Susana Alcala Wood
Role at the time: City Attorney of San Jose, whose office defended the case, in a statement quoted by The Mercury News
Response to this claim
Because San Jose's license plate reader cameras capture only images of vehicles on public streets, drivers have no legally protected privacy interest and no reasonable expectation of privacy in the information the system collects.
“The city adopted stringent guidelines for its deployment, seeking to balance the use of a significant crime detection and community safety tool with stringent protection of individual privacy rights ... The court's dismissal of the complaint is testament to the fact that the city's ALPR system meets constitutional scrutiny and only gathers information that is already observed from the public rights-of-way.”
A Mercury News report on the ruling, republished by Officer.com through Tribune Content Agency. It quotes the order and gives the fuller statement from City Attorney Susana Alcala Wood, including her description of the city's guidelines, along with a written statement from Andrew Crocker of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Archived copy (opens in a new tab)Why we used this label
The reference point is the San Jose Police Department's practice of querying the city's stored license plate reader data without a warrant. Alcala Wood says the system meets constitutional scrutiny and only gathers information already visible from public roads, which defends the practice the lawsuit challenged, so we used Defended or excused. The closest competing label is Challenged characterization, because she disputes that the system invades privacy; it loses because she goes further and affirms that the system is lawful and properly balanced.