-that-congress-mayimpose-license-plate-reader-limits/ // SM)
"Worse still, the
officials represent to Congress that there are no examples of license plate
tracking abuse. That's factually incorrect. But again this claim obscures the real problem:
We would likely know of many more cases of police abuse of this data if legislators
ensured the systems were appropriately audited, and if there was necessary
transparency around how the systems are used and abused. A cloak of secrecy
largely surrounds law enforcement use of plate tracking databases. In the
context of this secrecy, these claims about a supposed lack of evidence of abuse are
particularly difficult to swallow."
Courts Don’t Solve
Supreme Court decision fails – doesn’t solve physical placement of tracking
devices
Kopstein 2/12 – a cyberculture journalist and researcher from New York City. His work focuses on Internet law and
disorder, surveillance and government secrecy. (2015, Joshua, Al-Jazeera America, “Your location data is your life, and police want it
all”, http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2015/2/your-location-data-is-your-life-and-police-want-it-all.html // SM)
In 2012, the same year ALPRs first made major headlines, the Supreme Court ruled that
police must obtain a warrant before monitoring a suspect’s vehicle with a GPS tracking
device. Many saw this as a victory against the normalization of unwarranted police
tracking, but in practice it was hardly a deterrent. That’s because at issue was not
the tracking itself but the physical placement of a tracking device on the suspect’s car,
which the court ruled constituted trespass under the Fourth Amendment.
Politics Links
The police lobby hates the plan
Farivar 15 – Senior Business Editor for ArsTechnica (3/15/2015, Cyrus, ArsTechnica, “Cops are freaked out that Congress
may impose license plate reader limits”, http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/03/cops-are-freaked-out-that-congress-mayimpose-license-plate-reader-limits/ // SM)
Despite the fact that no federal license plate legislation has been proposed, the
International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) has sent a pre-emptive letter to top
Congressional lawmakers, warning them against any future restrictions of
automated license plate readers. The IACP claims to be the "world's oldest and
largest association of law enforcement executives." As the letter, which was published last week,
states: We are deeply concerned about efforts to portray automated license plate
recognition (ALPR) technology as a national real-time tracking capability for law
enforcement. The fact is that this technology and the data it generates is not used to
track people in real time. ALPR is used every day to generate investigative leads that
help law enforcement solve murders, rapes, and serial property crimes, recover abducted children, detect drug
and human trafficking rings, find stolen vehicles, apprehend violent criminal alien fugitives, and support terrorism investigations. Sarah Guy,
a spokeswoman for the IACP, told Ars that current state and local restrictions
have made the police lobby group concerned at the federal level. "Last year during the
appropriations process there was an amendment that would have prohibited fed funds to purchase LPRs or any camera that collects or stores license
plate numbers," she said. "That didn't pass but we think that something like this could be tried again."
The police lobby has immense political sway over Congress
Rucke 14 – Katie Rucke is a MintPress staff writer and investigative report specializing in the war on drugs, criminal justice,
marijuana legislation, education and watchdog investigations as well as whistle-blowers. (5/29/2014, Katie, MintPress News, “The
Law Enforcement Lobby’s Heavy Hand In American Policy”, http://www.mintpressnews.com/the-law-enforcement-lobbys-heavyhand-in-american-policy/191557/ // SM)
The influence wielded in the U.S. political arena by the National Rifle Association,
Monsanto and Koch brothers-controlled organizations is familiar to many Americans. But
the average voter is likely unaware of a lesser-known lobby with a strong say in U.S.
policy: law enforcement. Although police officers may lead the public to believe they don’t create the laws, they just
enforce them, Lt. Commander Diane Goldstein (Ret.), a member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, or LEAP, says if this were
truly the case, law enforcement officers wouldn’t arrive at meetings with politicians while in uniform.
“Capitalism is alive
and well in politics,” Goldstein said while talking to MintPress about the “incredibly
powerful lobby” law enforcement has created over the years. The problem with lobbying, she says, is
that it’s all about furthering self-interests. Tim Lynch, director of the Project on Criminal Justice at the CATO Institute, agreed with
Goldstein, noting that the spokesmen and spokeswomen for police departments often distance themselves from their influence on
the law when legal issues or controversies arise, “as if they are disinterested or indifferent to” what law the legislature is writing.
While some of the issues taken up by the lobby are related to public safety, collective-bargaining packages for officers and other
special legal protections as outlined under the Law Enforcement Officers’ Bill of Rights, one of the largest political issues law
enforcement attempts to influence is related to drug reform — specifically, marijuana legalization. Exactly how much money police
lobbies spend on legislative efforts isn’t the easiest figure to decipher, since there are more than 18,000 different police departments
in the United States. Of the total, some lobby, while others simply focus on keeping the people in their communities safe. To make
things even more complicated, there is a difference in the types of records that are required for lobbyists that are public unions
compared to organizations, and the rules vary by state, as well. But according
to Dan Auble, senior researcher
at the Center for Responsive Politics, law enforcement spent roughly $2.5 million
lobbying lawmakers in Washington last year. Auble says this amount seems relatively
“paltry” when compared to what other groups spend on influencing the government, but the actual influence of
law enforcement is likely much higher. He says this is because reported financial figures
don’t include the other ways law enforcement influences policies such as when
lawmakers reach out for an “expert opinion.” Law enforcement lobbies may not be as influential in
Washington as the financial and pharmaceutical companies, but Auble says that especially when it comes to issues of particular
concern to law enforcement, including drug policy, human trafficking, immigration and their own pension and retirement issues,
“they are surely a well-respected voice in the halls of Congress.”
Congress has empirically supported the War on Drugs although past
measures have caused fights
Newman and Smith 11 – Director Media Relations at the Drug Policy Alliance AND
Policy Manager at the Drug Policy Alliance (Tony* AND Grant**, “Congress Set to
Escalate War on Drugs, Despite Decades of Failure and Unaffordable Price Tag,” Drug
Policy Alliance, December 7th, 2011,
http://www.drugpolicy.org/news/2011/12/congress-set-escalate-war-drugs-despitedecades-failure-and-unaffordable-price-tag)BC
Legislation Would Criminalize New Drugs Like Spice/K2 and "Bath Salts," Impeding Scientific Research and
Potential Medical Breakthroughs
Other Legislation Would Make It a Crime to Plan to Engage in Legal Public Health Interventions in Another Country if the Policy is
Different than U.S. Drug Policy
The U.S. House of Representatives is set to vote on two bills that would escalate the war on
drugs. One bill scheduled to be voted on today would criminalize possession and sales of chemical
compounds found in products such as "K2," "Spice," and "bath salts." A second bill which is expected to be voted on
next week would make it a federal crime to plan to engage in an activity in another country
that would violate U.S. drug laws if actually committed in the U.S. - even if the activity is actually
legal in the other country.
Both bills are expected to pass and would subject more Americans to lengthy
federal prison terms while increasing prison expenses that taxpayers have to pay, at a
time when members of Congress are cutting drug education, treatment and prevention
citing the need to reduce federal expenses.
"Since the war on drugs was declared 40 years ago, the U.S. has spent more than one trillion dollars and
arrested tens of millions of Americans for drug law violations, yet drugs are readily available in every
community and the problems associated with them continue to mount," said Bill Piper, director of
national affairs for the Drug Policy Alliance. "When you're in a hole, you shouldn't just keep digging."
Despite the fact that at least 40 states have already passed laws criminalizing Spice and
other synthetic drugs, federal lawmakers have advanced a bill that would place more
than three dozen chemical compounds found in synthetic drugs under Schedule I, which is
the most restrictive schedule reserved for drugs deemed to have no medical value. Chemicals found in synthetic
drugs can have scientific and medical uses beyond the purpose of imitating illegal drugs, but Schedule I
drugs are difficult to access for research purposes. Scientists have warned Congress that
placing synthetic drugs under Schedule I will have a chilling effect on research intended to
explore treatments for a range of diseases and disorders.
The bill could subject young people and other Americans to federal prosecution and
lengthy prison terms of up to 20 years or more for distribution of small quantities of a synthetic drug - at
enormous cost to taxpayers. Although this legislation initially encountered little resistance as it
moved through the U.S. House of Representatives, House Judiciary Committee members engaged in
an intense debate last month on the adverse implications this bill will have on scientific research, its
excessive cost to taxpayers, and the need for a national drug policy that is grounded in science rather than politics.
A second bill under consideration in Congress would authorize federal criminal prosecution
of anyone in the U.S. suspected of conspiring with one or more persons, or aiding or abetting one
or more persons, to commit at any place outside the United States an act that would constitute
a violation of the U.S. Controlled Substances Act if committed within the United States. These
penalties apply even if the controlled substance is legal or semi-legal under some circumstances
in the other country. Americans who could face arrest include treatment providers working with doctors in England,
Denmark, Germany, or Switzerland to provide heroin-assisted treatment, harm reduction workers volunteering at one of the
approximately 65 supervised injection facilities operating in foreign cities, and anyone assisting legal medical marijuana programs in
Canada, Israel, or other countries.
"Facing
massive budget deficits, policymakers from both parties should be searching for
alternatives to prison for nonviolent drug law offenders, because locking them up is only making us
poorer, not safer," said Piper. "The U.S. can't incarcerate its way out of its drug problems and should
stop trying. The only way out of the drug war mess is to start treating drug use as a health issue instead of a criminal justice issue."
"By
rushing to criminalize synthetic drugs, Congress is condemning more Americans to
years in prison and ignoring warnings from the scientific community that this bill will
hurt medical research," said Grant Smith, federal policy coordinator for the Drug Policy Alliance. "Outright
criminalization compromises both public health and safety by shifting demand for synthetic drugs into the criminal market. It would
be more effective for Congress to pursue comprehensive drug education and create a regulatory framework to reduce youth access to
synthetic drugs. This approach is working for tobacco, which has contributed to more deaths than alcohol and illicit drugs
combined."
Freedom of Movement K
The aff’s claim that the “freedom of movement” is a fundamental human
right relies on ableist metaphors to incite the norm of ‘able-bodiesness’ and
exclude those who do not fit their ableist paradigm
May and Ferri, 5 (Vivian M., Associate Professor of Women's and Gender Studies.
Research and Teaching Interests at Syracuse University, Beth A. Ph.D. Associate
Professor School of Education at Syracuse University, April-August 2005, “FIXATED
ON ABILITY Questioning Ableist Metaphors in Feminist Theories of Resistance, Prose
Studies, Vol. 27, No. 1&2, pp. 120-140)
In addition to the use of explicitly ableist metaphors, it is equally important to think about how ableism plays out in more implicit
ways. In this vein, we wonder about many of the metaphors
of movement being used in contemporary
discourse. Consider this query posed to incite innovative action toward a more positive future:
“What ... if we were to tap into the lifeforce that confers upon us the right to live and work toward possibility as opposed to
remaining paralyzed and dissatisfied...?” (Cervenak et al. 354). A
life of possibility, and even the lifeforce itself, is
constructed here in opposition to “paralysis” and dissatisfaction: in other words, being moved
to act and live in fulfilling ways requires a form of movement that is understood in
ableist terms. This example is not unique, however. References to roving subjects, boundary crossers, and
migrating subjects abound: is the movement invoked to signal freedom conceptualized in
ways that account for or include disability? Our suspicion is that it is not. Are contemporary theorists imagining
rolling down the road to freedom—or is there an assumption of marching as the authoritative sign of
collective group action? What notions of motility are at use in the idea of crossing borders, leaving home, or exile? What
of the ideas of unrestrained movement at work in the many references to untethered subjectivities or
“figures of hybridity and excess [such as the cyborg]” (Thomson, Integrating 9)? Just as whiteness frequently operates as an
unstated/unmarked racial norm (in, for example, analogies between homophobia and racism (Carbado 291)),
able-
bodiedness continues to operate as the unstated/unnoticed bodily norm both in analogies to
disability and in metaphors for freedom and agency. This dynamic obscures the fact that ablebodied people are, in fact, embodied and that disabled persons are disenabled by systems
of power. Additionally, it denies the myriad forms of unearned able-bodied privilege accorded to
non-disabled persons. The able-bodied or “ambulist” (Keith) notions of mobility and movement used to
define and imagine liberation, resistance, and transformation require an unstated, but
understood, notion of stasis as their figurative, disabled doppelganger. Here, we turn again to our own writing to further
illustrate our point. In our discussion of the character Nichole in Atom Egoyan’s film adaption of the novel, The Sweet Hereafter, we
analyze Nichole’s newfound agency, which rests on her astute uses of ableism to refuse sexual exploitation by her father. Yet in our
article, we problematically celebrate the scene at the close of the film when she wheels herself away from the deposition table.
Ironically, in analyzing the interdependent nature of ableism and sexism, we privileged
autonomy and a narrow
notion of motility as signifiers of freedom and agency (May and Ferri, 145). The motility that is imagined,
in our example and in many others, as signaling freedom, political action or movement, or agency often (directly
or indirectly) constructs disability as a state of being that is dependent, relational,
“stuck,” broken, and/or in need of a cure— in contrast, of course, to the critical or postmodern subject who
seems unfettered, on the move, independent, and whole. Such a framework replicates a troubling
figure/ground dichotomy and stymies our ability to rethink diverse modes of motility,
movement, agency, freedom, and subjectivity. Our insights here build on Biddy Martin’s critique of theories
that imagine queer subjectivity and liberation in opposition to the duped and stuck femme character/body. 132 PROSE
STUDIESMartin warns against projecting fixity as a means of imagining liberation (79). She is interested in questioning the binaries
of mobility versus stagnation, fluidity versus entrapment, and we think that these concerns are equally relevant to a feminist
disability politics. In addition, she worries about the lure of an existence without limit, without bodies, and without psyches and asks
if this imagined and seemingly seductive existence is politically, ethically, and socially desirable (70). We, too, would like to ask if
feminist scholars really want to be seduced into a future without bodies or a future that continues to malign the body, or particular
bodies, as a “drag” on agency or freedom. After all, should feminist scholars swallow wholesale “the
liberal ideology of
autonomy and independence” (Thomson, Extraordinary 26)? As Iris Marion Young states, “normatively
privileging independence ...and making it a primary virtue of citizenship, implies
judging a huge number of people in liberal societies as less than full citizens.” Moreover,
“Holding independence as a norm not only renders dependent people and their caretakers second-class citizens, but it also
tends to make them invisible .... [,] defined outside public social relations, marginalized to a private
realm beyond the interaction of free and full citizens with one another” (125). Finally, this set of
norms characterizes only certain kinds of relations as dependent and prevents us from starting from holding interdependence as a
norm and virtue of citizenship.
Connecting mobility to cultural values of “rights” and “freedom” reinforces
hegemonic notions of ablebodiness
Imrie, 2k (Rob, Department of Geography, Royal Holloway, University of London,
2000, “Disability and discourses of mobility and movement” Environment and
Planning”, volume 32, pages 1641-1656)
The inequities of mobility and movement are connected to sociocultural values and practices which
prioritise mobile bodies or those characterised by societally defined norms of health, fitness, and independence of bodily movements.
Such bodies are, as Ellis (2000, page 5) notes, ``naturalised as a biological given'' and projected as
``the legitimate basis of order in a humanist world''. Illustrative of this are the plethora of metaphors of
mobility and movement which are infused with conceptions of bodily completeness and
independence, of the (normal) body far removed from those with physical and mental impairments. Such representations
counterpoise the mobile body to the immobile, the capacitated to the incapacitated, the
abled to the disabled, and the normal to the abnormal. These binary divides reinforce what
Oliver (1990) refers to as a ``legacy of negativism'', or values which mark out disabled people as ``problems because they are seen to
deviate from the dominant culture's view of what is desirable, normal, socially acceptable, and safe'' (Corker, 1999, page 20; in addition, see Abberley,
assumptions of unrestricted movement and mobility
are hegemonic in prioritising specific bodies and modes of mobility
1987; Paterson and Hughes, 1999). In this paper, I argue that
in contemporary Western societies
and movement.(2) In particular, mobility and movement are defined through discourses which serve to alienate impaired bodies and to
prioritise the movement of what one might term `the mobile body'. In exploring such ideas, the paper is divided into three parts. The first part is a
discussion of the hegemonic discourses of the body in relation to mobility and movement. This is followed by an empirical exploration, through selftestimonies, of disabled people's e.xperiences of movement and mobility. I conclude by exploring some of the practical and political possibilities for
challenging the hegemonic discourses of the body, mobility, and movement. Most of us expect to be able to move around the built environment with
`rights and entitlement attached to mobility
have long had a hallowed place within the liberal pantheon and, as such, mobility is part
of the democratic revolution''. For instance, in the United States and Canada, mobility rights are formally enshrined in
legislation and mobility is considered as fundamental to the liberty of the human body . As Hobbes (1996,
page 57) has argued, ``liberty or freedom, signifieth, properly, the absence of opposition; by opposition, I mean external impediments of
motion''. This, then, suggests that movement and mobility are intrinsically `good things'; practices
which ought to be propagated as ends in themselves. Others see mobility as a means to an end and a mechanism
ease of access and entry into buildings. For Blomley (1994, page 413), `
for opening up opportunities. For instance, Maat and Louw (1999, page 160) assume that ``mobility gives people the opportunity to develop
to be going places is to be getting on'',
clearly considers mobility to be a valued commodity.(3)
themselves socially and economically'' and Marshall (1999, page 4), who says that ``
Reject their speech act – Ableism must be challenged at the level of rhetoric
Cherney, 11 (James L, Wayne State University, Department of Communications,
Assistant Professor 2011, Disability Studies Quarterly, “The Rhetoric of Ableism”, Vol
31, No 3, http://dsq-sds.org/article/view/1665/1606)
In this essay I analyze ableism as a rhetorical problem for three reasons. First, ableist
culture sustains and perpetuates itself via rhetoric; the ways of interpreting disability
and assumptions about bodies that produce ableism are learned. The previous generation teaches it
to the next and cultures spread it to each other through modes of intercultural exchange. Adopting a rhetorical perspective to the
second reason for viewing
ableism as rhetoric, as revealing how it thrives suggests ways of curtailing its growth and promoting its
demise. Many of the strategies already adopted by disability rights activists to confront ableism explicitly or implicitly address it
problem of ableism thus exposes the social systems that keep it alive. This informs my
as rhetoric. Public demonstrations, countercultural performances, autobiography, transformative histories of disability and
disabling practices, and critiques of ableist films and novels all apply rhetorical solutions to the problem. Identifying
ableism as rhetoric and exploring its systems dynamic reveals how these corrective
practices work. We can use such information to refine the successful techniques, reinvent those that fail, and
realize new tactics. Third, I contend that any means of challenging ableism must eventually
encounter its rhetorical power. As I explain below, ableism is that most insidious form of
rhetoric that has become reified and so widely accepted as common sense that it denies
its own rhetoricity—it "goes without saying." To fully address it we must name its presence, for
cultural assumptions accepted uncritically adopt the mantle of "simple truth" and
become extremely difficult to rebut. As the neologism "ableism" itself testifies, we need new words to reveal the
places it resides and new language to describe how it feeds. Without doing so, ableist ways of thinking and
interpreting will operate as the context for making sense of any acts challenging
discrimination, which undermines their impact, reduces their symbolic potential, and
can even transform them into superficial measures that give the appearance of change
yet elide a recalcitrant ableist system.
Oversight C/P
Oversight solves best—solves privacy violations while ensuring effective and
accountable law enforcement
Hartle et al. 14- Department of Education and Social Science at Robert Morris
University (Frank, “The Digital Case File: The Future Of Fighting Crime With Big Data”,
Issues in Information Systems Volume 15, Issue I, pp. 257-266, 2014,
ResearchGate)//WK
Villasenor, 2011 opined that in the near future, it will be possible and cost effective for the
government to record everything anyone says or does. A scary thought considering the
potential for misuse and abuse. However, in the right hands and under strict
oversight, systems that were outlined above could be utilized to keep society
safer from criminals and terrorist, provide a first person account of any situation
including police use-of-force and to streamline the criminal justice system [10]. An
intriguing scenario can be imagined when big data and the appropriate systems are in
place. One could conceive a robbery taking place in an urban area. Predictive analysis has
necessitated that more officers have been assigned to the area. As officer move towards
the location a description is broadcast. At the same time the autonomous criminal justice systems begin their
work. The systems automatically cull all license plate information from the Automatic
License Plate Readers (ALPR) in the area within the last hour and search it against
known robbery suspects, it also looks for similar plates that have been through the area
in the last week and correlates the information to see if any matching suspects may have
been casing the business. At the same time the automated system request and gather video from local private and public
CCTV systems including the business that was robbed. Using this video, the system begins to run facial recognition programs for
people in the area of the robbery at the time. A
suspect is identified through facial recognition and
correlated with the ALPR. Rooftop drones are launched and track the suspect as he runs from the scene. Police arrive
on the scene but have been notified enroute, by the automated system, that the suspect is known to resist arrest. After a brief
scuffle the suspect is arrested and a weapon is recovered. At court the scene is very different than we are
used to. Verbal reconstruction of the defense and prosecution is replaced by a time line video presentation of the crime with all the
digital evidence resented beside the video. Witnesses
are located using video and social media filters to
identify first hand witnesses. Their posts are presented as evidence as they happen
alongside the video. Police officer, witness and victim statements are played from the
scene where they recorded. Physical evidence is presented but merely accents the real
evidence as the jury watches the suspect commit the crime and follows as he is tracked
and views his apprehension. The suspect claims that excessive force was used the police.
The DA and internal affairs use the vehicle, drone, body worn cameras video and
physiological monitors unsubstantiated the claim. The future of big data infused
into the criminal justice system is exciting and a bit chilling. Appropriate
oversight and fourth amendment protections must be part of any complete and
functional system. This article looked at current and emerging technologies and envisions a
future where big data transforms the criminal justice system. The emergence of
wearable technologies, new surveillance vehicles, and automated systems coupled with
the power of large data warehousing creates an interesting view into the future of crime
fighting and prosecution. This content analysis provides a rich collection of the evolution of information management
supporting law enforcement over several decades and numerous information technology (IT) advancements. Through this content
analysis, an
opportunity to pursue research in the law enforcement utilizing cutting edge IT
capabilities and data warehousing techniques is revealed. A specific research
opportunity purported is a quantitative study of the impacts of the information process
(collection, processing, analysis and dissemination) supporting law enforcement cases by comparing the
utilization of big data strategies, data warehouse implementation and data mart
utilization. Another research opportunity is a qualitative study – phenomenology – focused on the study of a phenomenological
impact of implementing a big data strategy within a specific law enforcement agency.
Reform C/P
Privacy reforms solve while maintaining ALPR use – complete elimination
links to the net benefit
Gierlack 14 – Keith Gierlack is a project associate at the RAND Corporation whose research topics have included illicit
financing, nuclear smuggling, China, Lebanon, law enforcement recruiting, and opportunities and obstacles to the use of License
Plate Reader (LPR) technology in law enforcement. The RAND Corporation is a nonprofit research organization that develops
solutions to public policy challenges (7/2/2014, RAND Corporation, “License Plate Readers Are an Important Police Tool, but
Hurdles Remain to Reach Full Potential”, http://www.rand.org/news/press/2014/07/02.html // SM)
Systems that automatically read automobile license plates have the potential to save police investigative time
and increase safety, but law enforcement officials must address issues related to
staffing, compatibility and privacy before the technology can reach its full potential,
according to a new RAND Corporation report. As part of efforts to promote innovation in law enforcement, many of the first
generation license plate reader systems were purchased with federal and state grants. As these funding streams can be inconsistent,
law enforcement agencies are — or will be — forced to make tough decisions about how to maintain the systems. Making those
decisions will require a clear understanding of the current and potential value of the systems to criminal justice agencies, according
to RAND researchers. “License
plate readers are a relatively new technology that can be used to help
Keith Gierlack, the study's lead author and a researcher at
RAND, a nonprofit research organization. “But there are important issues, particularly
about privacy, that must be addressed before this tool can reach its full potential.”
Because the systems retain information about every license plate read, privacy advocates
say law enforcement agencies could use license plate information to track movement of
individuals, even if they are not suspects in a crime. Key privacy issues facing local
departments also include establishing standards about how long to keep information
collected by license plate scanners, who in a department has access to the
information and the types of investigations where the scanner information
should be used, Gierlack said. Some jurisdictions have adopted policies to retain data
for set periods, such as six or 12 months. Legislation was introduced in California to regulate use of the license plate readers
and legal decisions in New Hampshire, Maine and Virginia have restricted the technology. But no broadly accepted
privacy guidelines have emerged to help guide police agencies that adopt the
technology. License plate readers are fixed or mobile cameras that capture an image of a passing vehicle, compare its license
plate against official “hotlists” and alert authorities whether it may be of interest. Surveys have found that as many as 70
percent of local police agencies may be using the technology.
investigate almost any type of crime,” said
ALPR reform solves privacy concerns while keeping the technology in place
Manger et al. 3/9 – J. Thomas Manger Chief of Police, Montgomery County Police Department President, Major Cities
Chiefs Police Association, Chief Richard Beary President, International Association of Chiefs of Police, Mike Sena Director, Northern
California Regional Intelligence Center President, National Fusion Center Association, Ronald C. Sloan Director, Colorado Bureau of
Investigation President, Association of State Criminal Investigative Agencies, Sheriff Donny Youngblood President, Major County
Sheriffs’ Association, Bob Bushman President, National Narcotic Officers’ Associations’ Coalition, Jonathan Thompson Executive
Director, National Sheriffs’ Association, William Johnson Executive Director, National Association of Police Organizations, Mike
Moore President, National District Attorneys Association, Andrews Matthews Chairman, National Troopers Coalition (2015, J.
Thomas Manger, other authors listed in qualifications section of cite, ALPR Letter to Congress from Police Chiefs,
http://www.theiacp.org/Portals/0/documents/pdfs/LawEnforcementLPRLettertoCongressMarch2015.pdf // SM)
strong measures can be
taken to ensure citizens’ privacy while enabling law enforcement
investigators to take advantage of the technology. Strict data access controls,
mandatory auditing of all use of ALPR systems, and regular reporting on the use of the
We call on Congress to foster a reasonable and transparent discussion about ALPR. We believe
technology and data prevent misuse of the capability while enabling law enforcement to
make productive use of it. Adoption and enforcement of strong policies on the use of ALPR and other technologies by individual law
enforcement agencies would also help. We strongly urge members of the House and Senate to understand and recognize the substantial daily benefits
of this technology to protect the public and investigate dangerous criminals. We urge opposition to any bill or amendment that would restrict the use of
ALPR without full consideration of the issue.
States C/P
States and localities solve—federal data banks rely on data collection from
the state-level
Gutierrez-Alm 15- Winthrop & Weinstine, Associate Attorney (Jessica, “The Privacies
of Life: Automatic License Plate Recognition is Unconstitutional Under the Mosaic
Theory of Fourth Amendment Privacy Law”, Hamline Law Review: Vol. 38: Iss. 1,
Article 5,
http://digitalcommons.hamline.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1054&context=hlr)//
WK
When used as described above, the ALPR technology enhances police capabilities. It records and checks more license plates against
hotlists than a police officer could manually, and permits lawful traffic stops of suspected offenders based on probable cause.
However, one feature of the
ALPR system is that it compiles and stores the license plate locations it
encounters, at least until the data is erased. Each license plate number, along with the date, time, and exact
global positioning system (GPS) coordinates where the plate was scanned are recorded in the ALPR’s computer database. As one city
police chief explained, the “real value” of the ALPR “comes from the long-term investigative uses of being able to track vehicles—
where they’ve been and what they’ve been doing.” There
is currently no legal standard or guideline
regulating how long this data can be stored; instead, each law enforcement agency uses
its discretion. Some agencies do not keep the data on file for long. The Minnesota State Patrol, for example, retains ALPR data
for only 48 hours, while the Saint Paul Police Department erases its data after 14 days. Others, the Washington State Police
and California Highway Patrol for example, keep the data on file for up to sixty days. The Minneapolis
Police Department, Tennessee Highway Patrol, and Maryland State Police Department retain their ALPR
data for a full year. The New York State Police Department is currently one of few law enforcement
agencies without a limit on its ALPR data retention; they keep the data indefinitely.
Retaining the logs of license plate numbers, times, and locations permits police to use the technology retroactively. Police can
sort through data that is months or years old to locate vehicles on a certain date at a
certain location, or, arguably more concerning, to track the long-term movements of a particular
individual. Additionally, the data from multiple jurisdictions and states is being
combined by federal agencies and third-party companies into massive national
databases. One company based in California operates what it calls the National Vehicle Location
Service: a private database, currently with over 550 million license plate entries collected by the
company and submitted by public entities. The database is available for use by law enforcement investigators at no
cost. Such an expansive bank of ALPR data permits agencies to broadly track an individual’s movements across the country.
New York bill A5233 solves all ALPR use while the aff ensures state and
private circumvention
Boldin 2/19 – the founder of the Tenth Amendment Center (2015, Michael, 10th Amendment Center, “New York Bill Would
Limit ALPRs, Help Block National License Plate Tracking Program”, http://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2015/02/new-yorkbill-would-limit-alprs-help-block-national-license-plate-tracking-program/ // SM)
ALBANY, NY (Feb. 19, 2015) – A
bill introduced in the New York General Assembly would put strict
limitations on the use of automated license plate reader systems (ALPRs) by the state,
and in doing so, would have a major impact on federal efforts to tap in to state and
local systems to track millions of people for the crime of driving. Introduced by Asm. Jeffrey
Dinowitz, Assembly Bill 5233 (A5233) would ban law enforcement in the state from using
ALPRs as a general location-tracking tool of millions of drivers, and would ban the
sharing of legitimately-obtained license plate data with outside sources. It would also prohibit
their use by non-law enforcement agencies as well. It reads, in part: It shall be unlawful for any
business, individual, partnership, corporation, association, or state or local government non-law enforcement entity to use an
automatic license plate reader system. The
prohibition on data sharing in A5233 would help block a
nationwide, federal license-plate tracking program. As reported in the Wall Street Journal, the federal
government, via the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), has been tracking the location of millions of
cars for nearly eight years, all without a warrant, or even public notice of the policy. The secret domestic intelligence-gathering
program “scans and stores hundreds of millions of records about motorists.” Most of these tracking systems
are operated by state and local law enforcement agencies, but are paid for by federal grant
money. The DEA then taps into the local database and is able to track the whereabouts of millions of people – for
the simple act of driving – without having to operate a huge network itself. In those few
situations where ALPRs are operated by federal agencies, they’re generally done so with
express approval of the legislature, and operational assistance from state or local law enforcement. Since
a majority of federal license plate tracking data comes from state and local law
enforcement, passage of HB344 would be a big step towards blocking that program from
continuing in Montana. “No sharing of ALPR data means no federal license plate
tracking program,” said Mike Maharrey of the Tenth Amendment Center. “More
importantly, this limits government power and advances liberty on both the state and
national level.” The ALPRs also known to capture photographs of vehicle occupants. An internal DEA memo obtained by the
ACLU “stated clearly that the license plate program can provide ‘the requester’ with images that ‘may include vehicle license plate
numbers (front and/or rear), photos of visible vehicle occupants [redacted] and a front and rear overall view of the vehicle.’” With
the FBI rolling out facial a nationwide recognition program last fall, and the federal government building biometric databases, the
fact that the feds can potentially access stored photographs of drivers and passengers, along with detailed location data, magnifies
the privacy concerns surrounding ALPRs. The bill would allow ALPRs to be used for some situations, such as identifying vehicles
with outstanding parking violations or a failure to register. But, even that data couldn’t be shared with outside sources, such as the
DEA, for its location-tracking program. Passage
would represent a significant step towards ending the
tracking of millions of people whose only crime is driving.
States can solve, won’t be circumvented – Montana proves
Tuccille 2/17 – managing editor of Reason.com (2015, J.D., Reason.com, “Ban on Government License Plate Cameras
Nears in Montana”, http://reason.com/blog/2015/02/17/ban-on-government-license-plate-cameras // SM)
Cops in Big Sky Country aren't happy about it, but Montana
lawmakers look ready to ban the use of
license plate cameras by government agencies to track motorists' movements. The
legislative move comes after a stream of revelations of local, state, and federal tracking
and databasing of Americans' movements by car, without cause or warrant. A year ago, the
Department of Homeland Security killed a solicitation for bids to establish and maintain "a National License Plate Recognition
(NLPR) database service" after a chorus of public outrage. The DHS plan may actually have been duplication of effort, since the DEA
already has a national license plate scanning system maintained with the cooperation of local police. If passed, the
Montana
measure couldn't block such efforts from D.C., but it would prevent agencies within the state from
contributing to those schemes. Approved by the House Judiciary Committee on
February 13, HB 344 states "an agency or employee of the state or any subdivision of the
state may not use, either directly or indirectly, a license plate scanner on any public
highway," with limited exceptions. Those exceptions include weigh stations for commercial trucks, city planning so long as
driver and vehicle anonymity was maintained, parking control, and tracking government vehicles. Interestingly, in a move
clearly aimed at preventing technological end runs by police agencies, the
bill defines "license plate scanners" broadly.