(Newser)
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ACLU affiliates in 38 states are filing requests with police agencies today to gather more info about Automatic License Plate Readers (ALPRs), which the group says are "fundamentally threatening our freedom on the open road." Police at the state and local level use the devices to snap photos—as many as 3,000 a minute—of motorists' plates, and the group is concerned about how the data is being used.
The DEA plans to put ALPR on every major highway in the nation, and the Department of Homeland Security is already photographing the plates of every vehicle entering the US. Some states are better than others when it comes to challenging these devices. Maine, for instance, has a law requiring the photos and data to be deleted after 21 days. But that's not enough for the ACLU, which says "we need to convince the nation and our lawmakers to take action on this serious threat to our liberty." Click to read the ACLU's full post.
