Brought to you by………
John Foust. Because even moral cowards need a
job
“When the cops murdered unarmed
citizens, secretly recorded public officials and held the people of this county
in contempt, I said and did nothing. I was silent in the face of injustice. And
now I expect you idiots to reelect me”
About Supervisor John W. Foust
John was elected to the Board of
Supervisors in 2007 and re-elected in 2011. In all that time he has never, not
once, spoken out against the brutality, corruption, excessive power or bloated
budget of the Fairfax County Police.
However he did find time to run
for reelection several times and run a losing bid for congress.
Since joining the Board of
Supervisors, John has sought to provide effective, results-oriented, common
sense leadership for the residents of the Dranesville District and Fairfax
County…..in as long as providing effective, results-oriented, common sense
leadership doesn’t involve speaking out against the cops.
License Plate Readers at Center
of Legal Dispute in Fairfax County
ACLU is defending a Fairfax
County man who says police department is unlawfully collecting information on law-abiding
Virginians.
By MARY ANN BARTON (Patch Staff)
This week, a little known
technological advance used by police — automatic license plate readers — was
front and center after alleged killer Vester Lee Flanagan was caught on
Interstate 66 in Northern Virginia by a state trooper who used the technology.
The technology is at the center
of a case brought again the Fairfax County Police by a local resident who is
being represented by the ACLU.
Today, Fairfax County Circuit
Court Judge Grace Carroll denied the Fairfax County Police Department’s request
to dismiss the case, brought by the ACLU challenging the FCPD’s use of
automatic license plate readers to “unlawfully collect the personal information
of law-abiding Virginians,” according to a news release from the Virginia ACLU.
Filed in Fairfax County Circuit
Court, the lawsuit is being brought on behalf of Fairfax County resident
Harrison Neal, who, the ACLU says, discovered that his license plate had been
scanned twice in one year and stored in a database, even though he wasn’t part
of any police investigation.
Neal is represented by ACLU of
Virginia staff attorney Hope Amezquita and ACLU of Virginia cooperating
attorneys Edward Rosenthal and Christina Brown of the Alexandria firm Rich
Rosenthal Brincefield Manitta Dzubin & Kroeger, LLP.
“This case is simple,” said
Rebecca Glenberg, legal director of the ACLU of Virginia. “Our laws make clear
that law-abiding Virginians should be free to travel around the Commonwealth
without police departments tracking, storing, and sharing their vehicle’s
movements with other law enforcement agencies. We thank Judge Carroll for
allowing this case to move forward.”
The ACLU chapter noted in a news
release that: “Instead of reforming its policies to ensure against the passive
collection of the movements of law-abiding Virginians, the FCPD sought to have
the case dismissed by arguing that the information collected about our client
and his vehicle is not personal information, and therefore does not violate the
Virginia Government Data Collection and Dissemination Practices Act.”
“Fairfax County Police
Department’s use of automatic license plate readers to compile vast databases
of people’s movements in their vehicles is precisely the kind of intrusive
practice the Virginia Government Data Collection and Dissemination Practices
Act was meant to prevent,” said Claire Guthrie GastaƱaga, executive director of
the ACLU of Virginia. “By compiling a history of your vehicle’s movements in
local and regional databases, law enforcement can use algorithms to predict
your movements and determine your friends, politics, and medical conditions.”
Modern technology can be used to
enhance public safety, but only if proper policies are in place, according to
the ACLU.
“As we saw on Wednesday when the
Virginia State Police used an automatic license plate reader to locate the
individual suspected of killing two Roanoke journalists, when used correctly
modern technology can be used to make us safer,” said GastaƱaga.
“Our client is not asking for the
Fairfax County Police Department to stop using automatic license plate readers
for active criminal investigations or for Amber or Blue Alerts. In those cases,
the technology serves a valuable law enforcement purpose. He’s just asking that
the Fairfax County Police Department stop using automatic license plate readers
to collect everyone else’s data too.”