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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?
'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.
Mindless seeking towards some arbitrary level of "efficiency" (which is never achieved, requiring yet more investment in equipment and technology and more loss of civil liberties) should not be the primary function of law enforcement.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
As long as technology like this is used only for identifying stolen cars, cars with expired registrations, insurance, etc. I'm perfectly fine with it. I like the idea of making sure cars are properly registered, insured, inspected, etc. because I'm the only safe driver out there and everybody else is a terrible driver! Seriously, though, driving is a privilege, and if you want that privilege then you need to make sure your car is safe (inspected) and insured in the event of an accident with another drive.
Where I get concerned is if, as the submission mentions, is if the police, feds, etc. decide to start using this to track people randomly. I recall reading an article about this technology a few years ago and it indicated that license plate data wasn't archived in any way. The camera just snaps a picture of the plate, uses image recognition to determine the numbers & letters, then does a quick database search to see if it's stolen, etc. then discards the data if no match is found. One issue I recall in the article I read was that it wasn't 100% accurate, so if a potential match was found it would display it for the officer in the car to make the final determination. If the technology still isn't 100% accurate then simply storing results wouldn't be all that useful since you couldn't rely on it. But if they've improved the accuracy then it certainly wouldn't be too difficult to start doing that...
Having said all that, if you're concerned about this then you might as well just stay locked in your home for the rest of your life. The growing use of security cameras means many people are caught on video numerous times a day. Cameras are being used more and more to help deal with traffic congestion in major cities, so they can already track cars that way. And most toll roads now let you use transponders to pay without stopping, and all that data can easily track you as well. Add to all that the fact that cellular phones can be tracked if you have your phone on, GPS units in cars may cache data that can be recovered, etc.
So if you don't want to be tracked then don't ever use a cell phone, gps, drive on toll roads, or drive through any cities or other areas where traffic cameras are used....
You ever run someone down with your house?
Ok, your pedantic point is correct and noted.
Now, over in the common sense corner, how many people do you know with enough liquidity to cover more than a minor fender-bender who lack proper insurance (or a bond, as allowed in some states).
I'm guessing the answer is a small-ish number.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Exactly. It is the laws that are the problem. No law should exist that you don't want enforced 100% of the time.
Selective enforcement or lax enforcement encourage injustice and allow government power to grow quietly.
If we had 100% enforcement, the majority would support freedom. Would-be tyrants are in the majority now -- they think it's cool to use government power against people they don't like to promote their tyrannical preferences.
And what do you do when they pass a law to make obscuring your license plate (even if only for electronic devices) illegal?
Rather than waste energy avoiding the problem of these cameras, I dare say your energy would be better spent fighting their use all together.
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
Insurance brings something else to the table: The experience of dealing with traffic situations. What happens if you cause an accident and someone sues you (as often does happen)? If you don't have insurance, you have to find and retain a lawyer, and you are on the hook for the cost of the lawyer and all settlement fees. So that means you have to maintain a pretty substantial reserve to be able to cover all that.
I mean let's say you live in a bond state and the minimum is $50,000 since that's what the legal minimum coverage is. Ok, great. However you can't just count on that. The amount of a settlement could go way past that (and you are liable for it) and I'd imagine if you pay out of the bond you have to replace it as well. So you end up needing to have a couple hundred grand, including the bond, available for this purpose.
Now also, if you have money like that, it probably is not sitting in a checking account. You probably have it in stocks or property or something. Ok, so what happens if you have an accident sometime like, say, now when the market is down? Now you have to lose money because you need to liquidate your assets at a bad time.
Against that, there is simply maintaining liability insurance. You pay maybe $100/month, probably less, and get a $300,000 policy. Then, if you get in an accident, it's handled. If you get sued, the insurance company hires a lawyer to represent you and them, one who specializes in this (and specializes in settling before it goes to court). You most likely have nothing more to do with it.
Many people find that to be cheap piece of mind. Even though they CAN afford to simply pay things out, it makes more sense in general to have an insurance company there to handle things. Same kind of deal as hiring a gardener or a financial planner. These are things you can do yourself but often those with money would rather have an expert take care of them so they don't have to worry.
Having been in an accident, and been sued, I will always maintain insurance. Even if I have billions, to the point where I've no worries at all about being able to handle any settlement, I'll still maintain auto insurance because they will handle things if something happens. The $30,000-50,000 or so I'd save over my life of driving just isn't worth the hassle.
Rather than waste energy avoiding the problem of these cameras, I dare say your energy would be better spent fighting their use all together.
Why? If somebody's driving around in a stolen car, I want them caught and arrested. If somebody has warrants out for their arrest and recognizing their plates helps the cops grab them, great - It cost me a little less to pay cops to apprehend them because they were caught in traffic instead of being stalked and grabbed.
Some laws are BS and some warrants are served based on those BS laws. I've spent a good deal of time breaking them openly and was always willing to serve the consequences if caught. But whining about cops having computers that can run checks on license plates is just silly. If you're going to that level, object to having the identifier on your car or go 'Civil Disobedience' and drive around without plates. But don't just whine because your publicly displayed identifier is being checked against known offenses. You may as well bitch because your picture is posted in a post-office with the word 'Wanted' above it. Automation is a sensible too and the solution to the real problem isn't to allow law-breakers to hide - It's to catch and convict law-breakers, fight the hell out of the legal system when people are going away for BS reasons, and continue to openly fight BS laws instead of trying to hide from enforcement.
Claiming to break the law as a right of 'Civil Disobedience' while hiding from law enforcement is cowardly and counter-productive.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
Just because they don't have insurance doesn't mean they can't compensate you. How many times a day does correlation v causation have to be covered on slashdot?
You're right - A lack of insurance doesn't imply that they can't compensate you.
But there's a very high degree of correlation between persons who drive without insurance and people who won't compensate you.
Judge the causation/correlation issue however you want. Uninsured drivers tend to fail to take account for at-fault accidents. Whether it's a direct causation effect or not is a moot point - Folks w/o insurance tend to skip out on the bill and I'll happily pony up on gambling odds if you want to volunteer to cover their unpaid damages trying to defend a lack of proof of causation.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
The trouble is...there is really no way to mandate what 'else' can be done with this information. They're also scanning innocent peoples' plates. What is done with that information? What will be done with it in the future? Let's say they start using this to map out where everyone is during the day...time and location stored. Let's say you drove somewhere and were scanned...and a major crime had happened in that area? Guess what, you are automagically now on a suspects list. Sure..you may get cleared, but, what if by strange circumstances, you aren't cleared for awhile. Personally, I don't wanna ever be on a 'list' such as that. Innocent people do get caught and falsely charged these days even without this kind of tech, this only adds great possibilities.
With all the hoopla of an Amber alert going off, man, I'd hate to even have it known I was in the neighborhood where a child crime happened. These days, it is so easy to be guilty until proven innocent in cases like this. Ask the Ramsey's about that one.
Ok...what if you are in a bad marriage...and this info shows you were at the 'hop on inn' with a girl, and then these records are then available for divorce lawyers. Sure, it might not be a nice or moral thing to do, but, it isn't the business of the state to be collecting personal information on you like this.
And, there is no law or regulations saying what is to be done with innocent scanned plates. There is nothing preventing it from being one more way to store information about the populace. And so far, I've not seen a 'tool' given to law enforcement that has not had new and creative ways of using, not foreseen by the creators of said technology or law..
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Obviously you have never been accused of doing something that you didn't do.
> Living in Texas (and yes, I like it here, even though it was 105 today) > there are more than a fair share of illegal immigrants on our roadways. > Many of them downright suck at driving. Most of them don't have insurance.
Build a fence. Post armed 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.
> 3. What do I have to hide? Who cares where I go, or how I get there
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.
> Your location in a public place is
No one's business. It is not even remotely reasonable to suggest that we must stay home 24x7 with blinds drawn.
I witnessed my friend get pulled over due to this about an hour before the story was posted on /. (We are both pizza delivery drivers). We are in Howard County, MD which is indeed inside the sphere of Washington DC Metro Area. He was stopped for an insurance violation, which - guess what - turned out to be false.
In a way, I like the use of these cameras - for now - as I have nothing outstanding on my name, and it should keep the cops tied up stopping other people who aren't me. But at what price? I don't think the cops should be spending their time pulling over the common public just because a computer said so.
I also don't see this as a big revenue generator as those are mostly speeders and red light runners, oh, and they have cameras for those all over MD already. I speculate these were purchased through DHS grants in the name of catching terrorists. Unfortunately it is now the police who appear to be the terrorists.
" don't think the cops should be spending their time pulling over the common public just because a computer said so. "
What if the government spent billions hiring enough police that they could call the insurance companies manually for each car that drove past? Would that be suitable? This is exactly the same, it's just more efficient. Why do you hate efficiency!
Not Meta-modding due to apathy.
I'm happy for them to do absolutely anything with it - provided that all the license plate tracking information, including that of politicians and off-duty police, is a matter of public record.
You probably wouldn't be so happy after your house got burgled because the criminal knew you were away on a long driving trip. Of course, exactly the same thing could be done by a corrupt policeman, which is why the data shouldn't be collected in the first place.
Rich.
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