The criteria for defining an illegal search has never been whether you’re aware of the search having been performed. If, for instance, investigators sneak into your house, go through your things – but leave everything so it appears nothing was touched, so you never suspect they were there – it’s still illegal, if it was done without a warrant.
Even to this very day – at least, kinda sorta.
So how about these license plate scanners that cops are using to – yes – search us without our knowledge, much less a warrant?
Maybe you haven’t heard about the scanners – more correctly, these Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs). They are a device that integrates a Panopticon-style camera system with a computer database.
The ALPR – usually there are several, mounted on all four corners of a cop car – scans the plates of all the cars that pass by the cop (if he’s parked) or the cars the cop passes (if he’s moving). The numbers scanned are then automatically filtered through various databases (we’re not allowed to know exactly what data these databases contain) and if there is a “hit” – such as for a stolen car or a car tied to a crime – the cop is aroused from his sugary slumbers to go after the evildoer.
But the point is, we’ve all just been examined, identified and catalogued; that is, searched. 
What else is it when we are scanned like a herd of beef cattle with tags in our ears – a “computer cop” checking us each out before we’re allowed to proceed through the chute? The fact that you’re not aware you’ve just been through the chute isn’t the point. The point is, you just got examined, identified and catalogued – they “checked you out” – without your having done a thing to warrant the once-over (much less an actual warrant being involved).
This is creepy, especially the general indifference of the population to this sort of thing – which is arguably even more creepy than the thing itself. One expects government – our “farmers” – to wax tyrannical.
It is, after all, what government does.
But why do the cattle – whoops, the people – accept it so passively?
Probably because they are cattle. 
I got really depressed way back in the early 2000s, after the government announced that the Fight For Freedom would include a “Homeland” Security Department (Heimatsicherheitsamt) and that people/cattle would be searched in just about the most degrading way imaginable short of actually having to spread their cheeks, bend over and cough (which is probably coming) just to queue up for an airplane ride.
But it was to be expected; the logical next step (one of them) resulting from the general acceptance, years prior, of this business of randomly stopping and (at least cursorily) searching (and interrogating) drivers for no particular reason other than that they happened to be driving down the road where the “safety” checkpoint was erected.
Obviously – if you’re not an illiterate – a random search is the very definition of an unreasonable search – prohibited by the Fourth Amendment.
Well, used to be.
If it’s not unreasonable to stop and search people at random, people who’ve done nothing whatsoever to suggest they may have committed some crime or other, then what would be “unreasonable”? Racking them until they confess they had one too many?
It will probably come to that, in time.
So, that’s the first objection – but of course, it’s already been rendered irrelevant as a matter of law by the Volksgerichthoff (Well, why not? The government seems increasingly infatuated with things… German.)
“Reasonable” is now whatever they say it is, no matter how textbook definition (if words have precise meaning, which of course they no longer do) unreasonable it actually happens to be.
Which brings us to the next item.
We are told – soothingly – that only bad guys (the evildoers) need fear. The authorities are Keeping us Safe.
They are always Keeping us Safe.
They are also keeping track of us. In real time and very possibly forever.
Just like the farmer does his livestock.
Remember that your plate number is tied to you – the registered (with the farmer) owner of the car. And while the ranch hand/cop running ALPR won’t be coming after you (for now) unless you’ve got warrants out on you – the computer cop has just noted and stored the data about your presence at that particular spot at that particular moment. This may not ruffle your feathers much (unless you’re a guy sweating an angry ex’s divorce lawyer, who may be very interested in data about where you’ve been today) but it should.
The very idea of such a thing – paraphrasing JFK – ought to be repugnant in a free society. The notion that you are being watched – and recorded.
For no particular reason.
Just because they can.
It has been said – rightly, I think – that privacy is what defines freedom. Your right to not be monitored, scrutinized, categorized, catalogued and (ultimately) controlled.
To be left alone.
These Clovers (see here for the etymology) pushing ALPRs, the “checkpoints,” the “Homeland” stuff and all the rest of it are the mortal enemies of privacy. Check Safeway Ad and Save a Lot Ad. They realize, instinctively, that to respect our space is to respect our freedom. And that cannot be permitted.
They will never say it openly, of course. Like the rancher, they are are smart enough to not alarm the herd needlessly.
But they know it in their bones.
And so should we.
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The ERAD scanners were acquired under DHS S&T. Bill Deso is the hero in charge there.
https://twitter.com/dhsscitech/status/598552579870740480
DHS S&T Finder will locate your heartbeat
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KwPZBj4URo
Wearable tech for 1st responder heroes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrNu9DyPLxo
From a legal perspective, how is this any different than someone (including a LEO) digging through your trash can? The courts have generally agreed that once something is out in public, it becomes accessible to other citizens and LEOs. The argument was that if you didn’t want it to become public, don’t put it out in the public.
I am the first to decry violations of my constitutional rights, but I am having a hard time understanding the uproar over this.
“how is this any different”? Well I would point out that no one requires you to put out your trash, but if you don’t have a properly displayed plate on your car, they WILL stop you. And do their best to find anything else ‘wrong’ that they can.
I think the same argument could be made that no one requires you drive on roads (public transportation, work from home, etc). I rigorously defend my rights to not allow a police officer to search my vehicle at a traffic stop, but even if there was a database that showed where your vehicle was when it was scanned would be highly incomplete as you would only have to be in the presence of a police officer to register. I live in San Diego and I can honestly say I often go 1-2 weeks without seeing a police officer (at least in a marked car). Additionally, even if this database was accessible by the general public to be used against an individual, it would be hardly admissable in court as there would be no evidence that you were in the vehicle at the time.
I get that this represents yet another foray into our private life by the creeps that want to know everything about you and me. But I have to regulate my rage nowadays to the things that have a tangible effect on me (not a perceived threat). Otherwise I would be in such a foul mood all the time, such that it would affect my outlook on life and those around me.
Of course I could be missing something. I’m just trying to figure out how this could come back to bite me in the ass and am not seeing anything beyond the more nebulous concept of continued erosion of my privacy.
Cows are cannibals in America.
What everyone fails to grasp here is that YOU gave your permission for this when you asked for and received a [commercial] driver’s license [they’re ALL commercial].
Why is your license commercial? Because the people of your state, most likely, never passed a constitutional amendment begging the state to regulate their private travel in their private vehicles, motorized or otherwise. The states never had, and still don’t have, permission to implement a regulation on private people, nor is such a power inherent in a republican form of government.
But states do have the right to regulate corporate commercial activity, and since most businesses foolishly incorporate (beg the state’s permission to be a corporate entity), the various states created regulatory statutes that became, through outright deception and sly withholding of accurate information, “customary.”
Your right to drive your private car or your private, non-incorporated business vehicle as you please and without harassment remains intact until you request and accept a driver’s license.
By taking a driver’s license, you agree to be a corporate US citizen and to be subject to 14th Amendment privileges that aren’t your natural rights, merely state-granted privileges. You also agree to submit without protest to stops and searches, whimsical as they may be. Who started the meme “Driving is a privilege, not a right” if not apparatchiks of the state? Your state and the feds take possession of you when you sign your driver’s license application wherein you swear you are a US citizen. Not one in a thousand of you reading this understands the status switch that happens when you agree to be a US citizen.
Unfortunately, cops are brainwashed to believe you have no natural right to drive without state permission; judges, even those who know the truth (like mine admitted) and juries, made up of people just like you who think it’s a heinous crime to drive without a license or (gasp!) insurance, will continue to imprison any cow trying to live free.
So, kick at your goads if you must, but remember, you do this to yourselves. Your lament, “I HAVE to have a license because they’ll throw me in jail and my family will starve! I HAVE NO CHOICE!” only gives the devil a good laugh. About going to jail, you are correct. But you always have a choice. You may not like it, but you do always have a choice.
Hi Letter,
This has been addressed here many times, but – to recap:
Your argument is interesting but of no relevance to the real world. The world in which there are cops who enforce the laws that say you are required to have a valid driver’s license (and insurance and other things) to legally operate a motor vehicle; in which there are judges who will convict you (and punish you) for ignoring this law.
Which we’re obliged to obey.
We are under duress.
To argue – just don’t get a license; don’t sign their paperwork/acknowledge their “commercial” license requirements and you’ll be immune to their depredations is, simply put, irresponsible nonsense. People who follow such advice are fools who will find themselves in jail in short order. Try it and see.
Note: I am not defending the laws; I object to them in principle. But I (and everyone else) face the choice of obeying (to the extent necessary) or being forced to obey.
There is no third choice.
It is of a piece with the choice you face when you are stopped by a cop. This is – morally speaking – an assault (assuming you’ve done nothing to cause harm to anyone else) and (morally) you have every right to defend yourself. But what will happen if you do?
Yes, exactly.
So, we sign the piece of paper and we pay the got-damned fine.
Just like we file our 1099s and pay what we “owe.”
Doing these things does not make us complicit much less responsible for our woes. That is victim-blaming. Just like telling the person’s who’s been mugged by an armed thug that since he “cooperated” he deserved to be robbed.
Here is something relevant,
https://mainerepublicemailalert.com/2016/06/10/u-s-supreme-court-says-no-license-necessary-to-drive-automobile-on-public-highwaysstreets/
Well, there you go……..
Now try explaining to officer friendly. Then the jailer. Then the Judge. Assuming you survive the first encounter.
Good luck with that.
You may have ‘rights’ but unless you have the ability to actually use them, and defend yourself against those who violate them, they are worthless.
The proper analogy is not one’s garbage but one’s mail. Recording the outside of every piece of mail and retaining that data with date stamps. Phone calls, collecting who you called, who called you, and when. This is what they are doing with ANPR. They are recording people’s movements to see patterns they can use.
The people who push all of this are paranoid control freaks. They want to know everything about everyone so nobody can take away or challenge their power, status, and wealth. The top get to stay on top forever.
Good point Brent. Just think how the USPisS gets their knickers in a twist if anyone puts anything ‘unofficial’ in a mail box, claiming the space therein as their exclusive property. The US Mail is inviolable, or so the theory goes. It would be funny if it was not so serious.
I would say we need a Snowden in the USPS, but after a brief ruckus, very few seem to care anymore what he revealed about the NSA.
Baaaaaaa!
“The courts have generally agreed that once something is out in public, it becomes accessible to other citizens and LEOs. ”
The courts are manned by paranoid control freaks who serve other, even more paranoid control freaks. What judges decide has nothing to do with whether our society has become a police state. Court decisions have helped create the police state we now have squeezing the life out of us.
If a judge wants to know why I don’t want police snooping around me or my belongings, I can tell them: “Because kiss my ass, that’s why”. Fuck a bunch of cops and judges. Hemming and hawing about whether or not what they do is justified leads to barbed wire enclosures for everyone but the rulers and their enforcers.
It’s just that clear-cut. We’re free or we’re not. Which do you prefer? I prefer uproar to stifled voices.
And while they have you waylaid, all your accounts are belonging to us…..
http://www.activistpost.com/2016/06/cops-using-device-as-atm-steal-money-from-citizens.html
‘“If you can prove that you have a legitimate reason to have that money it will be given back to you. And we’ve done that in the past,” Vincent added.’
If you don’t start hanging them from light posts with a note explaining why, it’s only going to get worse.
“If you don’t start hanging them from light posts with a note explaining why, it’s only going to get worse.”
After you hang a few you can tell others to follow your example. Until then…….
Well Ed, you assume…….
So, what have you done? What would you do? What makes you so special as to feel able to specify the conditions of my being allowed to state a prediction of the outcome of inaction?
Right…..
Now the Pigs can take money from your bank account that’s not even in your physical possession! Check this out: “OHP Uses New Device To Seize Money Used During The Commission Of A Crime” at
http://www.news9.com/story/32168555/ohp-uses-new-device-to-seize-money-used-during-the-commission-of-a-crime
It’s time to leave the USA. I’m open to suggestions for alternatives.
Whoops. I see you posted it (different link) while I was typing.
Or long before. am/pm thing….. Need coffee….
Oklahoma seems to have taken scanners (of a different type from those in the article) to a whole new level: “Here’s how it works. If a trooper suspects you may have money tied to some type of crime, the highway patrol can scan any cards you have and seize the money.” Yep, the Staatsdiebschweine can use asset forfeiture laws to take your bank account on the spot, using the bank card in your wallet. But not to worry: some Luegesprecher for the Schweine assures us that “If you can prove that you have a legitimate reason to have that money it will be given back to you.”
Link to the article: http://www.news9.com/story/32168555/ohp-uses-new-device-to-seize-money-used-during-the-commission-of-a-crime
The 4th Amendment has a few court-made exceptions, one of which is the “Plain View” exception. Anything in plain view of the officer is by definition not unreasonable to view. Courts will not change that rule because it is too convenient for law enforcement. Who can stop motorists from mounting their license plates upside down or backwards in a civil disobedience protest of plate readers, but you will have to go to court to protest further. If enough people did that, it could eventually paralyze traffic courts and maybe the police would back off when court revenue crashed. But that only could happen in “old” America – our new America is still voting for more taxes, more laws to restrict our freedom, and for making political oppressors into our heroes. In new America, people just pay and move on with their daily activities.
People stopped unnecessarily still have the right to sue the police for unlawful detention if for only a few moments of interrogation. Small Claims Court is the perfect place for some official injustices. We still have the right to be free from brief detention and interrogation without probable cause. And if the officer places his hand on his weapon at any point during contact, he can be sued for assault.
its not difficult to register your vehicle to a New Mexico LLC
then its not tied TO YOU .
with a properly set up New Mexico LLC, the cops will never be able to associate it with anyone other than the lawyer who set it up,
http://howtobeinvisible.com
is the place to go.
Its really not hard to have a vehicle registered in a fake name and address in the town you live in. Just a little easy manipulation of documents; no worries about future renewals with simple online registration renewal. I’ve been driving a vehicle for over a year registered to some one that lives in South America and to an address in the city that I live in here in the United States and the vehicle is insured in my name. Have never had a problem and is extremely easy and cheap to do. Any time my tag is run it shows a legitimate address but is not connected with me or my name in any way.
This is off-topic but also on-topic.
Same as we’re now forced to pay for Health Care (Insurance equals health CARE, after all) – Our Anointed Elites are working to ensure we save for retirement.
This is from the SSGA Open Letter to Congress – formatted as it is in the publication, and authored by Ronald O’Hanley, President & Chief Executive Officer, State Street Global Advisors:
Fourth Paragraph:
We believe the time has come for federal legislation to ensure all working Americans have access to a retirement
savings plan. Indeed, expanding access to workplace plans is the precondition to address this crisis. Our solution
builds on the behavioral success drivers of existing workplace-based plans with the following key elements:
1 Require private employers to auto-enroll all workers into a defined contribution (DC) plan
2 Require use of auto-escalation and default investments such as target date funds to help employees maximize retirement savings
3 Enact tax credits for small employers to cover the administrative costs of implementing these plans
4 Eliminate barriers to open Multiple Employer Plans (MEPs) to allow businesses to band together and offer affordable retirement savings plans
Note the lead-in and #1: We’ll be FORCED to contribute to our own retirement – IN ADDITION TO Social (In)Security (Insolvency).
How much you wanna bet THOSE funds will be locked up and NOT re-appropriated by Congress?
We’re being treated like children, too – #2 states it (using the weasel words, of course. We’re too stupid to trust to invest. Despite the plans for zero interest, even Negative interest, rates… And a welfare state… WE are the stupid ones. For NOT saving, when Cyprus and Crete have ALREADY occurred.)
Also note #4, where they will now have an open book on us WRT our entire portfolio. Lemme guess, that’s because too many drug dealers are laundering money through retirement funds…
I’m about ready to blow here. Can’t allow these bastards to survive. It’s unjust.
They need punishment….
I was outraged by random checkpoints when I first heard about them, decades ago, and still am. It’s hard to believe this, but:
[In] a 6-3 decision in Michigan Dept. of State Police v. Sitz (1990), the United States Supreme Court found properly conducted sobriety checkpoints to be constitutional. In the majority opinion, Chief Justice Rehnquist wrote, “In sum, the balance of the State’s interest in preventing drunken driving, the extent to which this system can reasonably be said to advance that interest, and the degree of intrusion upon individual motorists who are briefly stopped, weighs in favor of the state program. We therefore hold that it is consistent with the Fourth Amendment.” [source: wikipedia.com]
“The State’s interest.” When I hear that phrase I feel sick.
Several years ago, the cops around here tried focusing on DUI prevention rather than “enforcement”. There would be a few officers on the bigger “party” nights that would volunteer their time to sit in the bar parking lots and offer rides to those that got under the weather. The response was overwhelmingly positive, and several local businesses donated to keep the program running. No checkpoints, no intrusions, just a sincere desire to prevent the problem before it occurred.
Unfortunately, “modern” government intervened and it was decided that there was too much “liability” involved in providing something positive and we went back to the archaic “enforcement” scheme. Then the “policemen” went the way of the dodo and the “law enforcers” filled their shoes with combat boots and military hardware.
Remember the europeans to settle in north america in the 17th century were generally control freaks of some variety. So much so that’s why they had to leave europe. Their ideas became the punishment system we still live with today. That people will only behave properly when threatened with punishment. The real result is what we see today, classes of people divided by what they can get away with. Those who get punished and those who don’t. Punishment is also very profitable for various professions and government. They get resources from taxes and the fines, costs to those charged, etc.
What you suggest could be done even cheaper with regular drivers instead of cops. There could even some uber-like service where people are just paid to do it. A fare might only cover some the costs. Would probably still save taxpayers millions. Which is another thing, uber is cutting into the DUI business model too. Anything like this means less cops, fewer judges, space in jails, etc. Lots of well paying government jobs going away.
Since 9/11 the acceleration towards becoming a police security state is similar to Tony Schumacher’s dragster racing towards another championship.
The state wins and we the people loose.
Since mamba wants to defend this practice, We can therefore conclude he defends the NSA’s power to intercept and record every phone call, every e-mail, every online purchase, every purchase, what we buy, what magazines and books we read, who we associate with, what sites we visit online and record it all for the purpose of creating a massive database in order tofind out just who is planning to overthrow our wonderful and benevolent government.
But……the future is here and companies such as Microsoft are in the process of developing their own version of software to predict just who will become a criminal in the future. Yes the real Minority Report will soon become another tool in the fight against crime. Yessiree. And who do you think those criminals will be?
will it be the Wall St. banksters who stole trillions? Wll it be the sleazy thinks tanks that got America involved in one war after another? will it be the corrupt and criminally insane members of congress who continually vote to take away more of our rights and liberty?
No. It will be used to create another massive database purposely designed to find out whop is plotting against the government.
Now couple all this together: the NSA,the Patriot Act, the NDAA, DHS, TSA, the random checkpoints, license plate scanners, everything points to the end result: a massive police security state where only the state has rights and we have none.
This is where it all ends. This is why all this is being initiated. The owners are now in your face with it and they don’t care because they know most Americans are sheep. Ignorant and apathetic as long as they have plenty of televised sports that are combined with openly expressed worship of the military and quasi-religious ceremony. As long as the masses can be entertained into oblivion, they will realize their success.
Or as the late William Casey once stated, “we will know our job is done, when everything the American people believe is a lie”.
As long as Americans can be persuaded that all this is for their protection and the freedom and liberty are not really in danger, the owners will be victorious.
One has to take a broader look at everything as it all fits together. All this is about control. It is bringing about a tyranny that up to now has no equal.
Not even Stalin, Mao/China, or Saudi Arabia or Turkey comes even close to where we are headed.
We are nearly there so relax, open a can of soda pop/Bud Lite and turn on the LCD TV to watch your favorite team and cheer for our brave soldiers in Iraq, Afghanistan and Okinawa.
And don’t forget to vote folks. It’s our vote that counts and an exercise in the great experiment in demockracy.
“demockracy” – excellent neologism
“Since mamba wants to defend this practice, We can therefore conclude he defends the NSA’s power to intercept and record every phone call, every e-mail, every online purchase, every purchase, what we buy, what magazines and books we read, who we associate with, what sites we visit online and record it all for the purpose of creating a massive database in order tofind out just who is planning to overthrow our wonderful and benevolent government.”
I remember that was the plot of a recent movie…
I think the plan was called “Operation Insight.”
Makes one think.
Unfortunately, only one out of every hundred (thousand) or so…
Hi Jean,
Mamba’s a Clover… some of you may recall getting into it with him over “reasonable” gun control.
I was more trying to tie in the nature of what’s happening. The sheer cow-like complacence of the masses.
Insight was the plotline of “Captain America: The Winter Soldier.”
It’s RIGHT THERE, In the Open, and… No one gives a rat’s ass until it hits them, and then they scream about how unfair it is….
We is all niggers now…
But no one cares.
Hence my posting about SSGA’s Asshat In Chief Executive Orifice, and the open letter to Cuntgress.
We just don’t have enough people with balls. We’d be better off importing the YOBs, set them loose in D.C.’s privileged suburbs. “Have yourself a merry little Purgemas…”
This sort of “disconnected” (to those who refuse to see the hidden hand) event is just… I don’t have words. The line in Shooter makes sense: “It’s not the Wild West anymore, you can’t just clean up the streets with a gun, even though sometimes, that’s exactly what’s needed.”
in turn, that points to this form the same film:
“There is no head to cut off. It’s a conglomerate. If one of them betrays the principles of the accrual of money and power, the others betray him. What it is is human weakness. You can’t kill that with a gun.”
No, you can’t off the whole Skull and Bones collective – but you sure as hell can have fun trying, and who knows? You might get lucky…
The law only has teeth for little people. Mass murderers get kid-glove treatment compared to the brutality afforded roadside traffic violations…
Back in the day when someone stood up he would often at least have the silent support of those around him. Not everyone is cut out to take the stand but when a silent majority will subvert the system to support those who did, people stand up.
Today he doesn’t have that support. That makes all the difference in the world. Now someone who is willing to stand up knows someone around him will turn him in, etc.
It took decades to condition enough people into that so those who stood up knew nobody has their back. That’s how the soviet union and other systems kept going for so long. Nobody knew who was an informant.
Well, “If you see something, say something!” That’s how it worked in E Germany and the USSR, if not all the Soviet bloc.
Yup. Need to start SWATing the Mayors and Gunvermin Officials….
Po-lazies being lazy, might get a few “good” busts out of it, even better!
I know what you mean about not having support, though. Maybe it’s why I’m a little “off the reservation” in my response to force initiated against me. I wasn’t supported against aggression in the past, so now I’m a little fast to escalate when attacked.
From there, it’s a short trip to considering that – if everyone is willfully aggressing anyway – Whatever, play their game by their rules, see how soon they squeal.
“reasonable” gun control – that’s hitting your target at least 9 times out of 10, right?
At what range?
I’m that good at 20 feet so far….
Sig Academy on 7/30 – hopefully I can make it 10/10 out to 30 feet when done. 🙂
He did say ‘reasonable,’ not perfect.
By that definition, I guess it’s “reasonable” control when shooting the cop’s car (property damage) that only 9/10 shots end up in the car.
The 10th, well, Porky isn’t a fast mover, and accidents happen…
To paraphrase, the holes are in the wrong side, if you know the meaning… ?
That WOULD be perfect, of course…
eric, while it would be more difficult to do now with surveillance of everything including my turds, we’d be taking a step in the right direction with something like Fight Club. It’s no wonder the movie didn’t get more reviews, good or bad. It was virtually ignored but it had a great anarchist them.
I loved it when waiters, busboys, bus drivers, you name it, ganged up and threatened to cut off the possibly non-existent nads of the politicians and banksters if they didn’t set things right.
Dammit, I gotta order that movie and watch it again. I loved the ending when certain demands weren’t met and valuable but unoccupied buildings were blown up…..makes me feel good all over.
“surveillance of everything including my turds”
Dang 8, they got a camera in your septic?
I doubt it. My balls have felt sorta toasty lately. You know how that high-powered infra-red is.
Eric, I believe in gun control….use both hands.
Thanks for putting up with the slaves and copsukers trying to comment here Eric.
I do not know if I could be as civil as you manage to be.
Hopefully your efforts are not in vain, and some small of it sinks into their very thick skulls.
Thanks, Joe!
I try to be civil – and to reason with new people – until it becomes obvious it’s not just that they never considered the issue but that they are, in fact, authoritarian collectivists (i.e., Clovers).
Not only are these cameras spying on us, they are harming us physically. If you read the back of the camera, the warning label is visible. The cameras work in the infrared (IR) spectrum which can cook your eyes. Worse yet, you can’t see or feel energy in this Spectrum, so your body doesn’t have the ability to close, turn away or in any other way protect itself. Your eye cooks much like the lobster in a pot. The worse case would be a child looking directly into one as he walks by the trunk of the cop car.
Fun detail, too, of a kind with “If it saves one life”
Infared is HEAT. I.E., “Global Warming.” It puts the lie to the whole anthopomorphic line of bullshit, because while A camera might not be an issue, think of them being standard issue on EVERY car. That’s how many cameras per car, 4? ALL giving off additional heat (since the car creates heat, and gushes out the horrible toxins we’re berated for exhausting in our turbo 4-bangers, or now three, and IIRC, there are a few 2’s out there, as well. Precipitous drop from the 6’s and 8’s of the late 90s even. Which the Piggies still use, of course, because our environment is SO important to protect, that ONLY the Elites can actually travel, talk, or enforce their will on others. I swear to god these animals must be eliminated. Every. Last. One. While we “make do” per one of my other comments/rants, they’re just doing business…. Harming us with things like that “open letter,” while insisting that we socialize our own retirement – which, if Oniggercare mandates actually do get going, will soon include f*cking death panels, though of course, since it’s all “Alice through the Looking glass” speak, it’s “Medical Necessity hearings” or the like. It’s enough to make you root for Apocalypse, if you follow the joke? )
Sic Pacem, Para Bellum. If you want peace, prepare for war. aka, An Armed society is a Polite society.
The sad thing is, if I were REALLY psychotic, as they’d make the case? (Sociopathic was the old term.) If I really were, I wouldn’t care that they get away with it. Wouldn’t even care they do it, likely. I’d just “screw unto others” on the assumption they’re doing the same.
That’s the psychosis of our time, I guess – being Christian, in the generic sense; caring about others, for their welfare, for the betterment of mankind, for freedom and self-determination – THAT is seen as mental damage. Wanting to defend yourself is indicative of mental problems. Wanting to attack people? We just need to understand the criminal/terrorist.
I feel like I’m a Kiler-T cell in a cancer-ridden body. The body will succumb before I finish my work – but I want to get started, dammit, because I need the illusion of HOPE that we might survive. And if I wait for those who supposedly swore an oath to do this very job?
Picture on Facebook, skeleton holding a rifle, caption is, “Still waiting for III% and Oathkeepers to fulfill their promise.”
I sound way too much like a whiny SJW throwing a temper tantrum. 🙁
“Sic Pacem, Para Bellum” – that’s as in 9mm parabellum, right. Or maybe 7.62.
It covers nearby rock, pointy stick, sand, dust, fire, and all derivatives thereof.
It is what drives us to be lithe, strong, resilient, intelligent, and cunning.
Personally, I’m a fan of 10/10 @ 50 feet in .45 or .375 magnum. 😀
No such thing as overkill. If I could reduce them to ash, I would do so gleefully.
Step to me, pay the price. Or, MYOB, and I’ll MYMB, and we can get along fine. 🙂
GREAT ARTICLE ERIC! Thankyou!
These “checkpoints” are the electronic equivalent of being randomly pulled over for no reason at all. Your ID demanded, and then a background check run on you.
eric, BTW, any search the fedgov wants to do is legal since the Patriot Act. If they tell someone they’re investigating or searching someone else, the party that’s notified, even the party being searched cannot reveal that to anyone. This goes way beyond Stalin, Lenin or Hitler. They could never have dreamed up something this Machiavellian.
Another neat game that our “heroes” play with their “totally innocent” plate scanners is the “fictitious plates” racket. Considering that the watermarked scotchlite plate material required by die Schweine has a lifespan of approximately 6 months in the sun before serious degradation kicks in, the scanner won’t register it and you’re getting pulled over in full “felony stop” mode. Seeing as none of my rides have the current issue plates, I’ve had this one pulled on me a few times. Some cops are intelligent enough to recognize that the copper historic plates on the trucks or the 1931 plates on the A-bone aren’t going to have it and leave it alone. Others have made a big show of walking up to my window with their hand on that ridiculous Glock ready to draw.
As a side note, when did carrying 50+ rounds of extra ammunition change from being a sign of “I’m a shitty shot” to a sign of “look how cool I am”?
We’ve all dealt with their loose definitions of “probable cause” at some point or another. My best was walking out of the grocery store to find 2 pigs in their full invasion regalia looking over my car, then subjecting me to questioning regarding my whereabouts during the previous 2 hours. Apparently there had been a legitimate hit and run of a pedestrian involving a white late model Beetle, so Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dumbass decided that it might be masquerading as a brown 1931 Ford and decided to subject me to a parking lot grilling while my ice cream reverted to the original body temperature of the cow it came from. Nobody could be stupid enough to believe that there was an honest mistake between the two vehicles, nor would anyone believe that anyone who had just been involved in a hit and run is going to make a beeline to park right in front of Safeway and score some butter pecan to calm their nerves. It was just a couple of steroid addicted clowns hoping to start some shit with the populace.
Make no mistake, this is nothing more than another unwanted intrusion into the lives of the innocent. Personally, I leave a pretty boring trail for them but that isn’t the point. The point is that for every one of these tactics that we allow them to get away with, we open the door for them to push the envelope just a little bit more. We are rapidly normalizing the replacement of legitimate police functions with the Waffen-Schutzstaffel.
Joe Friday would not approve.
The right to privacy in America ended with the imposition of the Income Tax in 1913. This was followed with mandatory Birth Certificates,Social Security numbering,the W2,W4 and 1099 tracking documents plus the licensing (privileges) of everything from driving a car,owning a firearm,getting married,starting a business,building on your own property plus thousands of other activities that,in the past,were rights. In essence the average American volunteers into the status of a walking, numbered corporation. This is done voluntarily,whether unwittingly or not,and stays with you from cradle to grave. Unless one is determined to rescind all of the contracts,known and unknown,that an American citizen subjects himself or herself to then the best policy is to maintain a low profile or to “go Galt.” Either way,it is best to put as much distance between yourself and Leviathan as possible. Hopefully,the system will eventually collapse of its own weight. But don’t hold your breath.
“The right to privacy in America ended with the imposition of the Income Tax in 1913.”
Well, that’s one way to look at it. But that could not have happened w/o Dishonest Abe’s “War to Enslave the States.”
Oh, puh-leeze. I’m getting a little tired of this. When Abe was elected, it was the Southern Democrat party that chose to leave — and then attacked an American fort on their way out. What’s he supposed to do, sit and watch like Buchanan did? Does the Constitution not permit quashing an armed rebellion?! Is not the Democrat party STILL the party of slavery, treason, and force?
BJ, the union had a blockade on southern ports. That is an act of war, not only in this country but every country. No matter which “party” you think decided to leave, there were many states that did and it was “LEGAL” per the Constitution, you know ,That Constitution,the one that say The Constitution of the United States of American?. Looks like you had a good yankee edgycashun.
8S ^5s!
Not only that, but Lincoln explicitly stated he would invade if the south refuse to cough up cash from tariffs imposed by the Morrill Act of 1861 in his first address as Presickdent! Good Ole Abe got pissed cause his tax base decided to leave when they recognized they were being enslaved by taxation imposed by the Northern Monied Interest.
So Lincoln’s response? Impose blockades on all southern ports, Instruct commanders of Import and Duty Stations not to vacate. You did know that Fort Sumter was a Customs station and not a true fort right???? Additionally, let’s not forget that there was NOT ONE FEDGOV ARMY casualty unless you want to count a mule a soldier. Also, the garrison was allowed to leave with their arms. What victorious army does that? None that I know of in history yet the South Carolina Army allowed the FEDGOV troops to leave with theirs.
No Lincoln was a monster and since him, with a very few exceptions, every president has been one as well.
BTW, the terms Blockade and Siege are interchangeable. One is by land the other by Sea. Both are acts of war. Along with embargo.
David Ward
Memphis, Tennessee
P.S. can we paint BJ as a statist lover aka clover?
David, I thought he just had.
Thanks to all of you who have correctly assessed Lincoln. IMHO, he was our worst president because he so thoroughly trashed the Constitution–and in the aftermath of the war the national government “took over.”
I don’t think he trashed it – he destroyed it.
Well, I really don’t like these scanners.
But they are a double edge sword that cuts both ways.
When we’re out in public, EVERYBODY should have the right to observe everybody else.
If you’re absolutely opposed to scanners, you are among the same bunch that tries to pass laws making it illegal for citizens to film cops in public.
Besides, I can think of several “legal” ways to minimize the intrusions of cop scanners. You can too.
Save your ammo ( I use that phrase metaphorically,) for more serious cop abominations.
The so called “DUI Checkpoints” aka “Nazi Style Roadblocks” that cops just love are much, much worse.
Hi Mike,
There is a very important distinction to be made between being observed by (and even recorded by) other citizens and being monitored and recorded by the state.
I (and any other Mundane) have no legal authority to screw with you.
The state is all about screwing with you.
That is why they insist on recording us… and fight tooth and nail to avoid being recorded by us.
I’d rather allow them to record us (in public,) and fight tooth and nail to secure the right to record them.
Nationwide right for citizens to film cops in public would prevent untold thousands of cop atrocities every year.
Hi Mike,
I think it’s critical that our right to record them be respected. And it is a right. Because they are accountable to us; they are public servants…
As such they are obliged to have their conduct while working supervised. In the same way and for the same reason that an employee at McDonald’s (or IBM) accepts that a condition of employment is that the employer may watch/record what you do on the job. If this is unacceptable, the employee can quit.
But we are not on the job. We cannot quit.
We have a right to not be recorded precisely because we are not “public servants,” not acting under color of law, not employees. We are (ahem!) free men and women who have a right to go about our affairs without supervision, without being monitored or video’d or otherwise recorded.
The courts here in MA have ruled several times that us mundanes have a perfect right to film cops in public; of course the badged thugs continue to harass anyone attempting to do so since they think (mostly correctly) that their exalted status exempts them from any rules whatsoever. Too bad they don’t make pocket sized cans of spray paint, you could paint over the lens if you ever happen to be walking by one of these spymobiles.
Cops don’t need to look for crime for one second, they need to spend their time investigating REPORTED CRIMES. Like the home burglary (almost never solved, because many times they don’t do anything except take a report). Or that murder (less then half ever solved) or rape. As in actual crimes against citizens.
Home burglary…..I found it difficult to report when it was the cops who did it. Leave home, find your car has been altered to make it run away engine wise and have no brakes. Who do you report that to when the cops did it? You say you missed months of mail and when you did get mail it had been savaged with a razor knife, day after day, week after week and your business bills just disappear so you have to contact everyone you owe a monthly or however long a period type of charge since you don’t get their bills. And that slashed up mail is in your mail box at the post office. Complain about that, see how far you get. They kill your dog and have a plane spray 2.4 D on your garden just for shits and giggles. Who do you complain to? Really. I’d like to have known. None of the Liayers had any suggestions, complicit pieces of shit they are.
Not to mention the state requires tags in our ears (license plates) to make their observation, much more than just observation.
End of Watch – Opening Scene
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hd-ZPo-SjcY
“They have to be allowed to look for criminal activity, as long as they do NOT keep harassing innocent people.”
They’re generally looking for “criminal” activity, not actual crimes. Like the time recently where some Travis county deputies scanned my license plate and pulled me over – harassed me – because my Hawaii registration information said I hadn’t paid them money to not drive on Hawaii roads.
And if you think that having armed officers with the power to summarily execute you at roadside (or elsewhere) pulling you over for a “crime” isn’t harassment, go talk to the family of Sandra Bland.
“They have to be allowed to look for criminal activity”
That is a bold, bald assertion on your (and their) part. WHY should we allow them to look for criminal activity? They do nothing to make the victim whole (or even partially so) when they ‘catch the bad guy.’ They just stick him in a cage a make all of us pay his room & board.
I’d agree if the cars had to be stopped, or you personally were harassed over the scanners, but honestly, this is really passive and exactly what you’d want cops to do anyway.
Cops constantly assess people as they are walking or driving around, this method is actually an IMPROVEMENT as before the cop would just pull over everyone and do roadside checks (which I KNOW you hate, with good reason, it’s inconvenient and intimidating). This way, people are 100% inconvenienced. You’re right, you’d never even know the cop is searching to see if the car is illegal or not. As in you’d never be bothered by the cop at all if you own the car. How is this possibly worse than a roadside “chat”?
Think about it. You don’t want to be harassed by the cops, with good reason, they’re idiots. These scanners do not even slow you down. You don’t even have to LOOK at the cops, let alone talk to them…unless there’s a problem with the car (stolen, etc) in which case you WOULD want the cop to find a stolen car without harassing innocents, wouldn’t you? This does exactly that!
Remember that while they have to realize that most of us are innocent of crimes, their job is still to find and catch those who are not. They have to be allowed to look for criminal activity, as long as they do NOT keep harassing innocent people. Scanners like this are a GOOD step in that direction, not a BAD one. Might want to chose your battles, hammer at the roadside stops instead. 🙂
What I see many times is that people never acknowledge an argument like the following:
Yes, we think its okay for the (insert gov’t intrusion here) to happen, even against us, because it helps to (insert desirable outcome here) or it avoids (insert undesirable action here).
However, *no one* acknowledges that a PRICE YOU PAY for freedom is THE ACCEPTANCE that some bad things will happen. So if you want *freedom* from (insert gov’t intrusion here) then the *price you pay* will be that (insert undesirable action here) will sometimes happen and (insert desirable outcome here) will happen less.
“a PRICE YOU PAY for freedom is THE ACCEPTANCE that some bad things will happen”
Well, duh! This is life. Bad things do happen.
When and where to we get to vote (or otherwise consent) to how much protection we want?
“… this is really passive and exactly what you’d want cops to do anyway.”
Projection much?
What I want cops to do is to go find a real job and quit being wardens of a giant open air minimum security prison.
Well-said, Jim!
Probably 90 percent of the population never commits a crime – properly speaking (i.e., purposely attempts to or actually does cause harm to another person). Most of the rest involves inadvertent harm (fundamentally a matter of restitution rather than punishment, in my view).
Whereas probably 90 percent of the typical cop’s day is devoted to hassling people who’ve harmed no one but who have offended some statute or other.
As David Ward reminded us the other day on another thread, the commission of crime is supposed, by law, to involve mens rea. That is, without the intention to commit a crime, there is no crime. There could be a violation of someone’s rights, but that should be a civil matter.
Of course this seems to fly in the face of “Ignorance of the law is no excuse.” But only insofar as you are contemplating criminal activity. How could I deliberately commit a crime if I am not even aware that what I did was ‘illegal’? Still does not mean I have not violated someone’s rights, but not in a criminal manner.
I hate cops as much as most sane people, but maybe a metaphor might help?
Pretend no cops exist…you know, utopia! Now in this community someone is stealing stuff. The community members wants to deal with the idiot so everyone can go about their lives without being afraid that when they leave their house everything they own will be gone and they don’t feel like living in a castle for impenetrable security. So they get together to track down the idiot.
Now please explain to me how they plan to FIND the person if they are not allowed to talk to a single person, nor can they examine ANYTHING at a distance even if the person is never even aware? What do you propose they do, consult a psychic? And remember I’m just talking about the people in the community, not the cops nor the gouvernment.
If cops are to exist, you want them to catch actual criminals and leave everyone else alone, correct? If they are NOT to exist then the people must assume the same role. This isn’t projection, this is common sense.
…and if you reply with “everyone is responsible for their own security”, then I only change the question to ask what YOU would do to get the thief without talking to anyone nor assuming any suspicion on anything, as it’s the same problem. You’d probably spy from a distance on people you suspect to see if they act differently, look for evidence of your stolen stuff without bothering anyone, etc. Just like the cops are doing with the scanners.
Beats the hell out of them at your door demanding to barge in!
Mamba,
Where to begin?
“not allowed to talk to a single person”
Who said anything about that?
The thing at issue is recording and searching people (checking their information) without their consent or knowledge.
If some “Hero” wants to walk up to a person and ask them something… fine. But the person being asked has every right to say, fuck off – and the Hero should have to respect that and… fuck off.
“nor can they examine ANYTHING at a distance even if the person is never even aware? ”
I covered this already. Are you also ok with cops using technology to snoop on your doings inside your house? To have a peek (without you being aware) into your computer and cell phone?
“What do you propose they do, consult a psychic? ”
No. I am proposing they respect that without probable fucking cause, they have no business searching anyone. Or recording their comings and goings. When I was 11, my parents had a right to track me, to know where I was and where I’d been. I am an adult now – and other adults have no right to track me, or to know where I have been or am headed unless I have given them substantive reason (probable cause) to suspect I’ve committed a crime.
“If cops are to exist…”
If peacekeepers exist, there is no problem. But your cops are law enforcers.
Big difference.
They are not recording information, they are comparing your plate against THEIR information. They TRIED to do it in person with the person’s consent, in case you forgot, that’s what a roadside check is! (laugh) Your opinion on those has been VERY clear, so it’s clear that to you, the cops are NOT allowed to talk to you for any reason.
The cops snooping privacy is not the same thing. Go ahead, tell me what useful private information the cop’s getting by knowing that your car is not stolen when they scan the plate? Answer…NONE. They won’t even know it’s you driving or not.
As for probable cause, they HAVE it…they have a list of reported stolen cars. Now they have a way to look for them without harassing anyone, especially innocent drivers like you. Yet you still hate it? Makes no sense…
“Peacekeepers to enforcers…”, 100% agree there. They need to look for actual crimes. So does a stolen car count as a crime against the peace of society, or can we just take what we wish with impunity?
Now should they harass people for meaningless shit like registrations expired and the like? No, but that law’s on the books regardless, what you’re complaining about is the METHOD they use to examine your car, so different topic here.
Clover,
The information is recorded. Your comings and goings have been fed into a database. Your plate number correlates with your SSN, which is then correlated with all sorts of other data.
Facts.
You continue to harp on the stolen car thing. What about all the other things? Like whether you are not local (possible “drug” suspect, better check him out)? Or that you have not paid tributum to the county?
Again, facts.
Are you so naive and simple-minded that you really believe this is just about sussing out stolen cars?
Really?
Do you also believe red light cameras are just there to catch dangerous red light scofflaws? That “sobriety” checkpoints are all about “catching dangerous drunks”?
If so, why not have the cops go up and down every suburban street and “scan” each house for signs of crimes? You never know… there could be a wife beater or a child molester in any of them… it’s passive.. you’ll never know, so what’s the harm… right?
And, no, they do not have probable cause to scan/check every got-damned car that passes by. You are putting the cart before the horse.
They have probable cause to look for (as an example) a specific silver 2013 BMW with plate number XYZ 123.
But they are “searching” (and recording) every got-damned car that passes by.
Of course you’re right, Eric. A license plate is tied to the owner of the car, who has left a massive trail of information in various government and private databases — all of which are likely linked together. Just look at the information anyone can get about anyone online for $15! After cash is outlawed, credit card transactions will be linked, as well — for “national security” reasons, of course.
“they have to realize that most of us are innocent of crimes” – but they don’t seem to. Especially if the standard of crime is harm caused, not just violation of a fiat statute. More and more it seems they operate under Napoleonic law, guilty until proven innocent.
Actually, they do.
Can’t find the link; there’s a lawyer who does cartoon explanations of law.
Basically, he made the point that your rights are, in essence, waived by talking to the police. That it is in fact a “Star chamber” method of “Just Us.”
Wish I could find it, but this place blocks damn near everything. Humor, Technology, Swimwear, Image sharing, File sharing, Games, blogspot, social media, youtube…
Several of which, BTW, are used for BUSINESS PURPOSES. E.G., Compuware, makes dynaTrace, one of our tools. All the video learning, tutorials, etc? On Youtube. Google docs? Blocked. Amazon S3? Blocked. They even block Fred Reed.
And management makes the Joker look sane… Like a criminal mastermind, even. So meticulous in planning…. (“I’m like a dog chasing a car, I wouldn’t know what to do if I caught it…”)
Sorry… We just have major issues with management’s viewpoint. Their head is terminally inserted in their anal sphincters here.
Mamba,
You write:
” this is really passive and exactly what you’d want cops to do anyway.”
Speak for yourself, white man. I don’t want cops to do any such thing.
And “passive”?
If that’s the standard, then I assume you won’t mind a cop van parking outside your house with an infra-red scanner and a device that can hop on your WiFi and “browse” your computer files?
I hope you grok your mistake…
And if not, then – Shazam – now you know why we live in a police state.
Because people such as yourself do not grok the essential principle at issue. Because they don’t object to a violation of an important principle in this instance… which they think is “justified” by (insert Greater Good here)…. not realizing that by accepting it here they have already approved it there.
How about when cops have the means (technologically) to scan our sail fawns? Are you ok with that, too? It’s very “passive”…
If not, why?
Here’s the take-home point, Mamba:
In a free society, if you have not given a cop reason to think that you have committed some crime or are imminently going to commit some crime, then the pig fucker should not even be looking at you. It ought to be illegal to do so. A prosecutable offense. Because it is invasive and intimidating by definition to be “checked out” (and be recorded) when you’ve done nothing whatsoever to give anyone any reason to suspect you’ve done a got-damned thing to warrant it.
The only people who should expect to be the focus of a cop’s attentions in a free society are people who’ve given reason to be suspicious of them. That’s it.
Ans that’s how it used to be.
You seem to think it’s just fine if they look at all of us – all the time!
Just to be “safe.”
After all, they are our Friends and we can Trust them. They’d never abuse such open-ended power… would they?
But your logic is so flawed here. They ARE looking for a criminal…in this case a stolen vehicle. They have the records on file as reported stolen, and they were asked by the owners to find it. Pretty cut and dry. They also have dozens if not hundreds to sift through, so it’s not like they have the picture of the stolen car taped to their window with a note that says “if you see this, arrest the driver”. So again, what do you propose they do to find it if they can’t even LOOK at cars anymore?
It IS passive, no matter what you think. They are doing with their machine exactly what you do with you pass a human on the sidewalk…you glance their way, assess that they are not a threat, and move on. If you asses they are a threat for whatever reason, you act appropriately (cross street, prepare for possible surprise ambush, hand on your gun, whatever).
Your sailfawn example is equally flawed…in that case they are spying on your private conversations with clear immorality, in the other case they’re just seeing if your car was reported stolen comparing the number to THEIR records (not yours), and they don’t even have to engage you at all to do so. how can you say these are the same when no privacy is affected and your life altered not in the slightest?
Your take home point can only exist under one circumstance…the pig fucker has to be a MIND READER. You’re right…he shouldn’t even be looking at you if you’re innocent. But he doesn’t KNOW you, so he doesn’t know you’re innocent. And his job is to look for criminals, so he evaluates. This method prevents you from even having to DEAL with the fucker at all if you’re innocent, giving you exactly what you want…for the cops to go away and bother actual criminals! Come on, this is basic stuff here!
Oh, and if the cop was actually physically imposing his presence than that’s different, but it IS different and you know it. This isn’t wiretapping a phone line, this is looking at a car and seeing IF he has a reason to harass you. Note the word *IF*, you are NOT harassed or even talked to at all normally. I just can’t understand why you’d be fighting this one…
You really want to fuck with me on this? I am not in a good mood. Ok. Let’s dance.
“They ARE looking for a criminal…”
No, they are looking at (and recording) everyone who happens to pass by, dragnet style.
What they are doing – what you are defending – is no different in principle than random spot checks of our houses. After all, there might be child abuse, or wife abuse… they are just “looking for criminals”…
“So again, what do you propose they do to find it if they can’t even LOOK at cars anymore?”
Did I say look? Or did I criticize the dragnet-style recording (and searching) of every single car that passes by? How about debating what I wrote/said rather than what you said I wrote/said?
Next:
“Your sailfawn example is equally flawed…in that case they are spying on your private conversations with clear immorality, in the other case they’re just seeing if your car was reported stolen comparing the number to THEIR records (not yours), and they don’t even have to engage you at all to do so. how can you say these are the same when no privacy is affected and your life altered not in the slightest?”
Really? I consider my comings and goings just as fucking private as my conversations.
They are not “just seeing if your car was reported stolen comparing the number to THEIR records (not yours).” They are also fishing for “violations” such as expired registration, whether you have a dead inspection and also fishing for people who “offend” laws arbitrarily criminalizing certain “drugs”…
Clover then writes:
“But he doesn’t KNOW you, so he doesn’t know you’re innocent.”
This is exactly the line trotted out in justification of cops demanding to “see ID,” make you prove you’re not drunk… (as opposed to them being forced to prove you are) and so on.
You have everything backwards. In a free society, people don’t need to prove their innocence to the satisfaction of armed goons. It is the obligation of the goons to prove you’ve done something. And they cannot do anything to you before they have specific probable cause indicating that you have done something.
If a peace officer has reason to suspect you’ve committed a crime – you, specifically – and can demonstrate probable cause – that’s one thing. Presuming everyone’s potentially a criminal until they have been “screened” or otherwise shown they’re not is the sine qua non of an authoritarian system.
As you have in Canada.
Where only Heroes may legally carry guns. Or their carrying by Mundanes is extremely restricted.
Mamba, ANPR (automated number plate reader, the global term for ALPR in the USA) data is retained. Doesn’t matter if the cops are looking for your car because its stolen or if you’re just driving to work. The data is retained. They gather snapshots of where people are and when. Between fixed ANPR and mobile ANPR a profile of people’s travels is built. This can be sold for advertising purposes, used for precrime, and various other things.
When your data matches a profile they are looking for you can end up having a very bad day being harassed by cops convinced you’re the bad guy because the computer said so. I’ve learned first hand how easily cops can jump to conclusions and then be secure they’re correct. Lives get ruined this way.
Thanks for the back-up, Brent!
I wonder whether Mamba is aware of people with out-of-state plates being subjected to “special handling” by cops who draw a bead on the out-of-town tags?
These scanners just make it easier for the harassers to target such people.
Don’t forget, Mamba is a venomous snake.
He may be aware of it but the scanners are for the data and monitoring. The whole tax by mile system is just a way to get that data and the power of it and have us pay for it. It’s such an expensive way to tax people it doesn’t make sense from a revenue standpoint. The collection costs are enormous.
Other than data the only other reason is the manpower and contracts required to run such a system. A new way to scam a living off the productive. However that’s likely a side racket. The data is the motherload. It’s what needed to be able to tell people when they may go where. It’s what need to know when people go where. The data is everything. Knowledge is power.
When tied to other databases and with a long history of sightings the cops will know exactly who they are dealing with. Criminals, being a threat to cops may actually end up safer as a result.
Eric,
Another reason in support of privacy. Hopefully the odds are ever in your favor. But, One often never realizes how personal information can be used against them. Individuals may not know until it is too late.
(Fahrenheit 451 – Ray Bradbury)
This is getting ridiculous.
Do you ‘really’ believe this technology will ever catch someone in a stolen car? Perhaps if we’re dealing with criminals that are participating in the Annual Darwin Tournament. Just think it through a second, a guy has gone and stolen a car, and decides to drive around in it for the next few days or so, not only unchanged, but, with the actual stolen tag on it as well — the tag, being the only means by which in your argument the cop is trying to suss out the stolen vehicle.
I guess all this stuff about chop shops, and once the vehicle is stolen, it ending up there within and/or generally off the street within minutes must be some sort of myth?
If this technology manages to lead to the arrest of a Darwin candidate, then I will say, for every 1 of those, this thing has probably ended up ‘busting’ 100 million times (I am not exaggerating either) the folks let their insurance lapse (since the insurance mafia does narc you out immediately), for failing to get your
emission inspection, being a day late paying tribute (i.e. failing to pay a parking ticket, renewing your tags, renewing your license, hell probably wouldn’t surprise me if they stick some property tax and or income tax delinquency in there as well). Bottom line, this thing is to enhance the ‘revenue generation’ apparatus of the state. Naturally for the one winner of the Darwin award that this catches, the pundits will declare that this technology is clearly needed and a proven winner and enhances our ‘saaaaaafty’.
These “checkpoints” are the electronic equivalent of being randomly pulled over for no reason at all. Your ID demanded, and then a background check run on you.
You sir are a moron and a copsuker.
so does cop penis taste more like doughnuts or like pork, or is it some kind of combination of both?
Maple-Bacon donuts?
Damn! Spewed coffee on my keyboard!
As you browse from your chrome browser or I phone and are searched far more thoroughly than you ever have been at any time in the history of the world. You habits, your likes, what you read, buy, enjoy looking at or listening to. When you rise, when you sleep. With the mic and camera maybe even what you look like and sound like and who you are with.
We are the cattle.
The Genie is long out of the bottle and won’t be put back anytime soon.