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Los Angeles Flirts With Pre-Crime (washingtonpost.com)
An anonymous reader writes: The city of Los Angeles is considering a new plan to fight prostitution: sending letters to men who solicit prostitutes in the hopes that the letters are seen by family members. Why not just arrest them while they're doing it? Because these letters aren't being sent to the houses of men who were convicted, or even arrested. Instead, automated license plate readers would scan the cars driving down streets known to have a prostitution problem, and the letters would be sent to the address associated with those vehicles. An article about the plan says, "There isn't 'potential' for abuse here, this is a legislated abuse of technology that is already controversial when it's used by police for the purpose of seeking stolen vehicles, tracking down fugitives and solving specific crimes."
They're used to being sued, and losing. I guess they're under budget this year, and need to spend a few more million before New Years day on legal fees.
It reminds me of when I visited a friend in hospital, then as I walked back to where I had parked past an abandoned strip club a woman driving past yelled angrily at me "I hope you had a good time". False positives like that are bound to happen.
Seriously, if a girl wants to sell her body, why shouldn't she?
Instead, automated license plate readers would scan the cars driving down streets known to have a prostitution problem, and the letters would be sent to the address associated with those vehicles.
Automated iris recognition scanning software should then be used to identify all milk drinkers as children, as a very high percentage of pedophiles drank milk as children.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Find scanner id politicians license plates put fake plates on car drive by scanner. Law repealed. Problem solved.
Are the police insane? So if someone drives down the wrong street because they don't know that you're not supposed to drive down that street, the police are going to ruin their marriage? For that matter, if someone happens to drive to a bar in that neighborhood, the police are going to harass them?
*Headdesk*
Also, cue the lawsuit in 3... 2... 1...
This is a little beyond "flirting" with pre-crime. This is more like taking pre-crime to Bed, Bath and Beyond to pick out curtains for the apartment you and pre-crime are about to move into.
Just steal a car before you start scoping out the whores. It works in GTA.
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5... 4... 3... 2... 1...
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
What's that? Prostitutes are on my way home from work? Thanks for letting me know!
I think the reasoning goes something like, "all life is sacred until a person does something wrong to ruin their own life's sacredness."
As often is the case, you just have to follow the money trail. Someone paid off someone else to push their expensive license plate scanners and services. The police may not even have wanted to do this, but someone up the chain of command got a free vacation home in the Bahamas for implementing the program. It'll all get swept under the rug soon, after enough uproar.
The only thing worse than a Democrat is a Republican.
Stop criminalizing sex. Just like pot, it's only sketchy 'cause it's illegal. Sure, there's still potential for abuse and harm... but in our present system, the laws mandate harm done to prostitutes and johns who are, by and large, just consenting adults. Unlike pot, shagging for pay doesn't harm one's ability to drive for the next few hours.
I've been trying come up with a concrete example of how license plate readers could be abused and here we are.
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I think the reasoning is, "I am an asshole so I need to act like one."
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
It seems likely to me that the main reason for that sort of solicitation is that there's no way for a legitimate business to advertise. You can't set up an office or a store. You can't put an ad in the paper and stay at a fixed location. You need to move around and proposition people who seem like they're not likely to be cops. I don't think any legitimate business would advertise that way, given the choice. It's not like dentists or hairdressers solicit in the streets.
This seems again to be primarily a problem with it being a criminal activity to begin with. People don't get trafficked and sold into slavery as office workers. So what is it specifically about prostitution that makes it special? I'd say it's primarily because it's an illegal profession and people who go into it have two choices: 1) Do it alone and hope you don't get murdered by a client or by the organized criminal who stakes a claim to your territory. 2) Join up with a pimp who is an organized criminal and very likely a dangerous sociopath. Blaming prostitution for human trafficking of prostitutes is a little bit like blaming drugs for drug smuggling drive by shootings. Those things are a natural consequence of a profitable business being completely run by criminals without any oversight.
Can you flesh this out a bit? Are the problems of Chicago in the 20s still something we observe today in, say, Nevada? Without knowing more details, this still sounds like a problem with having entrenched organized criminals running an industry.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
1. Copy legislator's license plates.
2. Place phony plates on cars near streets known to have a prostitution problem.
3. Hilarity ensues as Los Angeles legislators get prostitution warning letters.
Hell, I'd show my SO what the PD is doing, and we'd get in the car together and go trolling for letters. Then it can "ruin our marriage," or whatever, and we can see if we can get a nice chunk of money.
When you RTFA it says the proposal has been referred to the City Attorney.
So the City Attorney will write back that this is a Stupid Idea. Said idea is circular filed and life goes on.
So now they are working on the easy stuff. So glad robberies and murders are over with...
Oh wait....
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Why "regulated and taxed?" Why does everyone add "it should be regulated and taxed" to everything? Can you even imagine some economic activities that are simply unregulated? Should there be 2000 pages of rules and licensing boards for kids who want to make a few bucks from snow shoveling?
Regulated to prevent child abuse, taxed to fund enforcement. And, since you equated children shoveling snow with sex you are providing the very evidence as to why such regulations and taxes are needed. Consenting and adult are the key words here.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
Typical for L.A. In New York, people use the underground and taxis to drive to their extra-marital blowjobs.
Los Angeles is not just flirting with pre-crime; it's driving down streets known to have a pre-crime problem.
You seem to be profoundly confused, my friend.
A.) I speak to my doctor in a private space.
B.) Support group is a safe space.
C.) A public space is where pro-life activists get to scream at you and also where you're free to give them the bird.
I hope that helps. Next time you need to discuss a sensitive matter of personal health with your doctor, go for A instead of C.
You think people work at McDonald's because they have better options? You think plumbers dig out your clogged toilet because they have better options? You think people dig ditches because they have better options? For that matter, you think I spend my time running a hugely successful business because I have "better options"?
The vast majority of undertakings for pay are done specifically because they are the best options available to the individual. That's the point of it for most people.
The entire meme that "it's a last resort" is nonsense as an attempt to demonize the undertaking. Prostitution is a job, the fundamental nature of which is service for money. Exactly the same as compensated massage, and compensated martial arts instruction, and compensated personal training, and compensated tutoring. The fact that it is an illegal job reflects the degree of idiocy of our laws and lawmakers, which serves to artificially make the job far, far worse than it would otherwise be. In other words, the job isn't the problem. Idiot lawmakers and the citizens that support them are the problem.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.