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"Mobile Plate Hunter" Cameras Raise Questions
The Washington Post has a story on "Minority Report"-style license-plate scanners that mount on police cars. They are the size of softballs, cost $25K, and can scan and run thousands of plates a day through the local Motor Vehicle Administration database. The easy mission creep these devices encourage is summarized in the article: "Initially purchased to find stolen cars, a handful of so-called tag readers are in use across the Washington region to catch not just car thieves, but also drivers who neglected or failed their emissions inspections or let their insurance policies lapse. The District and Prince George's County use them to enforce parking rules... 'I just think it makes us a lot more effective and a lot more efficient in how our time is being used,' [a senior detective] said." The article doesn't mention what happens to the data on legal plates. Suppose the DHS decides it wants a permanent archive of who was where, when?
If you instigate me into chasing you because you almost killed me and get yourself killed, you won't be looking up anything, except whatever the view might be from hell.
And if you survive, you can tell it to the judge.
I'm willing to take my chances. If you're not, just be appropriately careful on the roads, and we'll get along fine by never knowing each other.
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make install -not war
Congrats to yourself, you're someone who lives north of Kansas, doesn't have kids, and is great at generalizing.
You'd be hesitating while you reached for your gun, and I'd have you with a jagged edge of broken mirror in your face, and my hand on whatever you're reaching for. And if you did manage to get off a shot, I'd surely kill you immediately. Your gun doesn't protect your windpipe from crushing. The initiative in the hands of someone with my experience is the lethal factor.
That bible belt is going to have to take care of something a lot less useful to you when the dust settles. Besides, NYC lawyers are happy to fly to the bible belt and prove to judges that a guy who almost killed their client for no reason with their car was also guilty of pointing a gun through a window at someone who was just waving at them a few seconds later at the stoplight.
Look, this is a theoretical argument for you. For me, it's the reality that I deal with whenever I'm on my bike. I'm not interested in some kind of fantasy faceoff in these comments. I don't even like doing it when it's real and necessary. Just be careful when you're driving. Even if you do shoot me before I kill you, you don't want to deal with that just to change lanes without looking. You don't even want to run me over if I somehow don't see you coming. Let's just watch what we're doing, and everyone will get where we're going.
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make install -not war
So, the basic complaint is that instead of using these cameras to catch people who break one particular law, they'll be used to catch people who break many laws. And that's a bad thing, eh?
As to the DHS wanting an archive of your activity, well, so what? What you do in public places, like on a road, is not private now, and never has been. It's always been legal for the cops to track where you go in public places. This is no different.
Cops framing people for things they didn't do isn't a problem with the technology they use, it's a problem with corrupt cops. Don't like it? Get off your lazy, stupid ass and get invovled in local politics, where one person *can* make a difference. Don't think you can? Then you deserve to be a slave.
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