Burlison: ‘Police state’ could be coming amid surveillance surge

Southwest Missouri Congressman Eric Burlison is escalating his push against automated license plate readers, warning that the technology could be the beginning of a much broader surveillance system.

Burlison said that he and Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie are working on legislation that would threaten federal grant funding for governments that install what they consider mass license plate surveillance.

“If your city, county, or state installs mass license plate surveillance, you don’t get federal grant dollars. Any of them,” Burlison wrote. “The federal government should not be funding your government spying on you.”

Burlison also outlined what he believes should be the minimum privacy standard for plate-reading cameras: take the image, verify the information and delete it rather than creating a long-term record of a person’s movements.

“The cameras on the poles are just the beginning,” Burlison wrote. “Drones are coming, and some are already here. Patrol robots are next.”

Burlison said Congress should require warrants for searches involving Americans under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, pass his Auto Data Privacy and Autonomy Act, and prohibit federal funding for automated license plate readers and biometric surveillance cameras.

Burlison added that without tighter restrictions, Americans could eventually “wake up living in a police state.”