Liberty Justice Center Sues Illinois State Police Over License Plate Readers

The Liberty Justice Center on Thursday filed a lawsuit challenging Illinois’ roadway cameras, which capture images of license plates on vehicles driving on state highways. The lawsuit, filed on behalf of two Cook County residents, argues that the Illinois State Police Department’s use of highway cameras—known as Automated License Plate Readers (ALPR)—to track citizens without warrant or suspicion of crimes is an overstep of authority and a violation of the Fourth Amendment. “Tracking and recording the movements of every citizen and holding on to that mass surveillance data of millions of people—just in case a police officer one day decides to target one of them—is not just an invasion of privacy, but also a violation of the Fourth Amendment right to be protected against unreasonable searches,” Reilly Stephens, counsel at the Liberty Justice Center, said in a press release....