Electronic Frontier Foundation, ACLU Win Court Ruling That Police Can't Keep License Plate Data Secret
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Police Have Collected Data on Millions of Law-Abiding Drivers Via License Readers
San Francisco, California—The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the ACLU won a decision by the California Supreme Court that the license plate data of millions of law-abiding drivers, collected indiscriminately by police across the state, are not “investigative records” that law enforcement can keep secret.
California’s highest court ruled that the collection of license plate data isn’t targeted at any particular crime, so the records couldn’t be considered part of a police investigation.
“This is a big win for transparency in California,” attorney Peter Bibring, director of police practices at the ACLU of Southern California, which joined EFF in a lawsuit over the records. “The Supreme Court recognized that California’s sweeping public records exemption for police investigations doesn’t cover mass collection of data by police, like the automated scanning of license plates in this case. The Court also recognized that mere speculation by police on the harms that might result from releasing information can’t defeat the public’s strong interest in understanding how police surveillance impacts privacy."
The ruling sets a precedent that mass, indiscriminate data collection by the police can’t be withheld just because the information may contain some criminal data. This is important because police are increasingly using technology tools to surveil and collect data on citizens, whether it’s via body cameras, facial recognition cameras, or license plate readers.
The panel sent the case back to the trial court to determine whether the data can be made public in a redacted or anonymized form so drivers’ privacy is protected.
“The court recognized the huge privacy implications of this data collection,” said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Jennifer Lynch. “Location data like this, that’s collected on innocent drivers, reveals sensitive information about where they have been and when, whether that’s their home, their doctor’s office, or their house of worship.”
Automated License Plate Readers or ALPRs are high-speed cameras mounted on light poles and police cars that continuously scan the plates of every passing car. They collect not only the license plate number but also the time, date, and location of each plate scanned, along with a photograph of the vehicle and sometimes its occupants. The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department (LASD) collect, on average, three million plate scans every week and have amassed a database of half a billion records.
EFF filed public records requests for a week’s worth of ALPR data from the agencies and, along with American Civil Liberties Union-SoCal, sued after both agencies refused to release the records.
EFF and ACLU SoCal asked the state supreme court to overturn a lower court ruling in the case that said all license plate data—collected indiscriminately and without suspicion that the vehicle or driver was involved in a crime—could be withheld from disclosure as “records of law enforcement investigations.”
EFF and the ACLU SoCal argued the ruling was tantamount to saying all drivers in Los Angeles are under criminal investigation at all times. The ruling would also have set a dangerous precedent, allowing law enforcement agencies to withhold from the public all kinds of information gathered on innocent Californians merely by claiming it was collected for investigative purposes.
EFF and ACLU SoCal will continue fighting for transparency and privacy as the trial court considers how to provide public access to the records so this highly intrusive data collection can be scrutinized and better understood.
For the opinion:
https://www.eff.org/document/aclu-v-la-superior-court-ca-supreme-court-opinionFor more on this case:
https://www.eff.org/cases/automated-license-plate-readers-aclu-eff-v-lapd-lasdTags: Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs)Contact: JenniferLynchSenior Staff Attorneyjlynch@eff.org DavidColkerACLU SoCal Press & Communications StrategistDColker@ACLUSOLCA.org
https://www.eff.org/press/releases/electronic-frontier-foundation-aclu-win-court-ruling-police-cant-keep-license-plate

screen and tmux
A comparison of the features (or more-so just a table of notes for accessing some of those features) for GNU screen and BSD-licensed tmux.
The formatting here is simple enough to understand (I would hope). ^ means ctrl+, so ^x is ctrl+x. M- means meta (generally left-alt or escape)+, so M-x is left-alt+x It should be noted that this is no where near a full feature-set of either group. This - being a cheat-sheet - is just to point out the most very basic features to get you on the road. Trust the developers and manpage writers more than me. This document is originally from 2009 when tmux was still new - since then both of these programs have had many updates and features added (not all of which have been dutifully noted here). |
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Action | tmux | screen |
start a new session | tmux OR tmux new OR tmux new-session |
screen |
re-attach a detached session | tmux attach OR tmux attach-session |
screen-r |
re-attach an attached session (detaching it from elsewhere) | tmux attach -d OR tmux attach-session -d |
screen -dr |
re-attach an attached session (keeping it attached elsewhere) | tmux attach OR tmux attach-session |
screen -x |
detach from currently attached session | ^b d OR ^b :detach |
^a ^d OR ^a :detach |
rename-window to newname | ^b , <newname> OR ^b :rename-window <newn> |
^a A <newname> |
list windows | ^b w | ^a w |
list windows in chooseable menu | ^a " | |
go to window # | ^b # | ^a # |
go to last-active window | ^b l | ^a ^a |
go to next window | ^b n | ^a n |
go to previous window | ^b p | ^a p |
see keybindings | ^b ? | ^a ? |
list sessions | ^b s OR tmux ls OR tmux list-sessions |
screen -ls |
toggle visual bell | ^a ^g | |
create another window | ^b c | ^a c |
exit current shell/window | ^d | ^d |
split window/pane horizontally | ^b " | ^a S |
split window/pane vertically | ^b % | ^a | |
switch to other pane | ^b o | ^a <tab> |
kill the current pane | ^b x OR (logout/^D) | |
collapse the current pane/split (but leave processes running) | ^a X | |
cycle location of panes | ^b ^o | |
swap current pane with previous | ^b { | |
swap current pane with next | ^b } | |
show time | ^b t | |
show numeric values of panes | ^b q | |
toggle zoom-state of current pane (maximize/return current pane) | ^b z | |
break the current pane out of its window (to form new window) | ^b ! | |
re-arrange current panels within same window (different layouts) | ^b [space] | |
Kill the current window (and all panes within) | ^b killw [target-window] |