Did anyone else notice on the FL Turnpike Southbound
 

Drive southbound on the Florida Turnpike in Broward County. About 2 overpasses past the Commercial Blvd. exit, look up on the North side of the overpass and they've got a complete bank of 6 cameras about 3 ft out and angled southbound to capture the license plates of every single car as they drive by in each lane.

They must be doing image captures of every plate and running it through a VIN database.

Wonder what's up??

Interstates for about 60 miles surrounding Detroit all have camera towers at virtually every interchange, with microwave transmitters and most with solar panels. The primary purpose, ostensibly, is to monitor traffic conditions, so that drivers can be advised of backups and alternate routes. These cameras seem too few and too far to get license plates. They could probably be used to keep an eye out for colors and models of vehicles, but that would probably be the extent of their surveillance capability.

A bank of six cameras on an overpass though, that's different. I agree, it has to be to identify vehicles, whether in real time or for later processing as needed. Sounds intriguing.

Yeh Florida has those traffic cams also and publicly available too.

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/traffic...oast_cams.html

But these were exactly angled with several cameras covering each of the 3 southbound lanes pointed downward directly to the plates.

You just have to wonder who is getting that data, what they are doing with it, and who are they looking for?

Probably just scare tactics. :2 cents:

Anyone that has ever lived or visited South Florida will attest to the fact that S. Florida has the world's best traffic jams because they're moving 75mph! I95, 595, Turnpike, and I75 are comparable to Daytona during qualifications! Remember when they used to put the cruisers on the embankments of I95 and 595 with mannequins in them to deter speeding?

I honestly don't think any terrorist act will ever be attemped in South Florida simply because where else are they going to train? Nowhere else in the U.S. can a terrorist fit in without being suspected of any foul play.

did you ask the DOT ??:winkwink:

Just like the cameras scanning faces at the superbowl in Tampa :helpme

We have cameras here at some busy intersections. They arn't used to scan plates or anything like that. They are used to monitor traffic.


http://www.ci.lincoln.ne.us/city/pworks/pwcam/

Its got to be an FBI thing. I don't think any other agency could pull that off quietly without a public uproar.

You have to really look hard to notice it. Which is why it struck me as being odd. They have it configured so you don't realize you're being scanned.

safety measures i guess!

Here you go. They are doing something like this in Maryland on I-95 and using the cover of conducting surveys.

Wow!

But just a few miles up I-95, Maryland authorities recently weathered criticism for what some residents regarded as an buse of their privacy. On Sept. 27, officials identified 26,500 Maryland
motorists using I-95, and then sent those people letters asking where they were going that day, why and with whom as part of a mass transit survey.

"We were trying to determine demographic information to determine the number of stops" needed along a new high-speed rail line between Washington and Baltimore, says Frank
Fulton of the Maryland Mass Transit Administration. "We didn't want to collect any personal or private
information."

But that wasn't the perception. "Quite a few motorists thought
Maryland crossed the line" by identifying them, says Mantill Williams of the American Automobile Association. "There is a broad
constitutional right for motorists to lawfully travel across the United States without police or governmental interference. I suppose the question becomes, 'What do you consider interference."

Send an e-mail to a guy over at cryptome.org. They pay attention to these sorts of things, and I've noticed a lot of journalists read that site.