In 2015, Democratic Elk Grove Assemblyman Jim Cooper voted for Senate Bill 34, which restricted law enforcement from sharing automated license plate reader (ALPR) data with out-of-state authorities. In 2023, now-Sacramento County Sheriff Cooper appears to be doing just that.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) a digital rights group, has sent Cooper a letter requesting that the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office cease sharing ALPR data with out-of-state agencies that could use it to prosecute someone for seeking an abortion.
According to documents that the Sheriff’s Office provided EFF through a public records request, it has shared license plate reader data with law enforcement agencies in states that have passed laws banning abortion, including Alabama, Oklahoma and Texas.
Adam Schwartz, EFF senior staff attorney, called automated license plate readers “a growing threat to everyone’s privacy … that are out there by the thousands in California.”
The states seem currently at war with this.
A recent bill was passed in Idaho introducing “abortion trafficking,” meaning anyone who aids a minor by harboring them, prescribing or procuring pills for or administering an out-of-state abortion, or taking them across state lines to have one can be sued. There are exceptions for rape and incest (thank fucking god), but there has to be a prior police report, and parental consent is also required.
Meaning if you come from an abusive household and can’t tell them for whatever reason, or you’re one of the 60-84% that don’t immediately report sexual abuse, you have no choice but to break the law.
This pertains only to minors, which itself is awful, but that’s not wholly the point I’m making. The point is a law currently exists for prosecuting someone for doing something perfectly legal out of state, especially with abortion.
As that article notes, other states are passing their own contradictory laws in response to Idaho’s. Which state’s law is the one overturned will have to wait until one of them makes it to court. But it has to make it to court first. Which, as we’ve seen in TX, is harder to accomplish when it’s a bunch of random private citizens doing the suing instead of any one official target. It’s designed to be.
The Freedom to Travel for Health Care Act, which would have prohibited prosecution for out-of-state healthcare, passed the house last year before failing in the senate. It’s currently been renamed and reintroduced, and passed the house again on July 15th. Doesn’t mean it won’t just be blocked again.
As things stand now, I think we’re clearly on a precipice. Shit like this could be struck down. The supreme court seems to favor basic freedom of travel. But then, at the time it became legal in TX for private citizens to sue abortion providers, Roe v. Wade was still in effect too and this isn’t technically written into the constitution any more than that was.
There’s not much saying they can, but there’s no hard rule saying they can’t yet, either. So it seems pretty in keeping for the darkest timeline, that states are deciding for themselves regardless of what the supreme court has implied. And if what Idaho has done remains legal and is immediately paired with this Big Brother bullshit, it’s going to be blindingly easy to enforce.
I could theoretically see other things going the same way, if the idea catches on. No reason not to, really, other than that gambling is not a hot button issue like this is and I don’t think they’d care with the same ferocity. You could take note of every license plate outside the weed dispensary, if it means not having to do your job.