The debate is whether or not we should allow the cops to keep information taken from license plates by squad cars to create a data base of license plates and their locations. The cops use of a license-plate readers (LPRs), which allow them to scan and register thousands of license plates in a matter of hours.
Yes, the same high school
graduate cops who can’t figure out when a guy has a gun in his hand are in the
business of mass surveillance technology. Scary huh?
The issue is a debate for two
reasons.
One reason is the remarkably
underhanded, secretive and arrogant behavior of the Fairfax County Police in
dealing with their nasty little habit of murdering unarmed citizens, shooting bookies
they gamble with, framing innocent school teachers and running over young women
because their too dumb to turn on their sirens while speeding through rain soaked
streets.
The other reason is that once
again the cops have failed to explain themselves to the public. And considering
the rapidly declining reputation of the Fairfax County Police, their supercilious
silence is just plain stupid.
Anyway it’s all a moot point.
The cops aren’t going to give this up without a fight because it’s not about a
license plate, it’s about power.
When the cops started recording
your plate and your location data they did it without any intention….ever… of
relinquishing that power. It’s against human nature to ever surrender power
even more so in cop-think because the very reason people join the police is to feed
their need for power and compensate for their deep sense of inferiority. Power
serves that purpose for them and they take it where they can get it and their
damn well not going to ask you for permission first.
It is fear that corrupts, not
power and the fear of the loss of power is very big deal in the minds of the
type of fear filled people who become cops. So even after the courts order the
cops to stop recording and storing this sort of information, they’ll keep doing
it anyway. They’ll either secretly disobey the law or get around the law on a
technicality.
So, aside from empowering themselves,
why does the Fairfax County Occupation Force need to track license plates of
private citizens?
According to the Washington
Post the cops need to gather the date to track stolen cars, find missing person
and in some circumstances to locate tax dodgers. All good reasons.
See? Explained in two sentences.
How hard was that?
The State Motor Vehicle Office
already has all that license plate information anyway and they don’t abuse but
that’s largely because their lazy. If you think I’m wrong, go to your local Motor
Vehicle Office for something and then get back to me.
Almost everyone …from the cops
to the ACLU….agrees that the plate storage files should be destroyed after a
specific period of time, which needs to be determined
But this is an issue mostly due
to cop’s failure…once again…. to communicate because of their insular arrogance and their “Us versus them”
mentality that keeps the cops from explaining anything to the public.
All they would have to say is “We’re
collecting the plates as a legitimate means of law enforcement. Here are the
reason we would use the information, if in fact, we ever used it at all. We’re going to destroy the information we
collect after a year”
Again…how hard was that?
