ACLU

Police are using license plate reader networks, from companies like Flock Safety and Axon, to flag cars by travel pattern and pull them over. Gizmodo cites a California grandmother quizzed about casino visits and a Wisconsin-Michigan driver stopped for repeat trips. A Texas jury sided with a driver flagged after one overnight trip.

The thread's best argument was about whether any of this can be audited.

The test case is Schmidt v. City of Norfolk, over the city's roughly 175 plate-reading cameras. A January 2026 district court sided with Norfolk, ruling its 21-day data retention too short to count as a search; the appeal now has 15 states lined up behind the city.

One close reader warns the article oversells: Chatrie's private-location logic has "almost no analog" in third-party recordings of public movement.

The proposal ends anonymous prepaid phones by requiring ID and address at signup or renewal, with extra data for business and foreign customers.

The reality check came from people already living it: in countries with SIM real-name rules, scammers buy your leaked personal data cheaply and use it to make calls more convincing, not less.

And a former Google employee noted the same plumbing is how Iran tiers internet access.