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Massachusetts Plans To Keep Track of Where Your Car Has Been
Attila Dimedici writes "Massachusetts wants to establish a database with the information gathered by license plate scanners installed in police cars. The scanners will scan license plates of every car the police vehicle passes and transmit that information (along with the location) to a database that will be made available to various government agencies. The data wil be kept indefinitely."
Fascism.
... of making a reasonable and thoughtful comment. Instead, I'm going to just say "fuck you Massachusetts," because that's really all they deserve.
Funny, I just wrote about this yesterday:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2339756&cid=36833636
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
This kind of thing would be utter hell on suspended and uninsured drivers. It could help make the roads WAY safer.
If you make an IR-obscured license plate that works, it will be illegal.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
...Because, seriously, I'm thinking, but, I cannot think of ANYTHING the state can do productively with that kind of information that isn't going to be thrown out in court. It's the 'held onto indefinitely' part that's damning.
An idea I could get behind and understand: Immediately comparing on arrival the information with a database of license plate numbers of people with warrants currently out on them. Bonus points if you can get the hits back to the officer in time for him to turn on the lights and go after the guy. But there's no need to keep the data for more then a minute after the search is done.
The 'redundant' idea: You already -have- a list of what plate goes with what vehicle and where it's supposed to be, it's your Motor Vehicle Registry. Cops already delve into this all the time.
The 'criminal' idea: Immediately taking said registry information and...doing much of anything with it, you've just performed a dragnet search.
The 'likely' idea: Guess what! Facebook and Google, along with many other valued partners, are now government affiliates! (Seriously, I'm thinking, and this is the only thing I've come up with so far that wouldn't go to the Redundant Department of Redundancy, considering the data retention)
How to defeat the computer eye without defacing your plate? Try to wash it out with IR? Something else?
Would the scanner stop the cops every time there was a misread?
-- "Oh. This guy again."
"Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free or the home of the slave?"
Service guarantees Citizenship! Questions Guarantee GITMO.... Amerika Uber Alles!
I don't know how many states are doing this now, but they also under at least SOME circumstances share with the feds as well. Vermont I KNOW for certain has had this for some time, though far from all PDs have the equipment yet. They're way ahead of the civil rights people on this one, and their official line is you're in public, you don't have a right to privacy in public, and "oh we keep it all secure and only accessible under controlled conditions" which of course means every intel agency in the govt has it of course...
Truthfully though, this stuff is inevitable, the issue is the sneaky way they're kind of sliding into it. There was NO debate on this at all in our state.
"Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem." -- Jefferson
fight this massachusetts citizens, or indeed deserve the epithet "masshole"
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
This sounds like a wonderful idea, but something isn't quite right. I just can't quite get my thumb on it.
That's it, freedom! There are still some lingering freedoms out there, they must be found and eliminated.
We're talking about surveillance cameras located in police cars. Do you:
1. Attack the car with the cops still in it, getting into a violent confrontation with people trained to fight.
or
2. Break into the police station at night to destroy the surveillance cameras, when the place is, well, also guarded.
Try voting the bastards out. It's hard, but a lot less bloody.
-- Support a free market in the field of government
I think the problem rests in old case law, developed when automation like this was just science fiction, that anything not on private property is fair game. We need a new legal concept of "public but ephemeral" that applies to information that is normally soon forgotten like who was in a parking lot a week ago. Any collection of ephemeral data that occurs without a warrant should itself expire within a short period of time as well should be distribution limited - i.e. no sending it off to another database at the FBI that is exempt.
That may still be too much of a slippery slope, because once its collected there will always be pressure to extend the retention and expand the distribution. All it would take is one kid getting kidnapped and the license plate data expiring a day before the cops thought to look at it and voila, ready-made emotional argument to push for doubling retention time.
In Florida, the cops download a list of license plates of interest and only check scanned plates against the list instead of uploading everything they scan to a database. I'm not too happy with that either because I don't think that requiring a driver to regularly prove their innocence is valid, even if it is done passively, but at least it is miles better than what Massachusetts is planning.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Cameras don't make policy. Tyrannical politicians and corrupt-to-the-core police do.
Your policy proposal is close, though. Make the one edit and you're there.
Everybody gets what the majority deserves.
I know most folks are going to run up the "holy crap it's Big Brother!" flag... but I don't know if I really care or not.
It's sort of like data retention, in a way- one firm I worked with was very concerned that every scrap of "evidence" from their work be discarded- they tended to do sloppy work and get sued a lot, and were working under the assumption that our own records would generally show how f@#Ked up we were.
The company I'm working for now almost has a totally opposite mindset- they find that their records typically support their assertion that they've done good work, and so keeping records is a good thing.
Big Brother knowing where I've been, assorted points on a map... well, how does that really harm me? Now if I'm out doin' crimes, then obviously I'm bothered, but otherwise.... I just don't see a reason that I would care.
I can see it being part of a "slippery slope" issue, but this is public- there is no assumption of privacy. If you *are* expecting privacy in public, well, that went away as soon as everyone started carrying cameras.
(And, if I'm doin' some crimes, I'll game the system and use it to my advantage!)
Does that law say that? Because I'd bet existing law only outlaws making the plate non-visible. Visible means eye, not camera. IR light is, by definition, not visible.
I'd like to propose a new line of designer license plate, the CAPTCHA-plate. You heard it here first, folks.
I've been thinking about having an SQL injection bumper sticker made. I would do it in reflective material and OCR friendly font. I think just a simple ');-- immediately to the left of the plate should do.
No reason to do this. As a Massachusetts resident this is totally unwarranted.
"No reason to do this. As a fucking US citizen this is totally unwarranted."
FTFY.
just another database tracking all my movements. like at&t, apple and google.
“What about the rights of someone who is already a victim to have their assailant brought to justice?” Procopio asked. “There’s a freedom to being able to live your life not worried about being the victim of crime that’s also a freedom worth protecting.”
That statement is so Orwellian ...
So, we're going to violate everyone's rights and treat them with suspicion and perpetually watch them because someone was a victim of a crime? And if someone were a victim of a crime, was their rights violated if it wasn't Government doing it? And if there rights were violated, then that means all the private companies that are collecting information on me are violating my rights. Slippery slopes have to sides, baby!
What next, the cops are going to say, "Hey, we're searched at airports for public safety. This is the same thing!" You'll see.
Oh! And you can bet your ass that the cops and politicians will be exempt from this!
No, this is Massachusetts. It means they won't keep a record of license plates belonging to Democratic politicians ever because it would be too easy to figure out who they are taking bribes from. According to something I read, the last three speakers of the Massachusetts state legislature are in jail for corruption (they are all Democrats). The current speaker is a protege of one of those three.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
You kill the cops while they're standing at the doughnut counter, then torch their car.
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
Try voting the bastards out. It's hard, but a lot less bloody.
Only to be replaced by bastards. It's a never ending cycle. A lose lose situation. Pretty sad.
First let me get out the way that I am opposed to the police doing this sort of thing. The legality of doing this is obviously going to be challenged. I suspect that the "mosaic theory" is going to come into play. In that theory, aggregated data can be more than the sum of its parts. For instance if a person aggregates all of the publicly available information on internet cables crisscrossing the US into a map, the US government could, under the mosaic theory, hold that while each part of the data compiled is and ought to be publicly available, the compilation of that information constitutes a security risk and can be considered sensitive. I think it's going to be interesting to see if that same theory can cause the compilation of non-private publicly-available data, the license plate at location at time data, into a database to be considered unwarranted invasion of privacy.
You may have a point, but try that argument in practice and see how far you get...
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Neat ideas, but unfortunately if an innocent, law-abiding person is driving the vehicle of someone who's license is suspended / is uninsured / a criminal, we're going to have a lot of false positives. If my license was suspended and I was obeying the law and not driving, it's totally possible that a family member or friend would then be driving my car, and it'd be out on the road getting scanned by these scanners.
Guess I won't be helping out with that after school reading program in that bad neighborhood.
Everyone should just start phoning the police, FBI, DHS et al and letting them know where you and who you are with every time you change locations. In addition you should forward them copies of all the emails that you send and receive.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
The cameras in question are typically on the cars, not in them.
Around here, they are specifically mounted on the trunk lid, and are very conspicuous indeed. They could be disabled very quickly indeed with a good ball-peen hammer, or a sharp knife.
I'm just sayin'.
Kid-proof tablet..
That is only a matter of time. States like this didn't outlaw radar-detectors before they impeded the revenue stream.
Anything you do to piss off a cop will not work out well for yourself.
If you make his sensor go off because of a sticker then prepare to be investigated for interfering in police business or some other horseshit.
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
You want to track me and my car in your state? Fine, let me see and track via public website every single location of all elected personnel working in that state then, starting with the Senators. Hey, might as well see where my elected officials are at, especially while "on" duty.
Oh, I'm sorry, shoe on the other foot doesn't fit so well? No room for privacy and freedom? Gee, go figure.
Massholes.
By a very large majority in both houses. They have a supermajority in the House, and there are only a few token Republicans in the Senate.
Note that this kicks in not long after a Democrat takes the governorship, making the MA government absolutely dominated by Democrats. The only way Republicans have any influence is to get something the Democrats did declared unconstitutional in state court.
So your metaphor needs changing to reflect the reality of what exceptions would be. It's more likely the Democrats would be specifically tracking Republicans to catch them at gay bath houses.
I once told my IT manager, "Just because we can doesn't mean we should." Technology, very unfortunately, has erroded our rights simply because the "government" whether local or not can do these things without accountability or scrutiny. When you do make noises, they justify it by citing public safety, the welfare for women and children, and other politically correct BS. I don't think there is a corner left in life to find some privacy. It won't be log before *everything* you do is logged.
I agree, in general, though there is room to quibble about whether the gap in the law is best sourced to "old case law" or to the fact that the Constitution itself doesn't consider the issue of public ephemeral data.
Alternatively, you could retain the data indefinitely, but require a warrant for the search of the historical data, specifying the search parameters and providing the cause justifying the search. This would give non-current public ephemeral data similar protection to traditional private data, while at the same time not destroying the data itself. Since the data can be searched with a warrant issued with cause, this eliminates the risk of mandated destruction destroying evidence that could have solved a crime -- and thus eliminates the opportunity for exploiting that as the basis for lobbying for extension in the "casual search" window for the data.
Eventually all programs susceptible to SQL injection will be fixed and then you'll be doomed like the rest of us. Just kidding... carry on.
You have a sub million account number - some geek you are! What are you, a manager?!?
Let me explain something to you:
You assume that government and law enforcement's data are synced instantaneously AND without error - an impossibility! Horrible assumption! Anyone with any sort of software development or maintenance experience would know the problems with this system and with trusting technology. Garbage in - garbage out, Mr. PHB!
And even if they had all the data they could have on you, they still make mistakes.
But one would say, "So what! They make a mistake and I'll sue for false arrest!!" Yeah, good luck with that. With all this monitoring, even if you're Mother Teressa, they'll find something on you. And we are talking about Massachusetts here. The prosecutor will find some law from 1793 that you violated just to burn your ass citizen!
"Trained to fight?" No, most police are not trained to "fight". They're trained to shoot at the slightest provocation (though not well), trained to taze, trained to kill barking dogs at the wrong address, and they're trained to call in half the department on any excuse. Mano a mano, they're not much better than anyone else. A hardened street thug who is used to real combat, who from experience knows how to endure a boot to the skull or a knife-cut and keep going anyway, will chew up and spit out the average cop in a straight-up fight.
Cops rely upon intimidation and the ability to bring disproportionate force. If you're not impressed by a badge, if you realize that a cop's gun is no different than a citizen's, and if the cop can't bring in overwhelming force, they're meat and they know it. Why do you think they're trying to eliminate the ability of ANY citizen, honest or not, to resist the whims of ANY cop, honest or not?
Everybody gets what the majority deserves.
I work with dozens of police organizations that use license plate readers. They are extremely effective and even a small fleet of cars can easily gather thousands upon tens of thousands of license plates a day in their jurisdiction. Tracking people via this technology is a scary thing to think about because it would be extremely effective. I disagree with their use in regular police operations, so this database is just plain crazy in my mind. This should be fought against by anyone who values the small amount of privacy we have left in this country.
I can't stress enough how crazy this would be if this happened and started getting adopted outside of MA. This would be one of the worst invasions of privacy ever. There is already enough tracking that goes on with the toll passes (EZ-Pass, Sun Pass, etc) in all the states that have them as well as all the cameras that are up everywhere in most major cities. But that should be expected, as you are voluntarily signing up for the convenience of speedier tolls and most of the camera systems are used to help detect crimes (such as ShotSpotter hearing gun shots and dispatching police). But if you choose to not have any kind of electronic pass or GPS in your car, there should be a reasonable expectation of privacy.
"I hope you know how very lucky you are to know me, because I am so incredibly incredible."
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.
Just how do you confront a video recorder? How do you prove it hasn't been altered? How to you prove the date/time is accurate? How do you prove who was driving?
Can they go back and issue citations for expired registrations based upon these recordings? For how long? What about parking citations?
Will the videos be available via FOIA requests? If so, what's to stop a stalker, spouse, or other individual from using these in civil cases, or even for extortion? What happens when the preacher's/politician's car is spotted parked near an "adult video store", strip club, etc.? Even if they're "not available" via FOIA requests, people are corruptible and someone will get their hands on videos that they can use for criminal purposes.
There are just too many unanswered questions. While they might be able to make a case for keeping the recordings for 3-6 months, anything longer just presents too much potential for misuse/abuse, and even those short periods will allow the unscrupulous the opportunity to steal videos that they can use to blackmail others.
Note to Massachusetts' politicians: Such videos will be used against you at some point. Count on it. If you don't care about the privacy of the citizens, at least think of your self interest before voting for this.
make imaginary.friends COUNT=100 VISIBLE=false
This is pretty much the best summary of it I've seen. Even retaining the data a short time makes sense: say if a kidnapping is reported 2-3 days later, knowing where the kidnapper was could be very valuable. TFA mentions one of the city's has a system that overwrites the data after 30 days (still a long time, but moderately reasonable.) But indefinitely? Shared with any agency that asks? There is no good reason for that. No way this kind of info is ever going to be useful in court, as there would be no way to prove who is actually driving the car. Only thing it could be useful for is "probable cause" to harass people they have no real evidence against.
Then again, we do live in a world where courts consider an IP address personally identifying information, so who knows.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
Try voting the bastards out. It's hard, but a lot less bloody.
Only to be replaced by bastards. It's a never ending cycle. A lose lose situation. Pretty sad.
Because only a bastard would devote their life to politics for the sake of power... it's a fundamental flaw in the system. I think it was Arthur C. Clarke who suggested rule by conscription - but that's bad for business because it's less predictable, at least with the present system you get a chance to know the bastard before they rise to a significant level of power.
If we're going to have this level of accountability to government, they should have twice the level of accountability to us - public databases exposing their movements (30 days delayed for "safety" of the tracked), income sources and spending destinations down to the penny, voting record, meetings with other politicians (easily generated from the movement tracker), and family and friends' business profiles, all exposed on a tablet interface in the voting booth as well as the internet.
When they start holding the citizenry to a higher level of accountability than they hold themselves, they're asking for revolution.
Anybody have stats for the other states? It looks like there might be a pattern here.
It will retain all license plates scanned and where they were scanned, rather than just comparing them to a list.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
Or, less violently, with a paintball gun.
Notice how much fun we would have if citizens reported the locations of all the police cars and speed traps? But no, they get to track us, where I'm sure "for a fee" the media can snoop to find out if the pastor went to the atheist rally or something.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Is it legal for me to put a webcam at the end of my driveway, and have it recognize and record license plates of passing cars?
Is it legal for me to put a laptop/GPS in my car which does the same thing?
Is it legal for lots of people in Massachusetts to do this, and share their data?
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
Imagine only 10,000 people, each calling the MA Executive Office of Public Safety every ten minutes to tell them their exact location.
"You wanted the information, so I figured I'd save you the trouble and money of purchasing these systems and just tell you myself."
The Massachusetts government is completely controlled by Democrats with a few token Republicans. Guess that puts a dent in your trolling huh?
Only to be replaced by bastards. It's a never ending cycle.
Then run for office yourself you bastard!
;-)
oh wait...
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
Putting the grave 1984* issues aside. The best way this could be used would be know keep tabs on government workers especially politicians, but I doubt they will ever release that information.
I don't know if Massachusetts is a two party consent state for wiretapping, but if it isn't then there have been judicial rulings that support that you don't have a right to privacy in public
Time to offend someone
These ANPR systems for law enforcement have been around for a really long time. They're even become more common for private businesses, owners of parking lots, event parking, and the like.
The real question is today is having personal services using them too. Earlier this year, AutoTrader in the UK had an iPhone app that could snap a photo of a plate, OCR the tag number, and spit back at you the make, model, and KBB value of the car it's assigned to. For some reason, they were asked by the government to remove that feature for privacy reasons, even though the information they're using is publicly available and not personally identifiable.
It's only a matter of time before ANPR is available to the masses. Then it's not a question of Big Brother watching you, but a million annoying Little Brothers following you around.
What if I had a LCD panel over my license plate...
During normal driving operation, it's off and thus the license plate is visible. But if I park in a private driveway or parking lot, I switch it on and thus obscure the plate. You probably couldn't use it when parking on a public street, but if on private property, it could be an effective block.
"Great Stuff" expanding foam. Might not destroy the camera permanently, but will have to be removed carefully. Also good for tail pipes.
OK
Then I want access to a record of where every public employee is at all times of the day, fed right into my Google Maps
It's Massachusetts. Voting the bastards out is a lot, LOT harder than you think, not just because everyone in Massachusetts is a fat bastard.
And you people in Massachusetts, you KNOW who I'm talkin bout. Ayuh.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Many of these [automatic number plate recognition] cameras are less of an intrusion on privacy than may be feared: the 6,600 ANPR traffic monitoring cameras run by the Highways Agency and Trafficmaster do not transmit numberplates. But according to the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), there are 10,502 ANPR cameras collecting data for police forces - including cameras run by councils, which pass data on - which transmit full registration numbers, and in some cases photos of drivers and passengers, with the former held for two years at the National ANPR Data Centre (NADC).
However, this article suggests that the plates, locations, times, and photographs of people in the cars will "only be kept for 2 years". When have you EVER known government to throw away information it collects on you - EVER???? With storage so cheap, they will keep data forever.
The UK feels like a virtual prison, spied upon everywhere you go. That's not a free society, but they will bullsh*t you that it's for your safety.
Take Nobody's Word For It.
That the Republicans must be doing it.
In reality, the Democrats are just as bad, if not worse. They can be worse because of that successful marketing pitch that they're looking out for the little guy, when they're just trying to screw him in a different way.
The Republicans are "evil" and want to take away our rights, so we put a microscope on their actions. They can't get away with quite as much.
Well, thank god for that! We wouldn't want their wives to find out where they have been.
On another thought: Are there non gay bathhouses? (Assuming within the continental US.)
If I were God, wouldn't I protect my churches from acts of me?
"No reason to do this. As a fucking US citizen this is totally unwarranted."
"No reason to do this. As a fucking human being this is totally unwarranted."
FIFY.
The television will not be revolutionized.
Just wait until some Governor starts blackmailing people with this information. This is Massachusetts, you know it will happen.
If you make an IR-obscured license plate that works, it will be illegal.
It may not be illegal, yet, but certainly will become so if somebody in power thinks it's a problem.
I'm over reading all these stories already. How about I just get in line to let them embed the microchip, swab my cheek, barcode my ass, gather a stool sample, map my brainwaves, embed cameras in my retinas and install the collapsible satellite dish in my urethra. I mean, I AM ok with this.
As long as they use Linux.
Live free or die!!!!
Neat ideas, but unfortunately if an innocent, law-abiding person is driving the vehicle of someone who's license is suspended / is uninsured / a criminal, we're going to have a lot of false positives. If my license was suspended and I was obeying the law and not driving, it's totally possible that a family member or friend would then be driving my car, and it'd be out on the road getting scanned by these scanners.
True, but, that still leaves out why the information is being retained. I'm somewhat supportive of dragnet'ing the uninsured/suspended: Mainly because I come from New Orleans, which had the highest auto insurance costs ANYWHERE because of the number of uninsured drivers. See, if both drivers are insured, the insurance company for the driver at fault pays out for the repair of both cars - if the other dude is uninsured, then even if you're not at fault (Someone rammed your car while it was parked in the driveway after plowing through an orphanage), then your insurance company has to pay. The higher rates reflect that - not that you're a worse driver, but that they've agreed to repair your car. You might not pay, but someone will.
And, hell, even if it's a false positive to pick up someone driving a criminal's car, if you're driving his car, that's a good enough reason to guess you might know where he is. But there's still no reason for the retention if that's your goal. It's got to be something else. That's my point here - a lot of people are discussing the right/wrong about the police implications here, but the police implications do not fully explain this policy.
3. Saints Row option. Gather up homies and deliver a rocket launcher parade to the police station.
Try voting the bastards out. It's hard, but a lot less bloody.
It's impossible when there's no one running for office except bastards.
shouldn't you expect everything you do in public to be potentially monitored? yes, the scale of modern life has, until recently, made most activity relatively anonymous, but only because no one bothered to look. I'm not sure why we should be worried about this.
HOWEVER, we should make sure that this be done above-the-board. for instance, the activity of police in public is clearly also something that should be public, and thus legally recordable. what police do when they enter your property is up to you to record if you wish. and government records resulting from this kind of recordkeeping of the public need to be public records (accessible to anyone). (government can reasonably charge for access if some company wants to mine these records, but I should also be able to, for a nominal fee, ask whether any records exist of, say, vehicles speeding on my street.)
You want to shoot at a police car? I think if you think about that for a minute or so you can come up with several reasons why this would not be a good idea.
If I were God, wouldn't I protect my churches from acts of me?
I've got $50 that says they get some corrupt corporate stooge judge to rule this as completely legal.
I see you are being modded down for telling the truth. Too bad.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
"No reason to do this. As a fucking US citizen this is totally unwarranted."
"No reason to do this. As a fucking human being this is totally unwarranted."
FIFY.
"Every reason to do this. As a citizen this is totally warranted."
- Stalin
They say this will cut down on crime, but criminals who don't want to get found will just use fake license plates, and then this just becomes another burden on the taxpayer. Honestly, I can't figure out why anyone would want to live in Massachussets or San Franscisco with the wacky laws they are implementing in those areas.
the last three speakers of the Massachusetts state legislature are in jail for corruption (they are all Democrats). The current speaker is a protege of one of those three.
Does this reflect more strongly on the Democratic party, or the voters of Massachusetts?
until a cop like this get access to the database
I suggest that we overexpose the images. Most of the license plate readers are being designed to operate in the IR range, with modern license plates being more IR reflective. Simple solution would be to just overexpose the image by installing some IR LEDs. Since your car is already a 12v DC system doing this shouldn't be too difficult. Even multiwatt IR diodes aren't that expensive so for probably around $20-$30 you could really overexpose the image. Side benefit is that this may actually damage the camera if exposed to too much power since those cameras probably have a CCD sensor.
Time to offend someone
"Trained to fight?" No, most police are not trained to "fight".
Yes, they're trained to fight. I guess they would get beaten by a hardened thug. I guess they would also get beaten by a trained MMA fighter, or a combat vet with a lot more training time. But don't let those ridiculous comparisons stop you from trying to push your anti-cop agenda. We're not talking about either of those, we're talking about a skinny nerd with a paintball gun who is considering whether or not to shot the camera on a police car.
Srsly u guys. U guys, srsly.
INVASION OF PRIVACY!
Anything relevant to traffic planning can be collected by anonymous car count. As it has been forever.
In other news Massachusetts also is looking to pass a law redefining the term "police car" to be any traffic light, street sign, lamp post, or tree on public property.
It reflects that it won't be Republican politicians who will be protected by corrupt law enforcement behavior in Massachesetts, but instead it will be Democratic politicians. What it says about politicians of either (or both) political parties is something that one should decide based on the incidence of political corruption vs party affiliation throughout the entire country.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
As opposed to assaulting it directly with a hammer, yeah, I guess if I had to choose, I'd choose the ambush attack from a distance. Not that I personally think either is a good idea.
Think how much money criminals can make off of stolen license plates!
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
I'm not sure you really even have to kill the officers. As much as some of them are bastards, not all of them are. I think the better message is a well placed sticker over the camera while nobody is looking. Most of them are just sitting there on the trunk of the car. Make sure you don't park next to them while you do it though. ;)
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
or:
3. hire lulzsec to teach the government a lesson
(I do see this as a true world war. people vs their government. it won't be G vs G, it will be people vs their G's).
keep pushing the citizens, government types. we will all be sorry, but YOU will be to blame for escalating your war on human rights and privacy.
I would really love to see some DE-escalation but I am quite quite sure this won't happen. the slope of the line is so upward, it has to crash in order to come back to normal again.
I do worry a lot about this. we only need a bit more depression-era out-of-work folks and poor folks who were once middle class and are now homeless - and those folks will have nothing left to lose. THOSE are the folks that you don't want to have to fight since they have nothing to lose and you, the ruling class, have everything to lose. everything.
stop the madness now or[well], it won't end nicely for either side.
this is not a threat. its a prediction.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
ain't gonna go der no mo'
Don't drive in Europe if you do not want to be tracked by your license plate.
Perhaps a couple of random scraps on tape on the license plate would render their ill-gotten info quite useless..... Don't fight on their terms, easier to simply poison the bounty.....
voting is rigged and ineffective.
I have given up hope on elections. the same asshats get in over and over. in order to GET in, you have to be a low-life (but with xtian family values, of course!)
no, elections are not the answer. I think ammo box is what comes next. the way we are going, could be as little as 5 years before the econ collapses. at that point, when people have nothing to lose, THEN there will be real riots in the streets. followed by martial law and even more restrictions from the gov to the citizenry.
no matter how I cut it, I fail to see hope in the future for the world. not even talking about US, but its a human power-grab fight that we are seeing. does not matter if you have D or R or some other letter or are in some other country's gov system. not one has raised rights for human beings. they all raise rights for corporations and ruling classes. not a single country (please, name one if you can) has made things better for common people in this privacy and control-grab that we are seeing.
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"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
As a lifelong Massachusetts resident, I find this abuse of technology and our privacy rights appalling if not altogether surprising. What was equally if not more disheartening, however, was the level of *support* for the initiative expressed by readers of the Boston Herald. Yes, I understand that it's the Herald and what that means demographically. But it's still sad to see so many of my fellow Bay Staters cheering enthusiastically as even more of their rights are stripped away.
Notice how much fun we would have if citizens reported the locations of all the police cars and speed traps?
That's what happens in Soviet Russia, you track the police.
This tracking is so pointless anyways. Except for a few notorious streets, there's hardly ever a patrol car. Unless you see a car parked near a place "of interest" for more than a few times, what of it?
Know your pads. One time pad: good for cryptography. Two timing pad: where to take your mistress.
Tyranny or corruption isn't the problem here. It's bureaucrats and civil servants simply trying to find ways to do their job with less hassle. The problem is that they care more about making their lives easier than they do about the Bill of Rights. And why would they? Sure, some people are scrupulous about how their jobs affect other people, but lets be honest here, you don't have to be a totalitarian monster to not give a shit about other people's rights if it interferes with you getting a higher performance score or not having your every move paparazzi-ed.
If you wonder why these people think you are strange for wanting to thwart them, its because you're framing them as some sort of monster. They're not mustache-twirling villains, they're apathetic or overly interested in doing their jobs as effectively as possible with as little hassle as possible. I bet you wouldn't like your boss filming you while you surfed Slashdot either, even if it was totally justified by the amount of responsibility you have been given.
I actually think that being able to record stops and such is a good idea, but we need to work to make the process less adversarial. Cops have firepower and training, but they are acutely aware that they are outnumbered and they are certainly in more danger every day than almost any one else outside of Afghanistan. As long as it is adversarial, the good cops will end up forming a front with the bad ones and we'll get nowhere. Its not like we can abolish the police, we have to work to make them the best force we can.
imagine this: suppose there is data stored that has location information on 'everyone'. perhaps before sent to disk, some 'special entries' will always get pruned. the ruling class usually has exceptions architected in for them, so we should expect there to be special magic files of opt-out but no official acknowledgement that these do exist.
that as may be, suppose the data grows over the years and then there's the eventual break-in. suppose son-of-lolzsec (again, years from now) gets this info, normalizes it so that it looks for who is *not* listed in the day to day tracking and, well, think of that.
also think that once the history/data is hacked, a lot of people are going to be exposed. ie, public figures will probably be searched for, first.
law talking guys, this is for you. think about this before you take steps to increase the police-stateness. assume that some hacking group will be able to break into the info and know all this about *everyone*. and you are part of everyone.
think about it, lawmakers and law officers. think about how info can and WILL be used against you, should you push the public too far.
you have power from the people because we *let* you have it. if you cross too far over into orwell, people may want to retake their country.
best not to push things too far. best to NOT cross this line, ever, to begin with. best for all of us, really.
please consider this as just plain old wisdom.
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"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Drive car though mud. Don't wash car.
Yeah, they're not all bad. 99% of them give the rest a bad name.
If they are going to track people who have not committed any crime, then there should definitely be a way to opt out of the system, and if there is not way to opt out then it should be fully legal for the public to track and post the locations and habits of law enforcement officials in a public space. After all, we as the public have just as much right to protect ourselves from potential corrupt officers as the police would have to track potential criminals, anything less makes us less then citizens and the police go from public servants to public masters, which is likely how they view themselves anyway.
Notice how much fun we would have if citizens reported the locations of all the police cars and speed traps?
Trapster and Speedtrapmap aren't illegal yet, thank goodness.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
For instance, how are we going to prevent small groups of people from doing ungodly amounts of real harm (via violence) as the means to do that becomes more and more easy to access. Just look at Bill Joy's now-famous essay - "Why The Future Doesn't Need Us", written some years ago, to get a clear idea where we're headed http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy_pr.html.
The key here is that all surveillance activity that takes place in a Democratic society *must* be transparent. You and I should be able to know when , where, for how long, for what reason, and by whom we have been the subject of surveillance *on demand*.
Two additional problems, yet to be solved accompany the coming of universal surveillance:
1) Massive retraining and transparent accountability of *all* persons involved in surveillance, with harsh penalties dolled out for abuse.
2) Keeping the most dangerous among us from knowing how and when they are subjects of surveillance. This is a complex problem, because it also deals with the "mission creep" of those who are governing surveillance systems, because they get to decide what and who is considered "dangerous". Thus, the absolute importance of #!, above.
Again, I don't like the idea of being watched; I don't like the idea of being groped at an airport; or, taking my shoes off before I board a plane; or, being made the subject of search based on nationality or skin color; or, the chilling impact that comes from having certain kinds of speech assumed as "terrorist", if they're clearly not intended to be so.
We are approaching a time when we *must* make ourselves aware of the impending trend toward universal surveillance - because it *is* going to happen. The advantage we have in a Democratic culture is to insist on and legislate transparency, and do everything we can to insure that abuses are not institutionalized, and kept to an absolute minimum, otherwise.
Time to build and market a license plate bracket that is loaded with IR LEDs to overload the camera's sensor. It could be powered from a tap off of the license plate light socket, at least in the back. You would want to run it off of a source that is always on when the ignition is on.
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
So if there happens to be a cop in or near the car that you didn't see for some reason, and he sees you pointing a gunshaped object at his car (close enough to him that you might be pointing at him) do you expect him to wait until you shoot so he can be sure whether you're shooting a cap gun, paint gun, or bullet gun?
Pointing a paintball gun at a cop car is a good way to get yourself killed.
I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
The State of New York (atleast, out in the Western bit, where I live) already engages in this practice. A lot of the municipalities and law enforcement agencies here have taken advantage of state and federal money to equip cruisers with the Remington Plate Reader (read: http://www.elsag.com/detail.asp?i=17). The cars use the vehicles onboard AVL, combined with the results of the plate reader, and transmits the location of the cruiser with what plates its spotted back to the State Police.
Informatus Technologicus
If the cops couldn't scan your license plate they would interpret that as suspicious behavior and would be immediately pulled over - it may even give them probable cause for a search of your car.
In theory a much better approach would be a system that fools the scanner into returning a different plate number. If the plate number doesn't raise a flag, then they would have no reason to verify that the number scanned is different than the actual number.
Unless a person was actually on the run from the police, I don't really see how it would be worth the effort and risk.
Yes, they're trained to fight.
No they're not. They are mostly taught restraining techniques (e.g. joint locks) to use on a person already on the ground.
Even the hand-to-hand fighting training that special forces receive is on a far lower level than most people think.
"One nation, under surveillance."
"I'm making perfect sense, you're just not keeping up."
If the law don't say it, I'll get as far as pointing that out to the prosecutor, and that I have a right to a trial by jury. Cops, they do what they think is their job, and they're not the sharpest tools in the junk drawer, most times.
Already in practice here. Patrol cars are being outfitted with 4-6 camera systems facing different directions. Reading is done via IR and works in the dark. The CHP, county sheriffs, and now local PDs are getting them. The system records: the IR image of the plate, the OCR reading of the plate, a visual picture of the plate, a visual picture of the car, GPS coordinates, geo-located address from the coordinates, and a timestamp. Additionally, there are stand alone plate readers being installed along busy roads and intersections that slurp in this data. Also, plate readers hit everyone crossing the border.
All this is placed in a database searchable state wide and with the Feds. I've long thought people are gonna freak when they truly understand how widespread this is. In a good single 10 hour shift I can read 5,000+ plates.
For what its worth, I've personally solved crimes with this. We are talking from kidnappings to robberies to homicides. It's widely used and the extent of its usefulness can't be overstated.
Is it legal? It certainly doesn't violate the letter of the law, but arguably violates the spirit.
IAAC (I am a cop).
"I don't know who you are" is not cause for anything. They have to observe a crime in progress or about to occur before they can have probable cause. Reasonable suspicion is a wider standard, but they still have to have some evidence suggesting a crime is in progress or about to be committed. If the law reagarding these devices isn't explicit about making the plate visible in invisible light (why are they IR anyway? either it's daylight or you're required to have them lighted) and you're otherwise doing nothing wrong and have nothing wrong with your vehicle then they can observe you but not detain you.
"I don't know who you are" is not cause for anything. They have to observe a crime in progress or about to occur before they can have probable cause.
That sounds great, but in the real world obscuring your plate is going to have the same effect as driving around without a plate. You will repeatedly get stopped by the police and pretty soon you're going to get a cop who isn't satisfied with your explanations and decides to escalate the matter.
Cops have a saying, "You can beat the rap, but you can't beat the ride" - time spent on the ground on the side of the road or at the police station while things are getting sorted out is not going to pleasant.
The wise course of action is to minimize any interaction with the police, but obscuring your plate does the exact opposite.
No villain believes they are a villain.
I think we decided some time ago that "just following orders" wasn't a defense, though. We don't give parasites that eventually kill their hosts a free pass; we should afford no more sympathy to the bureaucrats who trade their convenience for our freedoms. Sure, the bureaucrats in question might not think they are doing harm; neither does an elephant who steps on a mouse. But the mouse is just as dead, regardless of intent. In the same vein, no snowflake feels responsible for the avalanche, but the avalanche victims are just as dead. In your example, maybe they're not totalitarian monsters, but that shouldn't save them from being treated as monsters if the results are the same.
Who gets to decide "fair"? The person doing the harming, or the person harmed?
As for the "thin blue line"... I don't buy it for one second. Good cops who knowingly side with bad cops ARE bad cops. A good cop should treat a bad cop as "you're the asshole that gets me shot at" and go out of his way to burn down the bad cop, but they don't. They pull this "blue brotherhood" crap, conspire to suppress evidence, intimidate or kill witnesses (yes, it happens in the U.S. New Orleans, Chicago, and New York have all had systemic problems with witnesses against rogue cops being murdered by other cops). In so doing, they are no longer cops; they're thugs with badges. They ARE the problem, because they should know better, and took a solemn oath to BE better.
Cops won't change as long as they view themselves as a paramilitary elite, as opposed to citizens protecting citizens. "There's wolves, sheep and sheepdogs", as their saying goes. The function of sheep is to be herded and fleeced at the convenience of the sheepdogs, not the wolves. I have acquaintances in the San Jose police and Santa Clara sheriff's office (uniformed officers, not clerks) and they all have this look-down-their-nose attitudes towards civilians. Sheep indeed. Well, the self-styled "sheepdogs" won't become the best force they can unless they get their asses thoroughly kicked for NOT being the best force they can... by the "sheep".
And if the "sheepdogs" violently suppress the "sheep" when the sheep can't tell the difference between a sheepdog and a wolf... it's time to eliminate the "sheepdogs". Vigilantism, in its proper definition, arises when the protectors fail, or are themselves the criminals.
Everybody gets what the majority deserves.
The problem is not a surplus of trained MMA fighters. The problem is that there is a surplus of hardened thugs and a shortage of understanding of what a hand-to-hand fight is really about.
In a real fight, the first solid blow landed usually is the winning blow. The recipient stops fighting/counterattacking because they don't know how to deal with sudden pain, and the attacker can immediately parley that one blow into as many unresisted blows as they feel like. If you want to know what a real fight is like, spar with someone where you allow them one free blow before you start to fight back. Until you can function in a situation like that... and you WILL NOT be able to, until you've experienced it a few times... you're meat.
And that's exactly the situation most cops are in. They're not trained, hands-on, in combat where the training consists of getting clobbered THEN starting the fight. Cops have no idea what it's like to have to fight when they're hurt until it's too late. When the perp rings the cop's bell or lands a kick to the groin, the cop folds. Then loses his gun. Then dies.
That's hardly an "anti-cop agenda". But if you're getting the idea I disrespect the combat abilities of most police, you're right. I'm a hobbyist shooter, averaging maybe 100-200 rounds a month. The range I shoot at is also used as a check-range by the police local to where the range is. I am a better shot than they are, and that's not right. Having spoken with police and asked about how much time they get on the practice mat, the answer is almost always "little to none". If a cop knows how to brawl, it's strictly because they practice on their own, or knew before they joined the force. And that's hardly a majority.
Cops are given the authority to use violence in the name of society. I'd rather they be judicious in its application AND competent to do it. Right now, neither condition seems to be met particularly often.
Everybody gets what the majority deserves.
Dems ran a candidate with (ahem) substandard people skills. Not real big on shaking hands, hanging out in bad weather at campaign events, that sort of thing. The Repubs were seriously energized on the whole health-care thing, and the economy's been crappy.
They also tend to elect Republican governors, (Weld, Celluci, Romney) for reasons that make little sense to me.
I do have a problem with this. I do not have a problem with refusing to travel to or through Mass.. I also do not have a problem with not living in Mass., not doing business in Mass., etc. I encourage anyone who feels the same to do the same. If the people who currently live in Mass. don't like this, then they can cast their votes against it in many ways, either at their polling place on election day or by picking-up and moving to a different state. New Hampshire is not that far away... Check out the Free State Project [http://http://freestateproject.org/] to learn more really cool reasons to move to New Hampshire. We always have alternatives.
As a dangling modifier this is totally ungrammatical.
Another good reason to move out of the country! America is rapidly becoming a police state. Freedoms we once took for granted are now abrogated in the name of 'homeland security'. I travel to the states once or twice a year and the entire time I am there I feel like I am being watched, restricted and at the mercy of the whims of whoever is in charge. When I land back home I feel safe again.
What does Unreasonable mean?
To scan plates and match against a list of
wants and warrants does not bother me. That
is for all practical purposes the equivalent
of a paper lookup list.
To keep the information after a negative match
is documentation of the life of citizens involved in normal life.
That is unreasonable search and an invasion of privacy
that today would NOT be expected -- expectation of
privacy.
One positive is that each entry is also a log entry for
the location and movement of the squad car and the officers in
it. It is also a list of witnesses that can be called
to prosecute abuse of power problems. Why yes,
the squad car was driving erratically with aggression
without its lights and sirens on. These 50000 data
points prove that the officers consistently and blatantly
drives at speeds well in excess of posted speeds
in disregard to posted speeds.
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if it were so. And had I mod points, you would get them.
When you sympathize with stupidity, you start thinking like an idiot.
So if there happens to be a cop in or near the car that you didn't see for some reason, and he sees you pointing a gunshaped object at his car (close enough to him that you might be pointing at him) do you expect him to wait until you shoot so he can be sure whether you're shooting a cap gun, paint gun, or bullet gun?
Pointing a paintball gun at a cop car is a good way to get yourself killed.
Good point, however, the parent was suggesting attacking the cop car with a ball-peen hammer, between the two, I'd take action at a distance, with appropriate discretion in the visual profile presented to any observers, especially the cops. I think the appropriate distance is to challenge the whole notion through the courts, but you can take it to the other extreme too...
Cops can't decide if you're guilty. They can only decide you did something they think is wrong. Yes, it does have to get escalated. Then the cops get direction from above not to write that ticket any more, and most of them hear it and stop bothering you.
This is how the system works. There is no other one that works better for this price.
http://www.trapster.com/
Check it out and enjoy.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?