In 2015, Democratic Elk Grove Assemblyman Jim Cooper voted for Senate Bill 34, which restricted law enforcement from sharing automated license plate reader (ALPR) data with out-of-state authorities. In 2023, now-Sacramento County Sheriff Cooper appears to be doing just that.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) a digital rights group, has sent Cooper a letter requesting that the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office cease sharing ALPR data with out-of-state agencies that could use it to prosecute someone for seeking an abortion.
According to documents that the Sheriff’s Office provided EFF through a public records request, it has shared license plate reader data with law enforcement agencies in states that have passed laws banning abortion, including Alabama, Oklahoma and Texas.
Adam Schwartz, EFF senior staff attorney, called automated license plate readers “a growing threat to everyone’s privacy … that are out there by the thousands in California.”
Texas passed a law in 2021 law that allows civil lawsuits against a person who “aids or abets the performance or inducement of abortion.” It does not specify whether the aid would have to happen within Texas. Oklahoma has a similar law.
Idaho’s House Bill 242 makes helping a pregnant minor get an abortion, whether through medication or a procedure, in another state punishable by two to five years in prison.
Other Republican states are working to prosecute what they call “abortion-trafficking”.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/06/29/abortion-state-lines/