Watch All Shows Victor Davis Hanson Tony Kinnett Daily Signal Signal Sitdown

Watch All Shows Victor Davis Hanson Tony Kinnett Daily Signal Signal Sitdown

Home – Virginia – Virginia’s State of Surveillance

Virginia’s State of Surveillance

If you sense that somebody’s watching you, you’re not paranoid; you’re a Virginian.

The Web site Deflock.org allows readers to zoom in on a map of Virginia. It currently shows more than 5,500 surveillance cameras operating in the state. Northern Virginia, Richmond, and Hampton Roads are so thoroughly surveilled that they disappear under a blob of overlapping cameras. The map indicates that it would be impossible to drive on most of I-95, I-81, or I-64 without your vehicle’s information being captured.

Flock cameras are automated license plate readers (ALPR). They capture images of passing vehicles and can store that information for law enforcement agencies to access.

In a recent piece in the Daily Caller, Rep. Keith Self, R-Texas, warned that the cameras have been stitched together nationwide into “a privatized surveillance network operating with public authority. Congress must act to prevent the federal government from weaponizing these databases against American citizens.”

For their part, Virginia lawmakers have taken steps to limit the ways information collected by the cameras may be used. Under a state law that took effect last year, such data must be deleted after 21 days, and the information can only be used in limited circumstances.

Authorities may use data to investigate alleged criminal violations under state or local law, may use it as part of an active investigation into a missing or endangered person or a person associated with human trafficking, and may use it to help track a possible missing or endangered person, a person with an outstanding warrant, a person associated with human trafficking, or a stolen vehicle or license plate.

Republican Sen. Lindsey........

© The Daily Signal