The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) released a report on the lack of rules governing how information gathered from license plate readers, such as the one utilized by the Hollister Police Department, raises serious privacy and civil liberty concerns about the automatic searching, seizing, archival and dissemination of personal and private driver information – to who knows whom. The wide variation, and in most cases, the undisclosed use of such information is most disturbing in a free society.
The ACLU’s report, "You Are Being Tracked," releases some 300 police department documents showing location records being kept on tens of millions of innocent Americans- this includes Hollister automobile drivers and residents.
I call upon the Hollister City Council and the chief of the Hollister Police Department, since they supported and feel most comfortable in their authorization of these instruments of personal intrusion into our private lives and movements – for no apparent reason – to release the official department policy, guidelines and regulations governing their use.
To see the ACLU report, click here.