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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 they were in your way while merging, then they were not in your blind spot. Car blind spots are behind you. And even if your car is so big that it somehow has blind spots, moving across lanes puts wide sectors of your side and front fields into which you're moving in clear view. If you're looking.
So it's obvious that you're lying. And even if you just didn't look carefully enough, and almost killed the biker, then they're not the jerk for just yelling at you. You are the jerk for almost killing them and acting like nothing should happen, not even getting yelled at.
And you're wrong again about that biker being someone like me. Because when I yell at someone like you for almost running me over, and they just shrug their shoulders instead of indicating somehow that maybe they learned a lesson to be more careful next time, I don't just keep yelling. I smash off your rearview mirror, then beat it to smithereens against your car. If that doesn't sink in the right way, then I smash your window with it. Any funny moves from there, and you've got a guy wearing body armor and a helmet ripping, punching and choking you. Wearing gloves that cover fingerprints. On a motorcycle that can get away without a trace.
You must understand that bikers are risk takers. And that some of us are me. And that if you try something stupid like almost killing me and then acting like a "jerk" about it, I'm going to ruin your day at least as bad as you almost ruined mine.
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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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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
Build a fence. Post armed guards.
They already do that. Unfortunately, the number of people who want to jump the fence very vastly outnumbers the number of guards.
Outsource to Mexico instead of China, so they will have paying jobs at home and aren't tempted to try and get past the armed guards.
What the fuck? You're saying the illegal immigrant problem is because Texas is outsourcing jobs to China? Do you even know what you're talking about?
Your vehicle was recorded as being near the scene of some horrible crime. Can you prove you didn't commit said horrible crime? No? Off to jail with you.
Ok, now I'm pretty sure that you don't know what the fuck you're talking about, because the proper series of statements there is "Can the prosecution prove you committed said horrible crime? Yes? Off to jail with you." Contrary to what some of the Slashbots here want you to think, the US justice system still believes you're innocent until proven guilty.
No one's business. It is not even remotely reasonable to suggest that we must stay home 24x7 with blinds drawn.
So if you're in a public area, using roads that are maintained with public taxes, the people maintaining the roads shouldn't be allowed to know who's using them? Take your tinfoil hat off, and if you don't like it, use some method of transportation that doesn't rely on public funds.
God, you're a moron.
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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