California ‘paranoid’ over El Cajon license plate data, mayor says

(NewsNation) — The City of El Cajon is being sued by the State of California over its police department sharing information obtained with license plate readers with out-of-state agencies.

State Attorney General Rob Bonta announced the lawsuit at a press conference Friday, alleging that the mayor and police department are violating the constitutional rights of citizens by sharing data collected by automated license plate readers, also known as ALPRs.

Bonta argues that the city and the mayor are violating the law established by Senate Bill 34, which was passed by the state legislature in 2015.

“It’s very clear, if you read the law, there is just no prohibition from sharing data with other agencies,” El Cajon Mayor Bill Wells told NewsNation’s Elizabeth Vargas Monday.

“They just decided that this is the law because they’re paranoid that somehow we’re going to stop people from coming into El Cajon to have abortions, or they’re going to stop people from coming in for transgender surgeries,” he said.

“And of course, the immigration issue. So they’re they’re reading something into the law that’s just not there.”

The mayor said the city has roughly 100 cameras in place and gave examples of the positives law enforcement has seen from implementing the cameras.

“Sometimes people don’t respect state borders,” Wells said. “We have people that commit crimes here that go to other cities throughout the United States.

“We want them to be picked up in other cities as vice versa. It happens that people commit crimes in cities outside of California. And we want to know when those people are here in our city.”

The mayor said the next step will be the city council looking at the lawsuit and deciding whether to fight it.