The Carbondale Police instead of Speeding Awarness Volunteers will now make the calls to speeders clocked by citizen volunteers because of concerns raised by the American Civil Liberities Union, police officials say.

According to the Carbondale Police Department, the purpose of the SAV program is to respond to neighborhood complaints of speeding through the use of civilian volunteers on stationary patrol in marked cars.

Originally the volunteers were to call the people they logged speeding, but Carbondale Police Lt. Steve Odum said now the police will be making the phone calls.

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Odum said the change was made based on complaints from the American Civil Liberties Union.

There were some concerns they brought up that we felt were valid, Odum said.

Odum also said the ACLU brought up concerns about citizens finding out peoples names through their license plates.

Although SAV program policy requires a background check to be done on all volunteers, Odum said the ACLU is concerned about individuals using their SAV program access to get or use information for the wrong reasons.

However, Odum said anybody can get names via license plates through Springfield as long as they go through the required process.

It’s not secret information, he said.

Odum said the police will be making the phone calls until the police department can look into the ACLU concerns further.

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We may go back to what we were doing previously, Odum said.

Carbondale Police Chief Don Strom and ACLU officials were unavailable for comment.