KVOA TV reports that police in Oro Valley, Arizona have joined the legions of law enforcement agencies using Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) systems. Oro’s taken delivery of LPR Systems’ Mobile Plate Hunter 900 . When the Plate Hunter was rolled out in Utica, NY in August, the ACLU claimed the system violated “every motorist’s civil right to avoid police surveillance unless a law has been violated.” The ACLU’s executive director of the Central New York Chapter says the police need a new business model: “Police really should be in the business of investigating crimes, not tracking law-abiding citizens,” Barrie Gewanter pronounced. “When we are driving and we are always having our licenses plates examined, then everybody on the road is being treated as a suspect.”
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Several years ago in NJ the governor signed a law that prohibited any machine for auto-ticketing speeders. There apparently was a machine tested successfully in Texas that they wanted to bring into NJ.
His reasoning is that he did not want this machine to reduce the number of police on the road. A large number of wanted criminals are discovered from random pullovers using any of the suspicious signs that allows a cop to do so.
So while this computer license tracking device may sound like it’s “tracking law-abiding citizens”, there is another side to the story that does have police “investigating crimes” with it.
While I’m sure someone’s going to make the “slippery slope” argument, I’m not made nervous about this. I someone commits a crime and is on the loose parking their car willy-nilly on the city streets, I don’t have a problem with the police getting a little extra assistance in discovering his or her location. This isn’t really “Big Brother” so much as “find the crooks”.
So, if you are a felon (or someone with outstanding warrants, owe back child support, have any unpaid parking tickets, etc) you should immediately find a car similar to yours and switch license plates. You should do this every couple days or so to keep the police off your trail. Or, heck, just steal cars and abandon them near your destination.
Since I flat out don’t trust the government (member, ACLU and Gun Owners of America), I’m going to make the slippery slope argument. The easier it is for law enforcement to track us, the more sheep-like we become -and are expected to behave.
Since I flat out don’t trust the government (member, ACLU and Gun Owners of America), I’m going to make the slippery slope argument. The easier it is for law enforcement to track us, the more sheep-like we become -and are expected to behave.
Not really a slippery slope, but close enough. A slippery slope would be first they can run our plates, then they can put up cammeras, how long before we have to report daily.
Also, you can’t really use a slippery slope argument. Its a logical falacy. So whilst on here, you can get some people riled up, in a real debate, it would be rejected.
However, I’m torn on this. As someone who has a good number of speeding tickets, am I automatically going to be singled out when driving in a crowd of cars to be tailed for god knows how long till I snease and get pulled over? But, if it is used to catch real criminals, than I hardly see the problem with it. Is the case for abuse present? Yes. But then again, it is with everything and everyone.
We have a local radio show around here, and the host is amazingly pro-police/firefighter. He started a charity for them, and holds a Heroes Parade every year. But at the same time, he’ll be the first to call out corupt cops. So, we just have to take that leap of faith and hope that who ever has this system is using it for their own ends.
photo detection technology is sneaking in slowly. yesterday i was driving on I-5 northbound, just south of Stockton, CA when i noticed a sign that read “Speed photo enforced”. i can only surmise that this is the same technology used so infamously in England to 1- make a pile of $$ for the beaurocrats and 2- enforce the speed limits. so, my fellow speeders, it’s coming and it will be very very painful. i don’t know how it works but if the speed is detected via radar maybe my valentine will once again save my sorry ass.
@ Virtual Insanity:”As someone who has a good number of speeding tickets, am I automatically going to be singled out when driving in a crowd of cars to be tailed for god knows how long till I sneeze and get pulled over? But, if it is used to catch real criminals, than I hardly see the problem with it.”
I hate to tell you this, V.I., but a lot of people (not on this site, probably) would say that you are a real criminal. Speeding! Won’t you think of the children? Won’t someone please think of the children?
Speaking of which, how many sex offenders will get caught driving too close to a school, nursery or some other place they are not supposed to drive to close to? Sure, sure, it’s for the children. They should really pay more attention to maps and plot a route that will prevent them from contacting anyone at all, ever.
I’d contribute to the cost if they would buy them in my state to combat driving uninsured and under suspension.
I think of the children every time I speed. They are worth 1500 points a piece.
This is an interesting issue.
In addition to finding stolen plates (or cars), the article out of Utica, NY titled “Device snags wanted drivers” mentions other potential outcomes from the use of ANPR’s:
While the LPR can be used to target vehicles linked to specific individuals, such as suspected terrorists or kidnappers identified during Amber Alerts, the device’s overall use has much broader impact, officials said.
Particularly when it comes to people driving either with a suspended or revoked license or without insurance, officials said.
“You don’t know the aggravation you have to go through until your vehicle is hit by an uninsured driver,” Philo said. “We’ve got to get those people off the road.”
– & –
More than 100,000 plates were scanned by the sheriff patrol’s LPR during the first six months of this year, resulting in 143 suspended or revoked registrations being located and 40 arrests, including four people wanted on warrants and two drunken driving suspects, Undersheriff M. Peter Paravati said.
“It would take our work force days and days to read 1,200 to 1,300 license plates if that’s all they did, so it’s like having the value of one to two more deputies per day,” Paravati said. “And when you get a hit, it could potentially lead you beyond vehicle and traffic violations to more serious crimes quickly and efficiently.”
One concern however, would be trying to prove your innocence if your license plate got mistakenly entered into the database, which in AZ at least, is updated twice daily.
Typo’s happen- I’ve experienced those first-hand. :-)
Thankfully, TTAC has some sharp-eyed editors; but are the data-entry people at my local- or state police departments equally as diligent?
I think the only solution to all this computerized spying is stronger criminal and civil penalties for government entities and employees who abuse the access.
For instance, I don’t care if some supposedly trusted cop can see that I drive to Starbucks everyday. OTOH, if it shows up in the local paper that I am doing it, and it can be traced back to said cop, then he and his superiors should be in fear of losing their freedom, jobs, and budgets.
I don’t care if some government spy listens to my phone calls looking for terrorists. I only care when they abuse the privilege. Put up a big nasty penalty for abuse that reflects the nastiness of the crime, and be done with it.
Virtual,
Could you explain (or link) how slippery slope is logically fallacious? I can only see that it would be fallacious if you tried to use it in a fallacious way. Not that it would be inherently so.
Landcrusher:
The Slippery Slope is a fallacy in which a person asserts that some event must inevitably follow from another without any argument for the inevitability of the event in question. In most cases, there are a series of steps or gradations between one event and the one in question and no reason is given as to why the intervening steps or gradations will simply be bypassed. This “argument” has the following form:
Event X has occurred (or will or might occur).
Therefore event Y will inevitably happen.
This sort of “reasoning” is fallacious because there is no reason to believe that one event must inevitably follow from another without an argument for such a claim. This is especially clear in cases in which there is a significant number of steps or gradations between one event and another.
Nations differ in their ideas of when and how much official intrusiveness is appropriate. In Belgium, no one cares if you do 100 mph on the expressways, as long as you don’t pass on the right. But a couple of months after my brother bought a house in Brussels, a policeman knocked on the door. He learned that upon moving into a neighborhood, it is expected that one will soon make a visit to the nearest police station and inform the cops about the new resident(s). My brother hadn’t made that visit so the policeman went to him.
In my youth, households in Kansas were visited annually by a representative of the county tax assessor to determine how much personal property to tax. Usually they stayed on the porch and just went over a questionnaire, but if you claimed to not own a refrigerator, they had the authority to go into your kitchen. I wonder how many housewives hurriedly put jewelry, silverware, etc. out of sight when they saw the assessor was at the door.
I’m all for scanning plates, running registered owner, and nabbing people with suspended D/Ls and warrants. Hell, it’s all I had to do sometimes when I was a young deputy at 2:00 AM with nothing going on. If some automated equipment could do it – why not? Safer for me to drive, and I can keep my eye out for the other things I should really be watching.
However, I would strenuously object to keeping a database of all plates scanned by the unit. Keeping track of where people go who have committed no offense is NOT law enforcement – it’s far more draconian.
I am also under no illusion that any state has a handle on the uninsured driver problem. States should have some way of verifying valid insurance in realtime, much like a DL, and they don’t. Licenses that get suspended because of no proof of insurance are done either far too little, too late, or by mistake.
States could fix the uninsured driver problem but are scared of incurring the wrath of fanatics like the ACLU. One way would be to issue or renew a tag only after proof of insurance is shown, and require return of a license tag before insurance can be cancelled. A high-tech solution would be to require cars to have RFID gizmos issued or activated by insurance companies so roadside devices could check for insured status.
require return of a license tag before insurance can be cancelled
Just not paying the premium will force it to cancel.
In Australia, the state runs the insurance company that provides the minimum required insurance. The insurance provides for medical care for those injured by auto-accidents. Property damage is not covered, so you can buy private insurance to cover that.
The premium is paid from the vehicle’s registration sticker. You can buy a 6 month or 12 month sticker.
In the US, perhaps something similar can be done. Except instead of a state run minimum insurance, the insurance companies in the state must sell insurance with minimum of 6 months pre-paid policies, and give a certificate that allows the holder to get the state registration sticker for the car.
In other words, you have always buy a minimum of 6 months of minimum coverage before you can register a car.
Good point, Blautens. This is a great system as long as they don’t keep track of the plates that are not of current interest to them. If someone doesn’t belong on the road, the police should have every resource possible to identify and remove them before they have an opportunity to crash into me and run.