Libertarian Party Stands Against License Plate Readers in Volusia County
Contact Information:
Libertarian Party of Volusia County
PO Box 94 Barberville, FL, 32105
LIBERTARIAN PARTY STANDS AGAINST LICENSE PLATE READERS IN VOLUSIA COUNTY
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
The Libertarian Party of Volusia County condemns the use of automated license plate readers (ALPRs) by the Daytona Beach Police Department, Volusia County Sheriff’s Office, and all other such law enforcement agencies in Volusia County. The ALPRs currently being installed in Deltona are a dangerous infringement of the 4th amendment and the 14th amendment with respect to due process.
Libertarian chairman Gabriel Wozniak states, “For the average citizen it presents a chilling example of 1984 Big Brother surveillance. The cameras amount to warrantless mass surveillance of Volusia County citizens. ” These devices can track where people live, work, worship, even partake in political activity. If not properly managed , the images taken can be used to paint a detailed daily life of almost any citizen within Volusia County.
While the county sheriff has stated these cameras have resulted in captures of criminals such as rapists and murders, it does not paint the entire picture. The ACLU has shown on average only 0.2% of plate scans have led to vehicle registration or criminal activity cases. In other words, for every image captured leading to a future arrest a camera must take an average of 5000.[1]
Sheriff Chitwood has also said the courts have backed up the use of this technology. However, the Ninth Circuit court previously ruled ALPRs alone cannot be used for the basis for a stop. That stemmed from a case where a San Francisco woman was stopped and handcuffed at gunpoint after a false positive from an ALPR.
In addition these devices have been shown to proportionally target low income and minority neighborhoods at a far higher rate. [2]
We implore the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office to roll back their use of these devices.
Founded in 2016, The Libertarian Party of Volusia County believes in limited government and maximum freedom.
[1] ACLU, “You Are Being Tracked: How License Plate Readers Are Being Used to Record Americans’ Movements” (July 2013)
available at
https://www.aclu.org/files/assets/071613-aclu-alprreport-opt-v05.pd
[2] Jeremy Gillula & Dave Maass, “What You Can Learn from Oakland’s Raw ALPR Data, Electronic Frontier Foundation” (Jan 21, 2015),
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/01/what-we-learned-oakland-raw-alpr-data