Slashdot Mirror
Feds Convinced Police To Use License Plate-Scanning Tech At Gun Shows (foxnews.com)
Long-time Slashdot reader SonicSpike quotes the Wall Street Journal:
Federal agents have persuaded police officers to scan license plates to gather information about gun-show customers, government emails show, raising questions about how officials monitor constitutionally protected activity. Emails reviewed by The Wall Street Journal show agents with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency crafted a plan in 2010 to use license-plate readers -- devices that record the plate numbers of all passing cars -- at gun shows in Southern California, including one in Del Mar, not far from the Mexican border. Agents then compared that information to cars that crossed the border, hoping to find gun smugglers, according to the documents and interviews with law-enforcement officials with knowledge of the operation...
[T]he officials didn't rule out that such surveillance may have happened elsewhere. The agency has no written policy on its use of license-plate readers and could engage in similar surveillance in the future, they said. Jay Stanley, a lawyer at the American Civil Liberties Union, said the gun-show surveillance "highlights the problem with mass collection of data." He said law enforcement can take two entirely legal activities, like buying guns and crossing the border, "and because those two activities in concert fit somebody's idea of a crime, a person becomes inherently suspicious."
[T]he officials didn't rule out that such surveillance may have happened elsewhere. The agency has no written policy on its use of license-plate readers and could engage in similar surveillance in the future, they said. Jay Stanley, a lawyer at the American Civil Liberties Union, said the gun-show surveillance "highlights the problem with mass collection of data." He said law enforcement can take two entirely legal activities, like buying guns and crossing the border, "and because those two activities in concert fit somebody's idea of a crime, a person becomes inherently suspicious."
Its a question of resource commitment. When surveillance was expensive, both in cost and manpower, law enforcement naturally had to limit their monitoring to only the big fish and the big crimes. Having a couple of cops on a stakeout is expensive. Having a police helicopter track a fugitive is very expensive. And so on.
What we are seeing now is that the cost of throwing up a few thousand cameras and drones is (relatively) cheap. The military hardware from the Iraq drawdown is also putting a lot of previously expensive toys in the hands of the local cops. And then to tie it all together, we have Homeland Security, the FBI, ATF, etc, etc. all putting their resources together to capture anything and everything. Suddenly there are no resource constraints, and no natural restrictions on privacy invasion. That's what's changed.
Citizens aren't being hypocritical for criticizing some forms of surveillance over others. They just haven't caught on to the systemic changes yet. The bigger picture hasn't developed fully. Once it does, people will start protesting in a more coordinated fashion.
It's not a loophole. You don't need a gun show for a private purchase, it's your right as an individual and you can do it anywhere. That said, most gun shows today are cognizant of the media frenzy over their labeled "loophole" so the promoters no longer allow tables to be rented to private collectors. That means most transaction on the floor of the show will go through an FFL and background check.
Certainly there may be folks walking through the show with a weapon for sale privately, but let's face it, it's not easy for a private individual to carry too many.
I would also like to comment that as Americans, it is our duty to make sure we don't sell to someone who has nefarious tendencies. As an FFL, I am happy to log and transfer a weapon for a private sale. It literally takes minutes for the background check. If I was a private seller, I would gladly pay the transfer fee to know there was a paper trail, for my own liability.