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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?
What's scary, is that the general populace is able to get behind the wheel that controls hundreds or thousands of pounds of metal, and move it at a considerable speed around people, animals, and the like. Police supervision is not nearly as scary as this reality. If you're driving on any public road, anything visible is in the public domain, and the pavement under your tires is put there courtesy of the government and the collective taxes, so this is the furthest thing from scary for me. You should really expect to have your license plate scanned as soon as you hit pavement that isn't privately owned.
that there were so many paranoid people out there. I don't know how I feel about the emission checks so much but for lapsed insurance I'm completely fine with that. The last thing I need is someone running a light and hitting me then not having any insurance. As for the tracking where you have been you can look at it this way if they wanted to they could just track you with satellites or your cell phone if they really wanted to. Heck who is to say they aren't looking at a screen full of that stuff right now. Heck you know your cable companies can track what shows your watch if they feel like it. Its not worth it at the moment but who is to say that someday it won't be done.
Maybe I'm myopic. Maybe my tinfoil hat fell off a little while ago. Maybe its because I have a brand new 7 month old.
I honestly don't see a problem. For the law abiding citizen there are *tons* of benefits for this.
1. 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. Put those three factors together and when someone gets hit by one driving a big van full of paint supplies, your car is going to get wrecked. Your insurance is going to jump, and pretty soon insurance overall is going to jump, due to the high number of uninsured motorist claims. Don't start the "well look at your slippery slope" as I have personally been a witness to five of these in the past year.
2. Being a new father and looking down at my son every night, I would hate to think if he were ever abducted. If he were, and these systems were on every single cop car, (or even traffic light for that matter), it would be hard pressed for that person to get anywhere without his whereabouts being known (under the assumption the police knew his plate number). It might be a long shot, but its still more than exists right now.
3. What do I have to hide? Who cares where I go, or how I get there. I have my insurance, I have my registration, I have my inspection. I'm good to go.
And for the real thick tinfoil hat folks, don't you dare compare this to wiretapping. Your location in a public place is no way comparable to a phone conversation held in the private of your own home.
Tell me different if you think so.
This technology is nothing new, LAPD has been using it to search for stolen/wanted vehicles for years now, but I forget this is the internet, you add the big evil government twist to it and then it becomes news.