We called the Fairfax County police for help....the punks they sent threatened to arrest us. One cop tells my wife that if she keeps crying he'll arrest her and the other cop, La Forge or something, says to me "You call the police this what you get" I said that was wrong and he said "Go ahead, say more fuck'n thing prick" and I thought "Well if you insist".
So the cop gets out of his car on Route 28, one of the busiest
roads in all of North America, and leaves his car door open while harnessing a citizen
with a traffic stop. A woman drove by, and not seeing the open door jutted out
on the road, she struck the door with her car.
Guess who got a traffic ticket?
The Fairfax County Police want the authority of a king and the accountability of a toddler. They twist everything in order to make themselves either the hero or the victim. For these government workers, there is nothing in between.
The
Fairfax County Police Department owns a number of Automatic License Plate
Readers (ALPRs), devices which are mounted on police vehicles or stationary
objects and read every license plate that comes into its field of vision –
potentially thousands of records per minute. The Department stores the records
for up to a year, allowing it to determine particular vehicle locations and
specific dates and times. We filed suit on behalf of Harrison Neal, a Fairfax
County resident whose license plate information has been recorded by the
Department at least twice, arguing that the Department’s use of ALPRs violates
Virginia’s Government Data Collection and Dissemination Practices Act.
FCPD filed a Memorandum in Support of Demurrer on July
31, 2015 asking the judge to dismiss the case, arguing that license plate
records are not “personal data” under the statute. On August 28, 2015,
the judge denied the Demurrer, allowing the lawsuit to move forward. FCPD filed
their Answer to the Complaint on September 18, 2015.
FCPD filed a Motion for Summary Judgment on August 4, 2016
on the basis that the Complaint failed to establish a violation of the
Government Data Collection and Dissemination Practices Act. Neal filed a Motion
for Summary Judgment on August 4, 2016 on the basis that the collection,
storage and use of automated license plate reader information failed to meet
the requirement of the Government Data Collection and Dissemination Practices
Act. Both parties subsequently filed Oppositions to the other party's Motion
for Summary Judgment on August 25, 2016. On Sept. 8, 2016, Judge Smith heard
arguments on summary judgment motions filed by Neal and FCPD. The case is
scheduled for trial on Nov. 28-30, 2016. in Fairfax County Circuit Court.
On Nov. 18, 2016, the Fairfax County Circuit Court ruled in
favor of the defendant. We filed the Notice of Appeal on behalf of Harrison
Neal with the Fairfax County Circuit Court on Dec. 20, 2016. Our Petition
for Appeal was filed with the Virginia Supreme Court on Feb. 22, 2017. The
Electronic Frontier Foundation filed an Amicus brief in Support of the
Petitioner's Brief on Feb. 22, 2017. FCPD filed their Brief in Opposition of
Neal's Petition for Appeal on March 17, 2017. On June 22, 2017, the
Supreme Court of Virginia granted our Petition for Appeal. The ACLU
of Virginia filed the Opening Brief on behalf of Harrison Neal on August 1,
2017.
On April 1, 2019, a Fairfax
County judge granted the ACLU
of Virginia’s petition for an
injunction prohibiting the FCPD from collecting and storing ALPR data outside
of an investigation or intelligence gathering related to a criminal
investigation.