It’s hearings season at the State House, so this is when we put together testimony on bills that particularly relate to privacy, surveillance and the Fourth Amendment.
Today, we submitted comments in opposition to “An Act Relative To Traffic Regulation Using Road Safety Cameras” (S. 2344, H. 3754). In the 1980s, Massachusetts banned automated parking enforcement, out of concerns over driver privacy. Now, influential legislators like Sen. Will Brownsberger are trying to overturn that ban, with the unanimous support of the Cambridge City Council. Here’s part of what we wrote to the Judiciary Committee on this bill:
Data Sharing Concerns
Historically, lawmakers didn’t pass our traffic laws with the thought that one day, technological change would let them be universally, rigidly and digitally enforced. They didn’t know then that it’s possible now to search archived camera footage to form a pattern of drivers’ movements in public, or that license plate reading software, if applied to that camera’s footage, is now being trawled through by officers in red states, searching nationwide for women suspected of having had an abortion. We also now have a federal administration newly interested in making unrealistic deportation quotas, and therefore using camera networks to identify, track and deport immigrants. […] [N]othing you [i.e., the Legislature] do here can bind what police departments in other states lawfully ask a vendor for, or what DHS asks a vendor for. You can’t prevent camera companies from lawfully responding to lawful federal data requests. The only way, therefore, to prevent out-of-state AGs or DHS from accessing such data is to not collect it in the first place.
Racial Profiling Concerns
Some well-meaning activists and legislators hope that automated traffic enforcement will diminish racism in police stops. It’s true that racial profiling in Massachusetts traffic stops has been extensively documented. But speed cameras won’t necessarily reduce racial profiling, because it will still be police who buy, monitor and maintain the cameras, set the thresholds, choose where cameras are placed, and decide who gets arrested. In Washington, DC, when police shifted to automated enforcement, racial biases persisted. Cameras are a diversion from, not a solution to racism, and efforts to automate out the human element merely obscure it from view.
If we’re concerned about police hurting people in traffic stops, then rather than automating policing, one solution is to allow unarmed civilian parking and traffic enforcement, diverting that responsibility from police, as several jurisdictions are currently exploring.
Corruption Concerns
Cities and towns are interested in automated traffic enforcement for two reasons: To increase road safety, and to increase revenue. This bill contains a provision that reasonably limits the income that camera vendors take in (in Section 7(a)), but, by doing so, it increases the incentive for cities and towns to adopt such cameras for revenue generation purposes. In Florida, where automated cameras are permitted, the corruption this has produced has been so severe that it even led to the state having to dissolve one town’s government. So, if this bill is to pass, it should remove the financial incentives to cities and towns, by having all ticket revenues go into the state general fund.
We respectfully urge you to send this bill to study. [ ]
Sincerely,
Alex Marthews, Alexandra Thorn and Christine Felice, Digital Fourth volunteers.
For our full comments, see below: