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The US Government Is Using Road Signs Showing Drivers How Fast They're Going To Capture License Plate Data (qz.com)
Zorro shares a report from Quartz: According to recently released U.S. federal contracting data, the Drug Enforcement Administration will be expanding the footprint of its nationwide surveillance network with the purchase of "multiple" trailer-mounted speed displays "to be retrofitted as mobile LPR [License Plate Reader] platforms." The DEA is buying them from RU2 Systems Inc., a private Mesa, Arizona company. How much it's spending on the signs has been redacted. Two other, apparently related contracts, show that the DEA has hired a small machine shop in California, and another in Virginia, to conceal the readers within the signs. An RU2 representative said the company providing the LPR devices themselves is a Canadian firm called Genetec.
Which state is the DEA a part of?
They are also collecting photos of me making an obscene gesture at every one of these signs I pass.
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How the hell is it the DEA's responsibility to monitor driving speeds? If someone's driving 2 miles per hour over the posted limit do they take this as evidence the driver is hopped up on methamphetamines and they have the right to pull them over? Or if they're driving 3 miles per hour UNDER the posted limit, they claim the driver is stoned and shoot the tires out?
I'm giving up on roads. From now own, I will drive everywhere cross country. It will annoy my neighbors, but what the heck, I do that now.
Now flies "o'er the land of the surveilled, and the home of the afraid."
I'm sorry, but your opinion seems to be wrong.
The point of these things is not to measure speed, itâ(TM)s to disguise tracking cameras as something else you normally encounter on a road and do not think of recording anything. They are trying to get a sense of where people are using cars that may be evading known traffic cameras.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Government also has people in cars with guns who can stop you and arrest on those roads, you know. You already have to REGISTER your car to drive it on a "public" (i.e. government) road. That means the government keeps track of what cars you own and such. Why should operating heavy machinery on a piece of land made by the government not come with no expectation of privacy? You wouldn't expect that you could operate a train and stay private about it. Just because cars are more versatile, doesn't mean the same principle doesn't apply. The only reason people care is that tracking cars used to be outside of the realm of what was possible. But the expectation of privacy that came with the fact no one cared to look was not the same a guaranteed privacy.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Nothing some duct tape and a stroll at night time wouldnt fix. Eventually theyll assign a police officer to guard them, maxing the whole endevour expensive. Make it expensive enough and theyll stop
I suspect they will have issues with bullet holes in the cameras in the western states.
roads are under posted just try to do the limit of 55 on I-294 when it's wide open.
and on a toll way they get each Plate in all lanes at the tolling points.
That's all. We should start a national campaign of vandalizing this bullshit good-driver tax.
It's very well known that all the speed controlling devices are located in the areas where people are most likely to speed and people are most likely to speed in the areas where it is the SAFEST to speed.
The parkway with a healthy forest devider three lane on each side that has typically 50 mph limit in California is getting a 35 mph speed trap for no reason but to rob the drivers.
Vandalize them. Destroy them. A la guerre comme a la guerre.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
Not sure about other states, but Michigan doesn't require a front license plate. They must be mounting these on the rear and recording after you have gone by.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
Um, no you don't.
1) In America, the State makes rules at the pleasure of the voters. Full stop. They do not have ANY powers that are not granted from the voters. If you say the state has the Natural power to limit my actions you are wrong. I do NOTHING at the pleasure of the government or all this is just a farce.
2) These terms ARE negotiable. That's why we elect representatives to change our laws.
3) Where are you from?
Than current equally portable small mounted photocameras, sometimes well hidden besides other large roadside objects.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
How much it's spending on the signs has been redacted.
That right there. That disgusts me. How dare a government hide such information from the voting public that's paying for it all.
roads are under posted just try to do the limit of 55 on I-294 when it's wide open.
In most areas if you post a speed limit as 45 everyone will do 55. If you post a speed limit of 55 everyone will do 65.
In some areas it's more than that. I'm not familiar with I-294 - but if it's like the I-285 around Atlanta which has similar speed limits- it's a bit of a joke and the speed people travel is way higher than the limit. Many going above 80. Realistically the police probably could raise the speed limit- it's not like they even try and enforce the speed limit anyway- no one gets pulled over for speeding on I-285. The reason the speed is so ridiculously low is because they don't want to be sued for having a high speed limit in a heavy traffic area.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
I would say this SCOTUS ruling does not support that statement:
United States v. Jones - Wikipedia
" using the device to monitor the vehicle's movements constitutes a search under the Fourth Amendment."
Seeing as how federal funds are used to improve roads in all states., pretty much all of them.
Sig Follows: "Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself." -- Mark Twain
You're talking about the original US, not the current bankrupt corporation? http://www.serendipity.li/jsmi...
And that's the logic that keeps them from raising the speed limit on a highway near me from the current 55 to 65 like all of the similar highways in the area. As it stands, almost nobody, outside of extreme traffic conditions, goes less than 65. Traffic on the highways with higher speed limits have similar, if not lower, typical speeds; traffic moves at roughly the same speed around here regardless of whether the limit is 55, 65, or 75. You could raise the speed limit to 80 and it wouldn't change things at all, except possibly ending the practice of the occasional self-righteous idiot trying to enforce the speed limit on everyone by going 50 in the left hand lane (and thus creating the aforementioned extreme traffic condition). Choosing arbitrary and unrealistic speed limits just encourages people to ignore the posted limits, which causes problems when these people then drive on roads with appropriate limits and try to do 60 on small winding roads with no shoulders, limited visibility, and frequent pedestrian and bicycle traffic.
No. Federal government can't contract their way around the law. The 10th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution which is a COMPACT (Far above the power of a contract) specifically states that any power not granted to the federal government by the Constitution is reserved to the states and to the people.
Not only is this yet another example of DRUG ENFORCEMENT trying to usurp power in violation of Title 42 and title 18 of the U.S. Code, but there are plans now currently in action that will take control back away from federal government and put it back in the hands of the states where it belongs.
Originally turnpikes and highways were built by private funding, i.e. some corporation was formed and people who felt the project was beneficial bought shares. In many cases, there was little expectation of real returns from the shares. The original NJ Turnpike for example. The Suez canal was built by private investment also (I think the French gov't was a large minority shareholder), that was a huge project, though technically not a road. I would agree, though, that the parent's implication that private ownership would somehow avoid the problem in this article is a daft notion, as anyone who uses the Internet knows.
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And yes, I do see parallel roads. During holidays, out of state GPS users jam pack the state turnpike while locals all know to use the parallel route 295
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
Yes, private ownership would be bad if applied to all roads. However, "privately" owned roads do sort of exist. Toll roads are often managed by companies in a somewhat private way. The roads are often cleaner and better maintained as well as having courtesy vehicles ready to help you with a breakdown, flat tire, or even a little free gas should you have been so silly as to run out. The premium you pay for these services is often insane. Here in Dallas (as well as other cities I have visited), we do actually have toll roads running in parallel to free roads. On parts of 635 you can pay for the toll lanes, or stay in the free lanes. Again, you'd have to be willing to pay the insane toll rates.
With over 20,000 speed related accidents
Um. I don't think the DEA is going to concern itself with speed enforcement. Unless, by 'speed', you mean methamphetamine.
Have gnu, will travel.
You could always lease a vehicle from an Arizona company (no front plate required in AZ).
As far as the subject of the article goes, automated plate readers often can capture both front and rear plate images.
Have gnu, will travel.
You do realize when driving first started it was a right. Somehow the courts ruled away your rights.
That somehow is because we let them. You only have rights as long as you protect them from the govt. usurping them
Keep in mind the constitution strictly defines the limits of the federal govt and the 10th amendment declares this quite clearly.
Hint... everything not prohibited by law is a right ;) We let them pass laws removing our rights
So you dont have to google it... the 10th
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
They can write tickets for distracted driving, if the law allows it. Mostluly the legislators are cowards who roll out the law as a secondary issue you can't pull someone over for to avoid the wrath of the voters.
It has nothing to do with any 4th Amendment issues obviously seeable through glass windows.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
In California I believe you can go thirty days without a tag (but you still must have a temporary thing pushed up under your windshield). With neither tag nor temporary thing, I don't know that there is any state that will give you more than three days after purchase. In many or most it seems to be one day or 24 hours.
they are put in places folks are speeding or where they have been accidents. The data shows folks slow down when they know how fast they're driving, but it's easy to ignore your gauge and just go with the flow, which usually puts you 10-15 over.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
So, that specific ruling was about attaching a device directly to someone's car, and being told they need a warrant which they didn't bother to get. As a result, that specific case got tossed, because the police essentially trespassed without a warrant and without having demonstrated probable cause to a judge ... ie, an Unconstitutional Search.
This bit of evil is to surveil everybody, and just claim a blanket exemption of "in the public view".
Basically, if they monitor everyone, they don't need to have to worry about warrants for specific people. This is the legal equivalent of "collecting the metadata" on telecomms, which the courts have already upheld.
The DEA has now decided that they will just hoover up all information they can get, and figure it out later. Which could have the effect of making investigations retroactive because they've already collected all of the information about you and can sift through it at their leisure ... no doubt by also demanding your information from cell carriers, ad companies, and everyone else who is tracking what you do.
Welcome to the surveillance state, it's only going to get worse from here. Expect every agency to start this kind of bulk collection of everybody, everywhere they possibly can, and can all be cross referenced and collated.
Honestly, the old Soviet countries would be proud of just how much the US has become a surveillance society. And they'd be laughing at just how many Americans are OK with this. Honestly, 9/11 did more to unwind freedoms than several decades of the Cold War ever did, and this shit keeps getting more normalized.
Papers please, comrade. Keep cowering as we keep sending those amber alerts to keep everyone in a state of panic.
Not so Free these days, and definitely not so Brave.
You do realize when driving first started it was a right. Somehow the courts ruled away your rights.
Please provide corroboration
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law - Aleister Crowley
That is all nice that it is considered a search. Now what? And by that I do not mean what it should mean. I mean what the actual result is in real daily life.
If there is no acountability for those who abuse it, it is meaningless.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
According to precedence and all of the recent SCOTUS judges, the government is in violation when they invade a layman's general "expectation of privacy". Some of the justices (4?) go beyond that by bringing an expectation of property and trespass of to data collection.
Looking through the window of a car isn't a violation, but having your GPS position noted every hour for days would be. And all that means is that a properly scoped warrant is required.
So currently we are pretty well off. That doesn't mean the government doesn't violate things but it's a do-and-seek-forgiveness type of world.
Abortion is a good example. Nowhere in the constitution does it protect your right to have one. It should be up to the individual state to decide. Having said that, I support abortion rights and think the constitution should be amended to protect them.
The loophole is, there's nothing in the constitution that says the federal government can't tax citizens directly, then use those funds to bribe/cajole state governments into delegating powers implicitly reserved for states TO federal agencies as a condition of receiving those funds. That's part of the reason why the constitution originally didn't allow the federal government to tax citizens directly. Previously, Congress determined how much each state owed & states had to pay it, but states viewed the funds they paid to the federal gov't. as "their" money to begin with & bitterly resented strings placed on funds "given" back to them (or spent elsewhere). Direct taxation flipped the equation & power balance in favor of the federal government, and more or less directly enabled the federal government's scope to grow to its present size.
That's not to say it's entirely a bad thing. Expanded federal scope is a major reason why an American can move to pretty much any state without having to worry about having his life thrown into relative chaos. If states imposed the equivalent of waiting periods on new residents for what are now federally-funded benefit programs, it would be economically impossible for poorer Americans to relocate -- even if in the long term, they'd be better off. Long-term improvement means little for people like a poor single parent or disabled adult if the short-term consequences would be homelessness, hunger, and/or lack of medical care. Even for more average Americans, the "paperwork cost" of moving to another state would be a significant barrier to moving... even something as trivial as moving 2 miles to get a new apartment that's on the "wrong" side of a state line.
Federal funding is also why we have roads like I-94 across North Dakota. ND probably doesn't get enough direct benefit from it to have spent its own money building a freeway to Montana, but the net long-term benefits to other states (like having a good route between Minneapolis & Seattle) make it worthwhile. For a vivid illustration of what things USED to be like, notice the routes of I-80 & I-76 at the Ohio-PA state line. They're the original Ohio & Pensylvania Turnpikes. Neither state could agree where they should meet, so they both just picked their own routes & dumped into old roads at the state line... approx 10 miles apart. That used to be the norm... good roads within some states, but poor long-distance continuity ACROSS them. Every state line was a detour & traffic jam... and most state governments were ok with that (because getting two states to cooperate on ANYTHING is hard unless you have the feds waving cash under their noses to MOTIVATE them to cooperate).
Most states require you to change to their state plates 30 days after moving there.
Incorporate.
We have several local businesses that maintain their vehicle fleets with out of state plates. Florida and Texas seem to be pretty popular. They have done this for a few decades, as far as I can see. I assume that they maintain an office 'front' in these locations to act as the vehicles home for registration purposes. So that's why I said 'lease'.
Have gnu, will travel.
Yea this isn't about speeding, it about building a database of vehicles traveling certain routes repeatedly. The signs are just a ploy to disguise the cameras, and at the same time allow them to be mobile so their locations can't be mapped out in advance and avoided. They are looking for a way to hone in on drug couriers. Of course in the end that won't be all it's used for. But it's not like anything like this has ever had unintended consequences, right? RIGHT?
I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
"Your women"? Does come as somewhat patriarchial, old chap.
Not only was the defendant going 15 MPH over the speed limit, but he was also posting messages to facebook during this time. Based on his GPS data, we have concluded that he alsolied to officers about where he had been and where he was going. So we are recommending in addition to the traffic violation a charge of reckless endangerment and providing false information to officers.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
also the makes the work zones at 45 will all kinds of walls a big joke as well. Now if there hard real limits and did not have as many 24/7 45 work zones then more people would slow down in them.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Most people think of it as a right that they should have. But they do not actually have it, as the current laws exist.
Unless you were a friend of John Gotti or personally attracted the attention of the police chief, tailing people 24/7 was too expensive to be practical...ten years ago.
Now tracking every car going down every major road in every metropolitan area is within reach, and perfectly legal. It is only a question of police department budget.
"Nowhere in the constitution does it protect your right to have one."
The same could be said for a root canal or an appendectomy. The Constitution doesn't explicitly list all the rights it protects.
Ninjas don't carry tic tacs
You do realize when driving first started it was a right. Somehow the courts ruled away your rights.
Please provide corroboration
Ask and you shall receive.
At common law, driving is considered part of a generalized "freedom of movement". You will note from the linked article that the Founders considered freedom of movement so essential to liberty that it didn't require an explicit enumeration; hence it's covered by the Ninth Amendment ("The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the People") and the Tenth Amendment (referenced in the GP above).
You do realize when driving first started it was a right. Somehow the courts ruled away your rights.
No they didn't...
I can drive all I want without any license, speed limits, vehicle standards, etc. - on my own private property.
Driving on taxpayer-funded public roads, however, is not a right.
The Constitution enumerates the powers of the Federal Government. Anything else not explicitly stated in the Constitution are granted to the States.
In your example, root canals and appendectomies are allowed in all 50 states. On the flip side, medical marijuana is allowed in some states but not others.
Isn't it kinda stupid to to publicly post that you are "hiding" license plate readers for the DEA in speed-measuring signs?
Were I a person involved in something the DEA might be interested in, I'd make a point of avoiding such signs.
It's like a policeman at a speed trap, waiting behind a billboard, but the billboard says "Warning: There's a speed radar-equipped patrol car behind this billboard!"
Ken
To operate on the public roadways, your vehicle needs a license plate.
By law your license plate must be readable and not obscured.
Anyone on the side of the road, or in a vehicle behind/in front of you can read the license plate.
There is no presumption of privacy as you drive around on the public roads with a sign that has a tag on it that ties that car to an individual. It's as if you are driving around with your name on the side of the vehicle, and choosing to get upset that people on the side of the road know you are there.
Ken
Sadly, the courts have allowed the Federal government for decades to do things outside its scope and power. The limitation of the Federal Government's power listed in the constitution no longer has any relationship to what the government does, and our judges do not care.
What you mean to say is that the Federal courts, including the Federal Supreme Court, have allowed the Federal government free reign. Since the Feds get to decide the limits of their own power is it any surprise that they generally side with themselves and not the states? Doubly so after FDR successfully bullied the Commerce Clause to be applied to literally anything.
We need naked under 18 year olds to dance around in front of the cameras, then we can tip off the feds that the company is collecting and storing child pornography.
I guess I won't be trying for high-scores on those things now.
Yeah. The first people who get fucked like this will be stopping at these signs and demolishing them.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
While the Constitution only expressly addresses the crimes of Treason, Piracy and Counterfeiting, Findlaw expressed the following...
There are federal laws against murder and robbery of course, and these laws have been justified under the Necessary and Proper Clause of the Constitution, as well as the Commerce Clause.
Since murder has been addressed, I can understand anti-abortion proponents claiming it's covered.
Just another day in Paradise
I'd argue that it's essentially stalking. If someone were to follow you around all day in public places, would you be okay with that? I'm not.
Just another day in Paradise
We're surrounded by taxpayer-funded roads, so you've effectively blocked off that right.
Just another day in Paradise
That is true, but the question is do you have a right to privacy (not being tracked) as you drive? I personally think you do not have a right to any privacy while in public spaces (like roads), but I can see the argument for it and most people think of it as a right.
The USSC cases United States versus Jones and Carpenter versus United States have some bearing on this. Neither decision relied on the mosaic theory of the Fourth Amendment but a future case involving ubiquitous surveillance which undermines a general expectation of privacy might and there appears to be some support for it.