License plate surveillance debate continues at council By Duane Carpenter Staff Writer BUCKHANNON The debate over the LPR (License Plate Reader) continues to play itself out in council chambers. Going into the most recent city council meeting, councilman Ron Pugh was set to make a motion that the Buckhannon Police Department not be allowed to utilize the LPR system and that it be removed from the cruiser it was installed. Pugh was going to ask that it be removed until such a time that it can be shown that the LPR has been reprogrammed to recognize only those license plates that are on a BOLO (Be On the Look-Out ) alert or that the license plate numbers not be related to a BOLO request have been deleted, erased and removed from any and all computer systems that may have stored such data, and have not been shared with any other police department, government agency or private agency/ corporation within a time period not to exceed 30 days. Pugh withheld making the motion after hearing from four guest speakers at the council meeting about the LPR. Pugh said he was going to wait until he had even more information about the LPR unit before bringing up the motion again but stated, It is something I will still be working on. I would really appreciate knowing how the citizens of Buckhannon feel about their constitutional rights being infringed upon, Pugh said. I have had more comments about barking dogs than the LPR issue, which I consider to be a pretty important issue. We cant change our government from the top down, everything has to start on the local level somewhere. Why not here? Council members heard from West Virginia State Police Sgt. James Light, the director of West Virginia Intelligence Exchange, and George Jacobs, a retired detective sergeant with the Maryland State Police. Jacobs was instrumental in Marylands LPR system and is a current regional manager at 3M Corporation. Council also heard from private citizen Jeremy McGowan, an outspoken critic who has led the charge locally against the LPRs and Dorsey Shreve, a computer security expert who discussed how the LPR data can be intercepted, changed and manipulated unbeknownst to the policer officer using the system. Light said the West Virginia Intelligence Exchange is a law enforcement information sharing system that has been in operation since 1995. Under WVIE falls the License Plate Reader program which we started three years ago, Light said. We looked at the technology and thought it would be a great way to protect our state and help fight crime. Light said there are 49 mobile units across the state and 27 agencies that participate in the in the LPR program. Every agency has to sign a participation agreement and abide by policy and procedure that we wrote to access the LPR database, Light said. Light reiterated what the LPR does. It reads and captures the numbers on a license plate, he said. It does take a picture of the plate. Every plate the LPR goes by, it records. That information is recorded in our database for one year. We originally wrote the policy for three years, but it became a storage issue for us, not a legal issue. Councilman Tom ONeill asked of Light, One of our main concerns is what kind of security is in place to prevent other agencies at maybe the federal level from accessing to this database either directory or surreptitiously. Light remarked, This data is state-police owned data. There is no connection to any other agency unless they log-on after signing the agreement and abide by the procedures. There are checks and balances in place. I do audits, I can go into my computer and check every tag that was queried, it tells me what officer queried it, when and why. If I find something weird, I will call and check on that. Pugh questioned why the LPR system couldnt be set up to ignore license plates that didnt receive a hit on the hot list instead of them being stored in a database. Both Sgt. Light and George said one of the reasons to keep the data even if it wasnt on the hot list was for investigative purposes. George gave an example of a serial rapist in Milwaukee. This rapist was caught because they got the tag number that was seen in a couple of locations. They went back and found out that this car was located near the rape over 40 times. Because that data was stored and they can check that tag, the police can say, Yes you were here because he was claiming he wasnt . That is a benefit of saving the data for investigative purposes. Light clarified that the Fusion Center is not part of the West Virginia State Police Department. We are co-located with the Fusion Center but that is all, Light said. The WVSP purchased six units and built the backbone of the database. The Fusion Center purchased all the other units and gave them to law enforcement because they support law enforcement. They are not a law enforcement entity. They do have access to the data because they have signed the agreement like everyone else. I get the record that they logged in like I would for anyone else. Pugh asked Light if every officer that signed the agreement would 100 percent not violate it. Light remarked, If an officer is out there and corrupt, it is going to happen. Anyone with authority might. McGowan said during the meeting, I know there are people in this room that feel I am a conspiracy theorist. I challenge them to go back through the records and the minutes of council meetings which Ive been in attendance; go back through my quotes in The Record Delta and the The Inter Mountain and find one singular instance of a theory Ive had relate to these LPRs that hasnt later been proven fact. He continued, My voice was alone at the start of this fight and nearly each day since I launched this campaign against the LPRs, I have been approached, called, emailed and written to from people saying they are thankful that I am standing up for them. I plead with the council to help start the taking back of America here and now. Remove the LPRs from use in Buckhannon. Show the state of West Virginia that we are still a government of the people, by the people for the people. Shreve told council that despite officials saying the database is secure, that it does nothing to authenticate the security of the data as it is being transmitted from the LRP system to the database in Charleston. There is no way to verify the data has not been corrupted, Shreve said. There are very simple methods to intercept and manipulate the data. Shreve and McGowan were originally slated to perform a demonstration showing how easy it was to intercept data at the council meeting before council members nixed that idea at their last meeting. The data is transmitted over a wireless network, Shreve said. Wireless networks are insecure. ONeill asked what would be the motives for someone to intercept or change the data being transmitted. McGowan answered saying, The LPR system is designed to basically find criminals. Criminals dont want to be tracked and found. If you have an individual that is just a little tech savvy, that person can easily set themselves up to be evaded. The next council meeting is scheduled for April 3 at city hall at 7 p.m.
Posted on: Mon, 31 Mar 2014 15:58:44 +0000
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