Driving somewhere? There's a gov't record of that

[noZme]

Using automated scanners, law enforcement agencies across the country have amassed millions of digital records on the location and movement of every vehicle with a license plate. Affixed to police cars, bridges or buildings, the scanners capture images of passing or parked vehicles and note their location, uploading that information into police databases.

"As the technology becomes cheaper and more ubiquitous, and federal grants focus on aiding local terrorist detection, even small police agencies are able to deploy more sophisticated surveillance systems. While the Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that a judge's approval is needed to track a car with GPS, networks of plate scanners allow police effectively to track a driver's location, sometimes several times every day, with few legal restrictions."

Law enforcement officials said the scanners can be crucial to tracking suspicious cars, aiding drug busts and finding abducted children. The ACLU has quite a different stance.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20130717/DA7JAB480.html

What do you think?

 

[Donjeta]

The ACLU study, based on 26,000 pages of responses from 293 police departments and state agencies across the country, also found that license plate scanners produced a small fraction of "hits," or alerts to police that a suspicious vehicle has been found. In Maryland, for example, the state reported reading about 29 million plates between January and May of last year. Of that amount, about 60,000 - or roughly 1 in every 500 license plates - were suspicious. The No. 1 crime? A suspended or revoked registration, or a violation of the state's emissions inspection program accounted for 97 percent of all alerts.

Well, that would be the expected result, wouldn't it? At least i sincerely hope so and want to cling to my belief that it's just a small fraction of the drivers on the road who are dangerous criminals and fugitives.

 

[TracyLynnS]

federal grants focus on aiding local terrorist detection

I don't think this is an efficient use of my tax dollars.

The government's record of locating and keeping us safe from the local "terrorists" is pretty darn crappy.... but kudos to them on catching all those lapsed registration violators. :facepalm:

 

[Thundar]

I read about this and my first thought was, well bless their hearts, I feel sorry for those that track my plate.....nothing interesting there! What a boring job that must be taking the scanned plates and running them through some sort of national data base, unless of course it is done automatically!

And I agree, "government money" sure finds some strange things to be used on!

 

[Kimster]

:notgood:

Maybe I'll do a little spying of my own! :snooty:

http://weeklyworldnews.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/alien_huntersc.jpg

 

[mysteriew]

When you are out in public, you have no expectation of privacy. There are security cameras, surveillance cameras, traffic cameras everywhere. The only different is that now they can use them to check a database.

Yes it has a great capability to capture minor offenders. But will they use it for that? I don't think it would be productive or financially effective. If you have an expired registration for instance, they would have to have someone notified, someone would have to notify the proper authority in the proper jurisdiction, that authority would have to then send a person out to the proper address to write a ticket.

Now fugitives from justice might need to worry. But with the way the government operates, by the time the proper authorities are notified, the fugitive would likely have moved on anyway.

 

[oh_gal]

Unless you're headed off to one type of illicit meeting or another, you probably have nothing to fear. On the other hand...if you're engaging in activities you shouldn't be...shame on you!