Iraq ten years after: instead of one Saddam, many little ones. "Yassir was detained in 2007. For three years she heard nothing of him and assumed he was dead like his brothers. Then one day she took a phone call from an officer who said she could go to visit him if she paid a bribe. She borrowed the money from her neighbour and set off for the prison. "We waited until they brought him," she said. "His hands and legs were tied in metal chains like a criminal. I didn't know him from the torture. He wasn't my son, he was someone else.""
"Here is the provision the founding fathers included: The Supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact with such Exceptions and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make (US Constitution, Article III, Section 2)." Jurisdiction-stripping -- not just for conservatives any more? Not sure I like the idea of this being a permanent political football, but the option is Good To Know About.
"In the decade since Sept. 11, 2001, this country has comprehensively reduced civil liberties in the name of an expanded security state. The most recent example of this was the National Defense Authorization Act, signed Dec. 31, which allows for the indefinite detention of citizens. At what point does the reduction of individual rights in our country change how we define ourselves? While each new national security power Washington has embraced was controversial when enacted, they are often discussed in isolation. But they don’t operate in isolation. They form a mosaic of powers under which our country could be considered, at least in part, authoritarian."
"Most of us 99-percenters couldn’t even let our dogs leave a dump on the sidewalk without feeling ashamed before our neighbors. It's called having a conscience: even though there are plenty of things most of us could get away with doing, we just don’t do them, because, well, we live here. Most of us wouldn’t take a million dollars to swindle the local school system, or put our next door neighbors out on the street with a robosigned foreclosure, or steal the life’s savings of some old pensioner down the block by selling him a bunch of worthless securities. But our Too-Big-To-Fail banks unhesitatingly take billions in bailout money and then turn right around and finance the export of jobs to new locations in China and India."
"Since this is my first chance to address you as Legal Adviser, I thought I would speak to three issues. First, the nature of my job as Legal Adviser. Second, to discuss the strategic vision of international law that we in the Obama Administration are attempting to implement. Third and finally, to discuss particular issues that we have grappled with in our first year in a number of high-profile areas: the International Criminal Court, the Human Rights Council, and what I call The Law of 9/11: detentions, use of force, and prosecutions."
"There's been a great deal of debate, confusion and simple misrepresentation concerning what, exactly, the detainee provisions say and what effect they'll have. With Steve Vladeck, I've posted some of my own observations about the new legislation, in two parts, at Opinio Juris." (also links to Obama signing statement)
Congressional Research Service: "This report offers a brief background of the salient issues raised by H.R. 1540 and S. 1867 regarding detention matters, provides a section-by-section analysis of the relevant subdivision of each bill, and compares the bills’ approaches with respect to the major issues they address."
Very interesting essay. "Now of course, Ron Paul pandered to racists, and there is no doubt that this is a legitimate political issue in the Presidential race. But the intellectual challenge that Ron Paul presents ultimately has nothing to do with him, and everything to do with contradictions within modern liberalism." Stoller says the liberal blind spot is how interconnected warmaking is with central banking; Paul gets that and focuses on it, liberals don't. The question for me is whether centrally financed social spending must be a seedbed for war spending; doesn't seem that way in Europe.
Yes, much of this was practice already; what’s new is to have Congressional blessing, which (as I understand it) +/- immunizes these policies against one kind of challenge (exec. overreach) under the key SCOTUS Youngstown Sheet & Tube decision back in the 50s.
"But there is a different problem with Cheney's criticisms: his premise that the Obama administration has reversed Bush-era policies is largely wrong. The truth is closer to the opposite: The new administration has copied most of the Bush program, has expanded some of it, and has narrowed only a bit. Almost all of the Obama changes have been at the level of packaging, argumentation, symbol, and rhetoric. "
Montgomery County Council Public Safety Committee
public hearing on loitering bill 35-11; my testimony part begins
at around 16:30, but everyone’s testimony is well worth
listening to.
On the evening of Tuesday, November 15, I joined seven other people testifying before the Montgomery County Public Safety Committee about the proposed loitering/”prowling” bill 35-11, introduced by Councilman Phil Andrews. As I’ve explained in a post on the “Montgomery County Civil Rights Coalition” blog, I think this is no better than the youth curfew I wrote about in the prior post.
My testimony is below; I’ve added a few links where appropriate. I’ll describe the hearing and the testimony of others in a separate post.
I’d like to thank Professor Andrew Taslitz of Howard University for connecting me with Howard Law students Maryam Mujahid (editor of the Howard Law Journal), Marc Watkins, and Michelle Mills. I’m very grateful to each of them for their generous help on very short notice. Their research and review work was invaluable; any errors are mine alone. It was also great to meet Marc, Michelle, and fellow law student Darien Jones at the hearing.
= = =
Thanks for this chance to speak against the loitering/”prowling” bill 35-11. I question its constitutionality, necessity, and likely results.
The October 25 memo about this bill cites cases seeming to show laws based on the same Model Penal Code ordinance have withstood scrutiny around the country.
Back to the future with the Montgomery County youth curfew
This summer, two bad events in Montgomery County came to dominate the attention of local politicians. First, over the July 4th weekend, gang members from elsewhere gathered in downtown Silver Spring and then fought; one girl was stabbed but survived. Then, in mid-August, a “flash mob” — an unannounced mass appearance, often pre-arranged by social media or text message — descended on a Germantown 7-11 and looted its shelves of chips and the like. Concerns had already been on the rise about similar events around the country and around the world, so the 7-11 surveillance video quickly became notorious.
Reflecting the growing hysteria, County Executive Ike Leggett had already proposed a youth curfew in mid-July that was initially drafted as a quite draconian curfew. An amended bill was submitted in late August that eliminated criminal penalties and provided a variety of “affirmative defenses” for daring to be OWY — outside while young — after 11pm on weekdays and after midnight on weekends.
A “witch hunt”?
Calling this “hysteria” and the curfew highly questionable policing and crime-fighting seems fair in light of a number of salient facts:
As Councilmember Phil Andrews has repeatedly pointed out, gang-related crime is actually down by nearly 50% over the last two years.
Less than seven percent of youth arrests under 22 in Montgomery County occur during the proposed curfew hours.
Montgomery County police rank and file oppose the idea, warning “Enforcement of a curfew misdirects scarce police resources,” and noting “Banning lawful activities of residents of our County based upon their age is not a solution to problems of real crime.”
Even current advocates of the measure like “Safe Silver Spring” — supposedly tasked with advising county leaders on crime prevention — didn’t so much as mention a curfew in an extensive list of recommendations at the beginning of the year. And no wonder…
At a mid-October “Youth Town Hall” with county council members, high school student and leading curfew opponent Leah Muskin-Pierret aptly compared the curfew proposal to a “witch hunt” — based on paranoia, targeting a largely innocent, powerless group, and not really solving the alleged problem.
The “Sundown Town” comparison But there’s another, perhaps equally apt parallel from more recent — even current — American history: “sundown towns.” In his classic 2005 book “Sundown Towns,” James Loewen defined them as “any organized jurisdiction that for decades kept African Americans or other groups from living in it and was thus ‘all white’ on purpose.”
These jurisdictions ranged from those where black people were intimidated into leaving at gunpoint or by a lynching, through ones that posted signs saying “N*****, don’t let the sun set on you in this town,“ to those that enacted and executed their exclusions via only slightly more genteel city ordinances or development practices. Hollywood generalizations notwithstanding, sundown towns per se were (and too many still are) not so much a deep South phenomenon as one of the border South, North, and Midwest.*
In Maryland, concentrations of “sundown towns” appear to be in Western Maryland, but also in Prince George’s County near DC and also a couple in Montgomery County — most notably Chevy Chase, one of the more or less “white glove”, development-based variety of sundown town.**
As the resolution lays out — that is, laid out — it’s not just appropriate for a county council to express an opinion about this issue, it’s high time:
“4. While military spending has been extraordinary during the past decade, huge cuts have been made at the federal, state, and local levels to domestic spending, including appropriations for Maryland and Montgomery County.
5. The economic and financial situation in the state of Maryland has led to reductions in revenues from the state to Montgomery County. These reductions impact funding for education, environmental programs, health care, safety net services, public safety, and transportation projects.”
Cramped school budgets, fights with the police force over benefits, looming state and local health care and services cutbacks and more: they can all be attributed in no small part to this country’s misplaced budget priorities.
But if you need it, there will be another daily reminder of our county council’s embarrassing retreat — the empty storefront at the former Border’s Books location in Downtown Silver Spring. That’s because Andy Shallal — owner of the thriving Busboys and Poets bookstore/cafe empire in the DC area — has ruled out expanding to that location (or any other in Montgomery County) because of the County Council’s action. CityPaper’s Lydia DePillis reports:
Having already planted flags in Arlington and Prince George’s counties, Montgomery was a clear next step for Shallal. And indeed, he tells me he’s been looking at the now-closed Borders Books & Music space in Silver Spring, and has been approached by developers to open in Bethesda. But Shallal, whose outlets have lately been sporting banners encouraging passersby to “IMAGINE A WORLD WITHOUT WAR,” says MoCo has lost its chance. “County residents pay about $2.5 billion in defense spending,” he emails. “Money that is desperately needed for other services.”
Sure: realistically, Busboys and Poets is no economic match for Lockheed Martin, which turns out to be the largest employer in the county. But Mr. Shallal’s penalty to the county, while perhaps small in the scheme of things, is a concrete example of the trade-offs we’re making every day with our outlandish defense budget and our seemingly endless warfare. Lockheed was either bluffing or insane: our county — with its still-excellent schools, its services, and above all its work force — either was a good place to work and live, or it wasn’t. Passing this resolution wasn’t going to change that.
With respect, I think Councilmember George Leventhal was mistaken to say the resolution amounted to unwise “federal legislating.” It was no such thing. It simply urged Congress to make major reductions in the Pentagon budget, and reinvest the savings in state and local needs.
Councilmember Leventhal got it right the first time when he endorsed this bill. I hope he gets it right again — and soon — to vote for it.
In mid-December, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, or WMATA — better known as “Metro” — and its police force announced a new random bag search policy:
…police will randomly select bags or packages to check for hazardous materials using ionization technology as well as K-9 units trained to detect explosive materials. Carry on items will generally not be opened and physically inspected unless the equipment indicates a need for further inspection.
As described, the policy allows people approaching a station to decide to refuse the screening, of course — they just can’t then bring their bags with them:
Anyone who is randomly selected and refuses to submit their carry-on items for inspection will be prohibited from bringing those items into the station. Customers who encounter a baggage checkpoint at a station entrance may choose not to enter the station if they would prefer not to submit their carry-ons for inspection.
Opponents of the policy (including myself) deemed the policy unconstitutional, ineffective, and misguided — security theater that demands public acceptance of routine, suspicionless, unaudited (and therefore possibly profiling-based) searches for almost precisely zero security in return. Thanks in part to a good deal of mobilizing by opponents — including an online petition and an evening of nearly unanimous public opposition — WMATA’s “Riders Advisory Council” (RAC), the institutional voice of Metro users, overwhelmingly passed a resolution calling on the Board to halt the program, and require their police department to consider alternatives in consultation with civil liberties advocates.
The RAC is — as its name implies — simply an advisory body, and it’s not clear how much weight the WMATA board of directors will give their recommendation. While the policy was apparently all but sprung on the board by Chief Taborn and WMATA General Manager manager Sarles, it’s not clear whether the board will even take it up at the next board meeting — scheduled for 1pm next Thursday – let alone come to a decision about it.
Be observed… be watched
As welcome as the 15-1-1 RAC vote was, the real news of the January 5th RAC meeting may have happened earlier in the meeting. During a brief question and answer session, Metro Transit Chief Taborn confirmed that bag search refusers would “be observed… be watched” for their decision by law enforcement:
Metro Transit PD Chief Taborn answers questions by Riders Advisory
Council members Diana Zinkl and David Alpert about the random bag
search policy begun in December. (Excerpt transcript)
DIANA ZINKL: And also, could you also clarify, one question that came up at our last meeting, where there was some confusion - the answer either from Deputy Chief Pavlik(?) or the other officer who was in attendance — is what happens if someone’s approaching a rail station, is stopped, does not consent to the search, turns around and leaves and goes to get on the bus. CHIEF TABORN: What happens is that according to our policy, that person is free to go. But with regards to law enforcement initiatives, there will be some actions, there will be some observations, because we need to establish why that particular person chose not to do it. So there will be some activity that’s afoot. DIANA ZINKL: Can you give us some specificity — given that I think everyone of us in this room has been in the situation that if there’s something that’s not working with the rail system you go and get on a bus — given that this is a very likely scenario, can you be a little bit more specific as to what’s actually going to happen to that person and what they will be… what their experience will be? Because - I think - the reason I’m asking is that I think this is a very real scenario, and the answer that we received, that was received on Monday, indicated a fair amount of ambiguity and uncertainty from the officer… CHIEF TABORN: Well I can tell you without any uncertainty that that person would be observed. And what that means to you is different than what it means to me, but that person would be observed. DIANA ZINKL: Well could you clarify what ‘be observed’ means? CHIEF TABORN:Be observed. Be, be observed. Be watched. DIANA ZINKL: And when they try to get on the bus, what would happen? CHIEF TABORN:That will be activities that law enforcement will use just as any regular law enforcement has to establish probable cause, to find out who, what, where, why, and when.
As I wrote at the Montgomery County Civil Rights Coalition blog, it got worse. When RAC chair David Alpert followed up, Chief Taborn elaborated that “[a]t some point in time, as we work with the FBI and as we work with the Department of Homeland Security, we establish why” the person refused the search. Read the rest of this entry »
Narnia in Takoma Park and other pictures from the Snowpocalypse
Slideshow created with Admarket’sflickrSLiDR.
Magnolia trees do not do well in heavy snow. If 10 inches or more of snow are forecast, consider chopping down the tree, most of it’s coming down anyway.
Vintage Comfortmaker gas furnaces are sentient, know the difference between good and evil, and have chosen evil. They do this by arranging for their ignition devices to fail the morning after a blizzard makes your house and neighborhood inaccessible to repair technicians.
To relight a vintage evil Comfortmaker (non-pilot light) gas furnace:
turn the thermostat to its lowest setting
go to the basement,
return to the dining room for a flashlight
return to the basement, turn off the electricity to the furnace and basement lights.
wait 5 minutes.
squeeze through a six inch opening to a 18 inch space behind the furnace, remove panel
light a candle.
yell upstairs to set thermostat to 65.
repeat request loudly but without yelling because you don’t need to yell
light wooden kebab stick in candle flame, wait
when you hear a ‘click’ put lit kebab stick above burner-looking things where you hope gas will be pumped in 5-10 seconds.
wait 15-20 seconds; relight kebab stick quickly at least once.
second 21: FWOOMP. Resolve not to peer in quite as closely next time.
Since ignition device is still broken, set heat to 78; the furnace will go out, the house will cool, and you can repeat steps 1-14 whenever you’re cold enough.
The co-op will have everything you need that you spent three hours buying inadequate substitutes for at Safeway.
While deep snow is your enemy, it is also your friend, cushioning falls from ladders.
Try not to use ladders any more than necessary.
A cat staring at a door for five minutes is unnerving.
When released into conditions of deep snow, cats will either
retreat immediately
vanish for unpredictable lengths of time
When you look for a cat in deep snow, the cat will appear at the front door either
just after you’re done suiting up to go outside to look for her again dammit
just before you return from looking all over creation for her dammit
When removing ice dams from a roof gutter, avoid being swept off your ladder by an avalanche of snow no longer blocked by those ice dams. One way to do this is by not removing ice dams in the first place.
When snow first falls, take time to really enjoy the serene beauty of the scene. It’s the last time you’ll feel that way for days.
I received an e-mail from Representative Chris Van Hollen (D-MD-8) today that updates my knowledge of where he stands in the health care debate.
As Van Hollen might write, I’m pleased to report that he makes repeated and positive mention of the “public option” in his remarks, which naturally center on HR 3200, the “American Affordable Health Choices Act.” From the e-mail:
The American Affordable Health Choices Act fulfills the promise of bringing real change to America through two key provisions: giving Americans the choice of a public health option and providing universal coverage to all Americans. [...]
One of the most significant elements of this bill will be the public health option. A public option is essential for creating choice for consumers and more competition for the insurance companies. The top 10 insurance companies have seen their profits increase 430 percent over the last seven years, yet the majority of Americans’ incomes have stayed flat while their insurance premiums have sky rocketed. A public option will keep insurance companies honest and bring health costs down for the American people.
This may or may not be a surprise to close watchers of the health care reform debate, but Van Hollen’s unequivocal emphasis — at least at this point — on the public option was welcome news to me. Last year during the election he actually went further, endorsing a “single payer,” Medicare for all reform, but hasn’t opined on that since then as far as I know.
Right now, you have Senate moderates saying they can’t pass a bill with a public plan and House liberals saying they won’t pass a bill without one. Is health-care reform between a rock and a hard place?
We need to let it play out more. In the House there’s a consensus in support of the public option, and people coming back from their districts continue to support a public option. Then we’ll have to see what the Senate does and where we go from there. As we come back, the White House will have to play a bigger role in this debate.
I wonder how he rates Obama on that score now; that’s somewhat less than a pledge to fight for a public option no matter what. But given his continued support for a public option — a stance that is presumably in step with other House Democrat leaders — it’s important to support Baucus bill amendments like Jay Rockefeller’s that add the public option to the Senate bill.
=====
EDIT, 9/25: “Representative,” “(D-MD-8),” and link to the congressional web site added.
French immersion, Jerry Weast, and the future of the Montgomery County Public School System
Our little girl is not so little any more: she just finished fifth grade in June. Soon after, like many kids at the end of their elementary school years, she and her classmates went on a class trip. Unlike most fifth graders, however, this trip was to Quebec, Canada, and my daughter and her classmates conversed in fluent French with the tour guide, hotel staff, and assorted other Quebecois.
Fifth grade class trip to Quebec: future diplomats, businesswomen,
scientists, and scholars understanding and speaking fluent French.
If this is a boutique program, it’s a triumph, and we need more of them.
Video by Madeleine Nephew.
To the right is a video Maddie took while on a guided bus tour of the city. I took a few years of French way back in junior high school and high school. But even back then, I think I’d have had next to no idea what the tour guide was jabbering on about. The kids, by contrast, are understanding the tour guide, answering questions, and likely joking with and about each other — all in French.
It’s all thanks to one of the hidden gems — all too well-hidden, perhaps — of Montgomery County, Maryland’s public schools (MCPS): a French immersion program that comprises about half of the student body at Sligo Creek Elementary School in Silver Spring. The program is one of seven K-5 language immersion programs in the system. *
Language immersion programs are exactly what they sound like: kids are dropped into a kindergarten setting in which the teacher speaks only French from the time the kids walk into the room until the time they leave for home. By the end of kindergarten — much sooner, really — they’re doing all the things any kindergartener does: lining up for lunch, singing songs, drawing pictures, starting to read stories — all while instructed in French. And by the end of fifth grade, they’re doing much more sophisticated projects; for her part, Maddie did one on “la lutte pour le vote des femmes americaines”– a nicely written, five page poster history of American women’s struggle for the vote.
The case of the missing half time teacher
While looking over the MCPS web site one evening in January, my wife came across a “Q&A” exchange (between school board members and MCPS staff about the 2010 budget. Question 10 read: “Will the reduction of 8.7 elementary special program teacher positions impact the French Immersion classes at Sligo Creek Elementary School?” The answer — unbeknownst to the school administration until my wife told them about it — was yes, but don’t worry about it too much:
Thanks to your hard work, the American Clean Energy and Security Act passed 219-212 in last Friday’s historic vote. Although, as we’ve said, key features of the bill fall short of what scientists say is urgently needed, there were several members of Congress who emerged as true climate leaders — including Congressman Van Hollen. Congressman Van Hollen is on a well-deserved recess until July 6th but I want to make sure he hears from his constituents when he gets back. That’s why on Tuesday, July 7th, I plan to hand-deliver a giant thank you card to his office. (Care to join me? Just email me)…
I decided against joining in on the giant thank you card. But I think the story of just how Congressman Van Hollen got the “climate leader” accolades and “climate hero” gala festivities CCAN has been bestowing on him is worth telling.
Gordon Clark, the 2008 election, and “cap and dividend”
In last fall’s election, Representative Van Hollen was opposed by (among others) Green Party candidate Gordon Clark — whom I supported. Van Hollen is a personally popular liberal Democrat elected in something of an uprising against local moderate Republican Connie Morella in 2002; he’s not hurting for campaign funds, and many in the area are proud he’s chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee — despite Van Hollen’s association with the disappointing Democratic “opposition” to Bush between 2002 and 2008.
Clark, a long time activist in and director of peace and environmental movements, campaigned hard and turned in a strong debate performance — which Van Hollen couldn’t attend due to the emergency bailout vote the same evening. On Election Day Van Hollen easily outdistanced both Clark and his Republican challenger.
But the Clark/Green Party campaign was influential nonetheless; as often happens with third parties, they peel off some activists, they serve as an important source of ideas, and they can win some important skirmishes even if they wind up losing the contest. In this case, the skirmish Clark won was one for the endorsement of an influential local political group, Progressive Neighbors. In a very surprising development (covered on this site), Clark tied with Van Hollen after a kind of “mail-in debate” — the only debate of any kind between the two candidates in the campaign. Clark had parried Van Hollen’s less coolly composed letter with point after point detailing Van Hollen’s lack of leadership, especially on the financial crisis, peace, and environmental issues.
The Takoma Park Police Department has issued draft guidelines for the proposed license plate scanner system that are the next best thing to no scanner at all (still my preference): the default policy will be no storage of “scan files” once a given operator’s shift is over. From the draft:
06 Limitations on Usage: A. Only officers or employees certified by a Command level officer will be permitted to access the Extract Downloads, develop hot lists, or operate the device. Any such operator will be required to possess authorization to access NCIC and MVA files via the MILES system. Security of the extract downloads will be consistent with other directives, rules, regulations, laws and procedures applying to the use of information from those databases, and will be the responsibility of the operator.
B. Scanning Missions will not last any longer than the shift duration of the operator. If a successive officer takes over use of the vehicle in which the ALPR Scanner is mounted, or otherwise takes over use of the device, they will initiate a new scanning mission after development of a new hot list from the latest extract downloads.
C. Scan Files developed during the mission will be deleted from the device upon completion of the operators shift.
D. It will be a violation of this policy and procedure to download any scan file, without the expressed authorization of the Chief of Police.[...]
(Emphasis added.) The draft policy was discussed at Monday’s Takoma Park City Council meeting (video link). Chief Ricucci had courteously sent me a copy of the draft policy a few days earlier, and I was able to propose a few suggestions to strengthen the policy during the general public comment period (and by e-mail).
Chief among these was that the police notify the City Council when the chief of police “expressly authorized” exceptions to this and other default policies (having to do with database lists provided to the scanner, and sharing data with other agencies.) I was pleased that councilmember Josh Wright and other councilmembers took up some of these suggestions, and that police officials attending the meeting (including Chief Ricucci and Captain Coursey, who attended the forum) appeared to have no problem with them.
I remain skeptical of the need for this system and question the civic wisdom of giving such potentially sweeping surveillance power to law enforcement. But this outcome, if it holds, is the next best thing to no scanner system at all: one that forgets what it saw at the end of the day. I don’t like the relatively unencumbered wiggle room for downloading scan files on authorization of the chief of police, but a reporting requirement would at least give people a chance to know that was happening so they could come to a judgment about that.
I may have more to say after reviewing the video of the meeting; it isn’t crystal clear to me what will happen next. While I’m fairly sure there will be a revised draft policy incorporating some of the suggestions made during the work session, I’m less sure whether that will lead to an immediate vote on the purchase. It appears that the grant money for the purpose must be collected soon, so that Council — by and large, more sympathetic to the system than I am — feels an incentive to move quickly.
For now, I guess I’ll call this a small win… tempered with regret that we’re choosing to surveille ourselves this way. But I also appreciate that my concerns were listened to, both by the police and by the City Council.
I’ve learned it isn’t quite true that anyone can look up anyone else’s license plate information — that is, inquire who belongs to a car with an “ABC 123″ license plate that just annoyed or intrigued you. Anyone can try, but they may well not succeed — and that has implications even for those who can look up such information.
The Driver’s Privacy Protection Act of 1994 restricts license plate and other motor vehicle data lookups to legitimate governmental or business-related inquiries (is the fellow applying for a taxi driver or trucking job telling the truth about his driving record, etc.) As EPIC (Electronic Privacy Information Center) tells it, the law was specifically written to prevent stalkers from obtaining personal information via license plate lookups — not a theoretical concern at the time.
To be sure, there are some pretty wide loopholes in the federal law: “use in the normal course of business,” “research and statistical activities,” etc.
Maryland law appears to be more restrictive. When I tried to look up my own license plate on one of the countless online “license plate search” sites that turn up in ads when you Google “license plate”, I finally got to a screen asking me to check off one of the many federal exceptions allowing driving-related records to be released — but Maryland was not one of the states the service offered for search. (In fact, only a few states could be searched in this way, though this may be a function of the particular service I tried to use.) The image to the right is a screen capture of what I saw; click through if you want a better look.*
Your records are now automatically closed to the public unless they are requested by the police, an insurance company, a hospital or for another official business purpose. [...]
Now, without written permission from you, no one, except for those groups listed above who need this information for official business purposes, can obtain the following personal information about you from the Motor Vehicle Administration (MVA):
Personal Information:
Your name
Your address
Your driver’s license number
Your date of birth
Your social security number
Any other information that identifies you
There are law enforcement exceptions in both the Maryland and federal statutes. But as I’ve learned, there’s a popular refrain out there that “anyone can look up a license plate,” that it’s “public,” that there’s “no expectation of privacy” when it comes to this information. I recently organized a forum about the possible acquisition of a license plate scanner by the Takoma Park Police Department. Here’s an exchange from that forum: Read the rest of this entry »
