Gun-Show Customers’ License Plates Come Under Scrutiny

shacklefordbanks · Oct 3, 2016

From the Wall Street Journal, it seems the Feds are starting to gather license plate data from some gun shows. They use local police to do the work for them. The article does not say that this is wide spread... yet.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/gun-show-customers-license-plates-come-under-scrutiny-1475451302

Minuteman · Oct 3, 2016

Hi. Interesting topic, unfortunately the article you posted is behind a pay-wall. So us non-subscribers can only read the teaser first sentence or so.

It's acceptable for you to summarize in your own words if you like.

j_h_smith · Oct 3, 2016

I can read it fine. Nothing blocking me.

OP Isn't this old news? I thought this was talked about some time ago. I didn't hear anymore about it, so I thought it was dead. I do see that the article is from Oc t2, 2016, so either they are rehashing old news or this is round 2 for this matter.

Oct. 2, 2016 7:35 p.m. ET

Federal agents have persuaded police officers to scan license plates to gather information about gun-show customers, government emails show, raising questions about how officials monitor constitutionally protected activity.

ironpony · Oct 3, 2016

Stir up some stuff to get republicans out to vote!

platoonDaddy · Oct 3, 2016

ironpony said:
Stir up some stuff to get republicans out to vote!

Isn't the WSJ part of Never Trump?

Mike · Oct 3, 2016

Minuteman said:
Hi. Interesting topic, unfortunately the article you posted is behind a pay-wall. So us non-subscribers can only read the teaser first sentence or so.

It's acceptable for you to summarize in your own words if you like.

WSJ site blocked here too but this looks like the same story on this site. ACLU of all places... https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-futu...ndees-license-plate-readers-new-emails-reveal

It does seem to be an old story... the one below is dated January 27, 2015 | 6:40 PM.

Responding to inquiries about the document, the DEA said that the monitoring of gun shows was merely a proposal and was never implemented. We were certainly glad to hear them say this, as we had rationally, based on the scrap of information left unredacted in the document, concluded that gun show monitoring was underway. After all, this would not be the first time that the government has used automatic license plate readers to target the constitutionally protected right to assemble. In 2009, the Virginia State Police, in collaboration with the Secret Service, recorded the license plates of vehicles attending President Obama’s inauguration, as well as campaign rallies for Obama and vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. And unfortunately our security agencies — yesterday and today — have shown a pattern of engaging in systematic surveillance of peaceful assembly.

WeaponsCollector · Oct 3, 2016

"There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system,
the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time.
But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live-did live, from habit that became instinct-
in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and....every movement scrutinized."
- George Orwell, 1984

traveller · Oct 3, 2016

What puts the DEA into the gun business?

This seems to be quite stale news.

Minuteman · Oct 3, 2016

Mike said:
WSJ site blocked here too but this looks like the same story on this site. ACLU of all places... https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-futu...ndees-license-plate-readers-new-emails-reveal

It does seem to be an old story... the one below is dated January 27, 2015 | 6:40 PM.

Thanks. The article seems very factual to me; no new news here. Whether its appropriate or not, police agencies have been maturing what some of them call their 'criminal intelligence' capability for many years now.

cowboy321 · Oct 3, 2016

I am told that some folks you see at gun shows were born in Pakistan and elsewhere there to accumulate ammo, tactical gear and high capacity magazines.

j_h_smith · Oct 3, 2016

cowboy321 said:
I am told that some folks you see at gun shows were born in Pakistan and elsewhere there to accumulate ammo, tactical gear and high capacity magazines.

Don't have to worry about this if they're going to Maryland shows. :innocent0

CrazySanMan · Oct 3, 2016

Federal agents have persuaded police officers to scan license plates to gather information about gun-show customers, government emails show, raising questions about how officials monitor constitutionally protected activity.

Emails reviewed by The Wall Street Journal show agents with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency crafted a plan in 2010 to use license-plate readers—devices that record the plate numbers of all passing cars—at gun shows in Southern California, including one in Del Mar, not far from the Mexican border.

Agents then compared that information to cars that crossed the border, hoping to find gun smugglers, according to the documents and interviews with law-enforcement officials with knowledge of the operation.

The investigative tactic concerns privacy and guns-rights advocates, who call it an invasion of privacy. The law-enforcement officials say it is an important and legal tool for pursuing dangerous, hard-to-track illegal activity.

There is no indication the gun-show surveillance led to any arrests or investigative leads, but the officials didn’t rule out that such surveillance may have happened elsewhere. The agency has no written policy on its use of license-plate readers and could engage in similar surveillance in the future, they said.

Last year, the Journal reported that the Drug Enforcement Administration had considered conducting such surveillance at gun shows, but scrapped the plans for unclear reasons. Emails and interviews with law-enforcement officials show ICE went ahead with the strategy in 2010, relying on local police to do so.

Jay Stanley, a lawyer at the American Civil Liberties Union, said the gun-show surveillance “highlights the problem with mass collection of data.” He said law enforcement can take two entirely legal activities, like buying guns and crossing the border, “and because those two activities in concert fit somebody’s idea of a crime, a person becomes inherently suspicious.”

Erich Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America, said his group also opposes such surveillance. “Information on law-abiding gun owners ends up getting recorded, stored, and registered, which is a violation of the 1986 Firearm Owners Protection Act and of the Second Amendment,” Mr. Pratt said.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/gun-show-customers-license-plates-come-under-scrutiny-1475451302

zoostation · Oct 3, 2016

California DOJ has been famous for doing this at Nevada gun shows for years. Only I don't think it was so much worry about the Mexican mafia or terrorists or anything so silly as that. Much more worried that a law-abiding Californian might buy a 10+ round magazine and bring it across the line in defiance of the wishes of the Leftist Elite.

Boss94 · Oct 3, 2016

Saw a ATF take down after the show at Chantilly on Saturday on rt 28 south. Thought it was road rage at first, til the guy who had tapped the bumper on the car in front of him was talking to the passenger of the car in front of him. And then whipped out a handgun and shuved it into the passenger window. It wasn't but a minute later that all the atf agents popped out of the surrounding cars. More to the story. But that's the jist of it. Saw the persons in the show that were arrested. Also overheard a couple earlier mention she had seen several atf agents taking pictures of people at the show. I myself didn't see that. But it kinda makes sense after the take down.

vgplayer · Oct 3, 2016

Would a database of vehicle owners that happened to drive through a certain area which just happened to be a gun show be a FOPA violation? ATF could say we don't have a database of firearms owners but vehicle owners. :tinfoil:

I feel like it would be pretty easy to find a judge that would be ok with that.

BeoBill · Oct 3, 2016

License plate scanning by the police and contractors has been going on for years - nothing new here. How can you tell? If you see something like this

then smile - you're on candid camera.

How long has it been going on? Remember the show Parking Wars?

K31 · Oct 3, 2016

j_h_smith said:
Don't have to worry about this if they're going to Maryland shows.

They could be trying to stockpile, tube socks, jerky and ShamWows!

zoostation · Oct 3, 2016

K31 said:
They could be trying to stockpile, tube socks, jerky and ShamWows!

No one needs more than ten fifty dollar samurai swords..

j_h_smith · Oct 3, 2016

zoostation said:
No one needs more than ten fifty dollar samurai swords..

But one must have multi layers of protection, just in case of Zombies.

Biggfoot44 · Oct 3, 2016

So was that Sat incident involving the two token neo-Nazis from the gun show ?

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