Tone-Deaf Attorney General Todd Blanche Says ALPRs Aren’t A Privacy Concern
Sure, this administration isn't just tone-deaf, but life-deaf. But it must be pointed out that what AG Todd Blanche is doing here comes in opposition to members of his own party.
Every since it became readily apparent that hundreds of law enforcement officers were regularly abusing access to ALPR (automatic license plate reader) databases to do things like stalk their ex-wives and keep tabs on people engaged in First Amendment activity, politicians on both sides of the massive American bipartisan divide began expressing concern, if not actually demanding (and creating!) legislation meant to keep ALPRs from becoming the KGB they generally didn't want to see in the (US) world.
Even politicians who generally offered up shrugs when cops went rogue suddenly had something to say as the rest of the (un-elected) nation focused some their considerable ire on license plate readers, especially those provided by Flock Safety.
The Texas governor, Greg Abbott, directed police departments last week to stop spending state money on Flock Safety cameras, the license-plate readers that have drawn bipartisan backlash around the country.
Days later in Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis's administration ordered the systems removed from state roads. Mr. DeSantis has described the surveillance technology as out of control."
Both governors are tough-on-crime Republicans with deep backing from law enforcement agencies. Yet their moves underscore how the political winds are shifting against Flock and other plate-reading systems that have been embraced by police departments.
Given all of this, it's seriously pretty weird for AG Todd Blanche to offer up this defense of ALPRs - even if we factor in Abbott's recent election loss and DeSantis's even more recent attempt to try on a size 6 pair of anti-MAGA" boots.
Everything Trump is doing now seems to be stuff that most Americans hate, ranging from immigration raids to the new forever war in Iran to his inability and/or unwillingness to do anything that might bring down the prices of consumer goods. (And that's without mentioning his extremely unpopular embrace of AI and data centers...)
Enter Todd Blanche, Trump's latest kept man in the DOJ, to tell Americans to shut the fuck up about pervasive, easily abused surveillance tech:
Speaking at a press conference in Florida on Friday to announce a $74 million federal investment in the state, Blanche waved off surveillance fears as misinformation."
The technology around license plate readers does not affect the privacy of American citizens," the attorney general said. It may someday, and if the technology advances to where we need to take a look at it and figure out a way to address and draw it back, we should do that."
It's the usual Trumpian horseshit: call facts you don't like misinformation" and imply that Americans are too stupid to know what's good for them. That plan of attack certainly worked out well at the polls last week. And yet, no one in the administration seems to have learned anything from the nation's resounding rejection of MAGA ideals.
Bro, these cameras already affect the privacy of Americans." Just ask any number of stalking victims whose antagonist was a law enforcement officer. Just ask any number of GOP officials who are (correctly, if not always honestly) concerned about the implications of massive ALPR networks capable of capturing millions of plate/location records a day and storing them indefinitely.
Blanche insists this a privacy issue can he can just kick down the road to the next administration. But even if that's a luxury he can afford, it's nothing the American public should be willing to accept. Blanche is completely in the wrong here. It's already a problem. Pretending it isn't is just convenient cowardice. And pretending someone in the future might be able to close an Overton Window opened years earlier is self-deception Blanche apparently expects the rest of US to believe as well.
Bullshit.
Blanche - much like Trump himself - is not representative of the people they can't even be bothered to pretend they represent. Blanche's statement just makes it clear this administration prefers an unbridled surveillance state and it's not going to stand in the way of tech companies that have the willingness to make this happen.