We are all guilty
At least in LA County. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/03/lo...
At least the police admit that this level of detail leads to invasion of privacy.
Jan
At least the police admit that this level of detail leads to invasion of privacy.
Jan
In the last 20 years we've passed federal laws stripping citizens permanently of their second amendment rights, allowing people to be pulled over and searched on our highways without cause, allowing the tracking and recording of our phone calls and emails, regulating and taxing political speech, allowing law enforcement to confiscate property without issuing charges or convicting of crime, mandating that private business service people they have no desire to service and allowing private property to be taken under imminent domain for private entities. That's how seriously we take our unalienable rights today...we allow the government which constitutionally is mandated to protect those rights to deny them instead.
Both political parties support some or all of these infringements on our precious unalienable rights. Our unalienable rights are all that separate us from every other nation in the world, they don't exist anywhere else on this planet. If we lose them there is no real difference between us and Cuba, Bolivia or England, we will no longer have a Bill of Rights, we have a bill of privileges which can be taken and given at the whim of government.
If you trade your unalienable rights for illusions of safety and fairness you'll end up with nothing but illusions. At the very least we should go through the constitutionally mandated means of removing unalienable rights if Americans seriously believe those rights should be privileges rather than rights. If we allow simple legislative manipulations determining ad hoc which are unalienable and which are not then they're all alienable by definition and the constitution is a useless piece of parchment not even valuable enough for display except as a historic relic.
It 's the same with drugs. We willingly give up liberties so we all can be safe. Now we are tracked by the legal drugs we take and submit to invasive over reach in the name of the war on drugs. When we look at incidents of botched fed raids they almost always were instigated on suspicion of illegal drugs.
Jan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyBVYynXD...
Good movie. Unfortunately, they have not fixed the problem, unsurprisingly.
Welcome to the lefts version of "Police State America".
Once you get pulled over your rights are different, you do not have those rights driving down the road with your car.
If we are to say that license plates are off limits, then why should a radar detector be legal to determine if you're speeding?
Why have traffic cops looking out for those that run red lights, or slide through a stop sign?
Take the license plate off the table - how about vehicle descriptions? Looking for a 2012 white Toyota sedan... Cops will be eyeballing every car that passes them - is this any different?
Enforce the law, but don't watch me violate it?
The police shouldn't be looking out stolen vehicles?
I get it, gov't abuses it's authority, and this is a slippery slope, but, we're the ones asking for it. Hell, we're demanding it. Can't have your cake and eat to.
Your right to privacy stops at your front door, and your person.
If you think that should apply to you driving down the street, then get rid of the police. Be a land without laws.
Unless the law is drastically changed very recently, you are "on" your private property in your vehicle. That is why those who run the workshops on non-compliant stops tell you not to exit your vehicle.
Then you've got a whole pile of stuff, all related.
license plates? we don't need them or want them. All my friends have "WIJG" bumper stickers.
red lights? If the public is "trusted" to make intelligent decisions at 2 AM [by which the lights here have long switched to flashing red, which means "stop, proceed if safe", or to yellow, which means "please slow and proceed with caution"] where is the little switch in my head that makes me a safe driver even without changing lights AFTER the magic time.
you might want to analyze why people slide thru stop signs, asking the same question: why we do [that's YOU and ME, right now] need them?
and that's where I stop understanding. The police shouldn't be out looking for stolen vehicles? Lo-Jack is cheaper and has a better success record.
We're asking for abuse of authority? Last time I looked around my house, I wasn't. How does "...your cake..." apply.
and finally, you make my third favorite logic error: make an "outrageous" statement and walk away. It's like Flick and the flagpole: I triple-dog-dare-ya to have a country without laws.
and then what happens?
Complaining about the wrong things takes strength from the arguments for the right ones.
Thoritsu - I agree with what you say, but I think I would draw a line at a different point. Thinking about what you said, I come to a tentative conclusion that I would not mind if the automated systems scanned all passing license plates for recognition of a stolen vehicle or a getaway car. What I object to is the storing of non-illegal activities for a prolonged amount of time. I do expect this information to be datamined for further use.
Jan
Of course there are a lot of places this is done, for example simple record keeping (birth certs. deed, tax data, etc). The subject data is more innocuous, but agreed concerning. Another interesting point is that companies do this with some consent from customers (the simplest being you choose to buy from them); however, I feel less concerned about the companies than the Government doing this.
I'm not really a conspiracy-type, but with what Obama would do with the data (e.g. IRS pursuit of Tea Party contributors), perhaps I should become more of a conspiracy-type.
They are mostly checking to see if you are driving impaired and that you "papers" are in order. They claim that by just driving down the street, you are assumed to have given your consent for the stop. Their probable cause was your going about your business in a lawful manner.
I cannot express just how evil I find these. I'm not a drinker at all, my registration and insurance are in order, but if I happen to drive down a street when they are waving cars over, I must submit to this violation of my rights and I have no recourse except to follow their direction. Some have driven through these road blocks and been arrested for failure to submit, endangering police officers, and many more charges.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/01/...
Please note that you should familiarize yourself with the conditions in your state, as some things differ based on local laws.
I do point out that part of the reason we have had to go in this direction is that we have handicapped our police force and removed their ability to make judgement calls. If a car is roaming all across the lanes at 2AM, the police apparently cannot get a conviction for hazardous driving unless they can prove a positive alcohol level. So by the Law having more respect for the police, we drivers might be less harassed and our rights more secure.
Jan
Jan