Talbot County Council Candidate ALPR Survey Results

DeFlock Easton asked Talbot County Council candidates where they stand on fixed-point Automated License Plate Reader (ALPR) systems. The five questions cover county deployment, government access to private ALPR databases, searches of past vehicle movements, data sharing with outside agencies, and limits on the technology.

Frank Gunsallus and Dave Stepp were the only two to complete the survey. Their responses are grouped by question, with Frank’s response followed by Dave’s in the order received.

Susan Delean-Botkin was the first candidate to respond to the survey request. However she submitted a general statement on Flock cameras rather than answers to the five questions; her statement follows the completed surveys.

All candidate responses are reproduced as submitted, with formatting added for readability.

1. County deployment

Would you vote to authorize Talbot County to purchase, install, lease, or operate fixed-point ALPR cameras that routinely collect information about vehicles whose owners or occupants are not suspected of a crime?

Frank Gunsallus

Answer: Yes, with strict limits.

Let me be candid about what that means: I don’t like these systems, and I don’t want to live in a county where every trip a resident takes becomes a data point. Americans already accept that carrying a phone means being locatable, but a phone is a choice you can leave at home. A license plate is required by law, and a camera network that logs it everywhere turns a legal requirement into a compelled tracking beacon. My yes is not enthusiasm for the technology. It is a judgment about what the county can lawfully and effectively control, and a commitment to control it hard.

ALPR technology is not new; Maryland has used it for years, including for toll enforcement on the Bay Bridge, and state law already regulates it under Public Safety § 3-509. I would vote to authorize county use only for a system that matches plates against law enforcement hotlists: stolen vehicles, wanted persons, and missing persons. Every other read should be purged on a fixed and short schedule, access should be logged and audited, and the whole arrangement should be governed by a written public policy, not a vendor’s default settings. What I will never vote for is a system that quietly becomes a permanent, searchable record of every law-abiding resident’s movements.

Dave Stepp

Answer: No.

No. No simply means no in this instance.

2. Access to private networks

Should Talbot County government or the Talbot County Sheriff’s Office be permitted to access ALPR data collected by private businesses, homeowners associations, vendors, or other private organizations when there is no warrant, court order, or identified vehicle connected to a specific investigation?

Frank Gunsallus

Answer: No.

Letting government shop for its searches in private databases it never lawfully collected is exactly the kind of end run around the Fourth Amendment I would use every tool the county has to block: no funding for private network subscriptions, no contract that permits it, and a warrant requirement in county data policy.

Dave Stepp

Answer: No.

No. In such an instance, the Talbot County government or the Talbot County Sheriff’s Office should first obtain a subpoena to protect the rights of the individual citizen and any subsequent judicial processes. All data in this instance should be subject to the strict guidelines set forth in the Maryland Coordination and Analysis Center (MCAC).

3. Historical tracking

Should law enforcement be permitted to search stored ALPR records to reconstruct the past movements of a person or vehicle that was not under investigation when those records were originally collected?

Frank Gunsallus

Answer: No.

Searching stored records to reconstruct where a person went, when they were not under investigation when the data was collected, is a search, and it requires the same constitutional process as any other search: probable cause and a warrant. Courts have recognized that sustained location history reveals far more of a person’s life than any single observation on a public road. This is not a reflection on any current officeholder; it is a rule for whoever holds the office in ten years, and it is the kind of protection that is easiest to write while nobody is abusing it. Talbot County should not build a database whose value depends on how it might be used later.

Dave Stepp

Answer: No.

No. In such an instance, law enforcement should first obtain a subpoena to protect the rights of the individual citizen and any subsequent judicial processes. All data in this instance should be subject to the strict guidelines set forth in the Maryland Coordination and Analysis Center (MCAC).

4. Network sharing

Should ALPR data collected in Talbot County be made searchable by law-enforcement agencies outside Talbot County through regional, statewide, national, or vendor-operated networks when those agencies do not have a warrant or court order specifically seeking that information?

Frank Gunsallus

Answer: No.

Plate data collected in Talbot County belongs to no vendor and no outside agency. It should not be searchable through regional, statewide, national, or vendor-operated networks absent a warrant or court order specifically seeking it. Any county contract that hands our residents’ movements to a national database by default will not get my vote, and I would move to renegotiate or void an existing one that does.

Dave Stepp

Answer: No.

No. In such an instance, law enforcement agencies outside Talbot County should first obtain a subpoena to protect the rights of the individual citizen and any subsequent judicial processes. All data in this instance should be subject to the strict guidelines set forth in the Maryland Coordination and Analysis Center (MCAC).

5. The line you would draw

Would you support a Talbot County law prohibiting fixed-point ALPR systems that indiscriminately collect and retain location data about vehicles not connected to a specific crime or investigation?

Frank Gunsallus

I will answer this precisely. No to a blanket ban on the technology, because Maryland has lawfully used ALPR for years and I will not misrepresent a tool that finds stolen cars and missing persons. And no to pretending a county ordinance can reach everyone: state agencies operate under their own authority, state highway right-of-way like Route 50 sits outside county jurisdiction entirely, and the Sheriff is an independently elected constitutional officer whom the Council does not direct. What the Council controls is what the county buys, the contracts it signs, our own roads and poles, and the data policies attached to its funding.

Some will say the county should simply pass a sweeping ban and let the courts sort it out. I understand the impulse, and I share the underlying conviction. But I will not spend Talbot County taxpayer money defending an ordinance that state law does not let us enforce, and I will not tell voters I have powers a county council does not have. Here is what a county can actually do, and what I would do: Talbot County can refuse to buy these systems, refuse to sign the contracts, refuse to share data, and refuse to fund anything that logs our residents’ movements. Non-participation is resistance. It just happens to be the kind that survives a courtroom.

So yes to a Talbot County law that binds what the county itself does, and here is what I would put in it: hotlist matching only; a retention cap of 30 days or less for any read not tied to a hit or an active investigation, because Maryland’s statute sets no retention limit at all; a warrant requirement for historical searches; no sale of data; no vendor access beyond what state law expressly authorizes; and quarterly public audit reports generated automatically from the system’s own access logs, so transparency does not become another layer of staff paperwork. The difference between a legitimate police tool and a mass surveillance system is not the camera. It is the retention, the access, and the sharing. I will support every measure that keeps those three firmly under public control, and I will oppose every contract that does not.

Dave Stepp

Answering this question requires two very distinct responses, in my opinion:

Yes, from the perspective of Talbot County purchasing fixed-point ALPR systems for use by Talbot County Departments, Agencies, or Offices. As a side note, a law would not even be necessary in this instance, as such a purchase would be a capital expenditure request for the county. All capital expenditures go through the annual budgetary process, which is deliberated and decided upon by the County Council. I would simply stop such a capital request at that point.

No, from the perspective of individuals or businesses purchasing fixed-point ALPR systems for personal or business security purposes. I feel that individuals and/or businesses ability to ensure security and/or monitor private property should not be infringed. I feel that any request by law enforcement to access data from relative, privately-owned fixed-point ALPR’s should be gathered by:

1. The owner volunteering collected data to the relative law enforcement agency; or
2. Said law enforcement agency should first obtain a subpoena to protect the rights of the individual citizen and/or business and any subsequent judicial processes.

Susan Delean-Botkin

Candidate statement

Editor’s note: Susan Delean-Botkin was the first candidate to respond to DeFlock Easton’s survey request. She did not answer the five survey questions, instead providing the following general statement regarding Flock cameras. For that reason, her response is presented after the candidates who completed the questionnaire. The statement is reproduced as submitted.

Mr. Bauer,

I am going to provide you with a statement re: Floc Cameras.

For the past 25 years I have been following the strict HIPPA laws and regulations for Health Care information. There are high fines for violating a patient’s privacy. I have terminated employees for violating these protections.

HIPPA recognizes that technology and information can provide enormous benefits, but access to sensitive information should have clear limits, safeguards and accountability.

I would have to apply that same principle - not HIPPA itself - to license- reader technology.

If government collects information about people’s vehicle and movements for public safety, we should clearly and publicly define who can access it, what is the purpose of collecting the information, what is the information going to be used for - how long will the information be retained, how will the information be stored, and with whom it can be shared and how its use be audited, and what the penalties are for violating the statues and regulations..

Technology can serve the public good without giving government unlimited access to personal information. Public safety and privacy should be protected together.

Susan Delean-Botkin
Candidate for Talbot County Council

authorized by D. Caruthers, treasurer