I'm fine with license plates being read and parsed. I'm fine with license plates being read, parsed, assessed for violation, and ticketed automatically, or cross-checked for amber alerts. That's literally my line of work.

I want strict, strict guardrails on when and where that occurs. I want that information erased as soon as the context of the citation wraps up. I want every company/contractor in this space FOIA-able and held to as strict or stricter requirements than the government for transparency and corruption and other regulation. I don't want every timestamped/geostamped datapoint of every law abiding driver passing into any juncture hoovered into a data lake and tracked and easily queryable. That's (IMHO, IANAL, WTF, BBQ) a flagrant 4th amendment violation, and had the framers been able to conceive such a thing, they'd absolutely add a "and no dragnet surveilance" provision from day 1.

If that seems hypocritical, my line starts with "has a crime occurred with decent likelihood?" "Lets collect everything and go snoopin for crimes" is beyond the pale.

because it would be ridiculous for police to be able to track every car everywhere it goes! (10 years ago)

Judges require warrants to put a GPS tracker on your car. Now that Flock cameras are so ubiquitous in many cities, this gives them access to the same data without a warrant.

I can reasonably expect that government agents don't follow me every time I leave the house. Legal basis for that belief or not, that's what most people expect.

Legally, you're absolutely right. But as camera technology, data transmission, data storage, and automated data analysis progress, maybe it's also reasonable that privacy laws progress with the technology. I expect any police officer or other person to freely view my license plate as I drive around and I have no problem with that.

But, I do not think it's reasonable for an automated system to systematically capture, store, and analyze all of my movements (or anyone else who is not suspected of a serious crime). If they suspect I have done something illegal, they should have to get a warrant and then the system can be triggered to start tracking me.

I understand the desire for the data... sometimes I would like to know if my kids are following the rules at home, but I have a stronger conviction that I don't want my kids to grow up in a home where they feel like they are under constant surveillance. It's a gross feeling to be under constant surveillance, like you're living in a panopticon built for prisoners, which is an unfair side effect when you've done nothing wrong. Mass data surveillance of everyone is a totalitarian dystopian that I don't want to live in.

I'd argue it's a 4A violation to require it to be displayed, though. It's a search of your registration 'papers' without RAS or PC of an offense.

The fact that driving is a 'privilege' doesn't negate your rights to be secure in your papers, the police should have to have articulable suspicion that your car is unregistered or unlicensed before they can demand you to display your plate.