Police praise McAuliffe for being pro-police; applaud vetoes

Gov. Terry McAuliffe on Friday vetoed bills that seek to regulate the government’s collection and use of data obtained from license plate readers.
...
McAuliffe claimed the bills would drastically limit the use of license plate readers by law enforcement.
...
The Virginia Sheriffs’ Association praised the governor’s vetoes.

“These bills would have defined motor vehicle license plate numbers issued by the commonwealth of Virginia as personal information, meaning that their use by law-enforcement agencies in solving crime would have been greatly challenged, if at all possible,” said John W. Jones of the sheriffs’ association.

“Law-enforcement agencies use license plate numbers from motor vehicles daily to solve serious crimes including abductions, drug offenses and other violent felonies,” Jones said in a statement.

Click to expand...

Gov. Terry McAuliffe on Friday vetoed legislation that would have limited how long law enforcement may store data from license-plate readers and other surveillance technology, despite widespread support from lawmakers and civil liberties advocates.

In siding with police and prosecutors, McAuliffe (D) said the measures were rushed to a vote in the recent legislative session and would have added unintended burdens to fighting crime. He referred the issues to a committee composed mostly of law enforcement officers and their representatives for further study.

Click to expand...

The decision put McAuliffe at odds with a rare coalition of privacy hawks, including tea party activists and the American Civil Liberties Union — and it left some scratching their heads about the governor’s motives.

Others said the vetoes gave McAuliffe a platform to show that he’s a moderate Democrat and friend of law enforcement, even if it puts him on the opposite side of a growing public call for protections against police power.

Click to expand...

Quentin Kidd, a political science professor at Christopher Newport University, said McAuliffe’s position is unsurprising for a pro-business Democrat focused on job growth.

Kidd said that although McAuliffe broke the mold of previous Virginia Democrats who have run statewide by supporting gay marriage and gun control, he has more in common when it comes to the politics of policing with his friend Bill Clinton, who famously put 100,000 police officers on the street and ran for president amid the 1992 Rodney King riots in Los Angeles.

The surveillance bills give the public an “opportunity to see this part of Terry McAuliffe and the kind of Democrat he is,” Kidd said. “I’ve never thought of McAuliffe as this flaming lefty. He’s been portrayed this way because he ran against very right-wing, libertarian Ken Cuccinelli.”

Click to expand...

“This whole ‘Patriot Act’ mentality has to end,” Sen. J. Chapman “Chap” Petersen (D-Fairfax) said. “The police are not always right. We don’t live in a police state. The idea you can observe people, track people, without any suspicion, that’s a violation of the right to be left alone.”

Del. Richard L. Anderson (R-Prince William) said he suspected McAuliffe had “gone native,” with law enforcement representatives, appealing to their shared responsibility to protect the greater good.

“They have prevailed on him so heavily he’s lost sight of the overriding necessity for protecting the privacy of the citizens of Virginia,” Anderson said.

Click to expand...

American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia quickly promised a lawsuit to prevent police from storing large swaths of data from license plate readers.

"I believe that he's getting some very bad advice," state Sen. Chap Petersen, who sponsored one of these bills, wrote on his blog.

"If the governor has a problem with limits on government collection of our personal information, he has a problem with the current law passed more than a decade ago to protect our privacy," ACLU of Virginia Executive Director Claire Guthrie Gastañaga said in a statement. "We will be going to court to ensure the Data Act is followed."

Click to expand...

Furthermore, defining vehicle license plate numbers as “personal information” could dramatically impact state and local agency operations and create public confusion. State law requires that license plates be attached to the front and rear of every vehicle, and license plates must be clearly visible and legible.

The bill could potentially cripple the use of innovative, electronically-managed tolling lanes that improve the quality of life for Virginians by reducing commute times and expediting the tolling process. These projects use cameras that record license plate numbers for billing purposes, saving travelers the time they would spend waiting in line at a toll booth. The billing mechanism could be in violation of this legislation, eliminating the use of these time-saving travel options.

It would be unwise for me to sign legislation that could limit the tools available for legitimate law enforcement purposes and negatively impact public safety, or derail major transportation projects and jeopardize time-saving technologies that are essential to our economy, our citizens, tourism and the efficient conduct of business.

Accordingly, I veto this bill.

Click to expand...

TFred said:

It's all about big government. The bigger the better.

TFred

Click to expand...