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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.
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.
They are also collecting photos of me making an obscene gesture at every one of these signs I pass.
Around here most people try and get the high score when passing one of those electronic speed signs.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
I suspect they will have issues with bullet holes in the cameras in the western states.
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.
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.
Mission creep, plain and simple.
The DEA, ICE, and everyone else are just continually ramping up surveillance on everything and deciding they need to monitor everybody just in case.
See, the DEA doesn't care about how fast your going, they're just piggy-backing the plate readers on the things which tell you how fast you're going ... this way they can monitor everybody. In this way, they can know where everybody goes in case they need to charge you with something later.
There will always be that idiotic segment of society who just think "well, they're doing this to keep me safe, so it's awesome". The problem is those people are incapable of realizing how much their own rights are being eroded in the name of Keeping You Safe From Bad People. The classic "you have nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide" line of fascists and tyrants, accepted by idiots who haven't through it through.
Land of the free? Home of the brave? Not so much. Americans have been conditioned since 9/11 to just blindly accept this shit.
Thirty years ago this would have caused outrage in America, now everyone just goes back to the Kardashians and hopes the government is going to keep them safe.
At the end of the day, this is just the continuous surveillance state ratcheting up, ensuring they monitor everybody at all times -- and the ad and analytic companies can be secretly tapped to fill in the blanks about every aspect of your life. The dystopian state marches on.
Papers please, comrade ... the State is watching you.
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."
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.
>"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."
Going with the flow is exactly what DOES NOT cause accidents. Accidents are caused primarily by:
1) Distracted driving
2) Impaired driving
3) Following too closely
4) Improper lane changes
5) Gross speed *differential*
And none of those have an "automated" "ticket in the mail" solution. Yet the obsession always seems to be over speed. Why? Because it is objective, easily obtained, and generates lots of revenue.