McAuliffe suggested stretching the permissible period for authorities to hold onto data from seven days to 60. Lawmakers ignored his tweak and sent the bill right back to his desk with a seven-day limit.
Despite protestations of law enforcement, and despite the governor's own apparent qualms about rolling back police powers, McAuliffe should defer to lawmakers' deliberations and hard work on the matter.
SB965, introduced by Democratic Sen. Chap Petersen of Fairfax, sailed through the House of Delegates and Senate. Not a single delegate or senator, Republican or Democratic, opposed the measure's seven-day requirement.
The measure shouldn't be necessary but is because of ambiguity in existing law regarding how long surveillance data can be stored.
Virginia's Government Data Collection and Dissemination Practices Act specifies that information "shall not be collected unless the need for it has been clearly established in advance." But surveillance technologies, including license plate readers, actively and passively soak up all kinds of data, including that of bystanders and others who have no reason to be watched.
Different police agencies held onto license-plate reader data for varying periods, which led to former Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli's formal opinion in 2013 that passive collection and retention of data is impermissible under existing state law.
"Its future value to any investigation of criminal activity is wholly speculative," he wrote. Such collection conflicts with fundamental U.S. principles, specifically Americans' rights to be free from unreasonable search and seizure under the Fourth Amendment.
Law enforcement authorities cannot have carte blanche when it comes to using technology and conducting surveillance; government's indefinite, or even extended, storing of Virginians' data, including information gleaned from their mobile phones, amounts to an unacceptable sacrifice of personal privacy.
SB965 clarifies the permissible use of license-plate readers and assigns a uniform, seven-day standard for authorities. It requires that data be purged after seven days but retains a provision that allows retention as part of an ongoing investigation.
The measure restricts the use of other technologies but permits surveillance under circumstances where the data collection is relevant.
It's a fine balance, one that took months for Republicans and Democrats to reach. McAuliffe should approve it.
©2015 The Virginian-Pilot (Norfolk, Va.) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
