News & Commentary

Police in Lenexa, Kansas used automated license plate reader (ALPR) technology to pursue a man who wrote a critical op-ed about the police department, according to reporting by Kansas public radio station KCUR. This is a rare public example of exactly the kind of abuse that we’ve long warned against when it comes to mass-surveillance systems like license plate readers. It also comes on the heels of reports about apparent misuse of license plate databases by ICE agents in Minnesota not for legitimate law enforcement purposes but to intimidate observers and protesters, and of a woman who was falsely accused of theft based on data from license plate readers.

The latest ruling serves as the final from a 2020 lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas and Spencer Fane. The suit challenged the legality of Kansas Highway Patrol’s policy of targeting drivers whose vehicles had out-of-state license plates.

Micah Kubic, the ACLU of Kansas Executive Director, called the investigation a wanton and disgraceful abuse of power by Lenexa police. “George Orwell told us about thought crime as a cautionary fable, and this instead seems like an attempt to put it into action,” he said.

Appellate judges deemed Kansas Highway Patrol's practice of targeting drivers from specific states to be unconstitutional.

The case led by the ACLU against KHP is best known for challenging the Kansas two-step, a controversial technique used by troopers to extend traffic stops and eventually search vehicles.

Monica Bennett, legal director of the ACLU of Kansas, said the result was KHP must retrain its troopers to “observe and respect the rights of all people traveling Kansas highways.”

Following a challenge by the ACLU, a federal judge said Kansas troopers thwarted the 14th Amendment. But a federal appeals panel decided better training is enough to remedy the violations.

Esmie Tseng, communications director of the ACLU of Kansas, told NCR that the opposition to the detention facility in Leavenworth comes from people of a variety of backgrounds who remember CoreCivic's previous failings and do not want it to operate without accountability. "The Sisters of Charity have been a consistent voice and serve as a conscience for the rest of the community," Tseng said. "They've given a voice to that human element." She also emphasized that the people of Leavenworth will not back away from CoreCivic. As she put it: "The community has not forgotten what they put this city through."

Esmie Tseng, communications director for the ACLU of Kansas, said the data confirms what is already known. “This is clearly a numbers game about quotas and percentages for ICE agents, divorced from the humanity of who is impacted and blurring the lines between the civil immigration matters and the cruel legacy of our criminal legal system,” she said. She argued each data point represents someone going through a traumatic experience that she said can involve being grabbed off the street by strangers in masks, put in chains, thrown in the back of an unmarked vehicle and driven to a facility with deplorable conditions.