They know your deepest, secret, fear.
 

Well, maybe they don't know that, but they sure know how to get most peoples attention....... take your car.

For most of us, having the "authorities" take your car is a monumental hassle. When that happens, the best case scenario is, it's going to cost you plenty. Worst case could go much further than most people even want to contemplate.

A company called G2tactics has come up with a gadget that looks like a radar gun, but it reads license plate numbers and checks it against any database, automatically.
So mounted on a police car, it will be checking every car within range, while the cop goes about his business. If a plate shows up as stolen or registered to someone that has outstanding tickets/warrant, the thing will alert the cop.

That don't sound so bad, to an upstanding citizen.... more police efficiency for our tax bucks...right on.

Wrong on.
G2tactics says, "Our customers are law enforcement, parking enforcement, tax enforcement, asset protection, special investigations, and fleet management."
Wait a minute... fleet management? Asset protection and special investigations by whom?

Wired News says; So, Big Brother is watching, so what? I'm not a terrorist or a criminal.
Maybe. Maybe not.But it doesn't really matter.Maybe this should go in the WTF thread. :rar:

So...you bolted a plate with an identifying number on your car, but you're just kinda hoping nobody reads it?

tee hee maggie


ok but what about global positioning units? http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/11/1136.asp

Those handy dandy grocery discount cards? http://couponing.about.com/od/grocer.../disccards.htm

or even that law that allows the Federal Government access to your SS number when you apply for a credit card?

Big brother dosn't bother me. I know my life is boring so if someone wants to watch they'll be snoring in their coffee soon enough. As for me I perhaps feel like I have some mark on this world. If even contributing to the american deficit with my money problems. I won't be a total unknown as I push up my daisys one day.

The only thing that does bother me is having things on ones credit report that either don't belong to you and you can't see what they are. You only get hints from creditors. Like they SAY there is this or that so they can either collect more money or raise your interest rate. something like that.

When they finally, once and for all, come to take your guns, you can pretty much declare the totalitarian overthrow of our nation complete. All Hail Big Oil! All Hail Wall Street! All Hail the Mighty Corporate Masters!

Its all about the money.

hmmm "ChoicePoint" - we all know how accurate their work is.

That truely is WTF...so pretty soon if you bounce a check you should be prepared to walk out of your house one morning to go to work only to find that your car has been towed and you owe $1,000 in fees and fines for a $30 bounced check...nice.

According to some who worship on the alter of Ayn Rand, that is exactly correct. You did, after all, bounce that check which shows irresponsibility, lack of character, an inability to read and understand your responsibility and duty to your bank, checkbook, financial institution and mankind in general and probably a burgeoning criminal mind set on your part. Because of these deal-breaker personality faults, along with some unsavory library book selections you made while in college: all knowledge gleaned from your license plate, by the way (and, after all, YOU did put that license plate on your car, didn't you?) you have your choice of the following: Death by firing squad (don't worry, I hear some cellarites are very good shots) OR trial by water---a somewhat quaint practice that we are now resurrecting and we think you will enjoy!

Who says the system doesn't work! It's glorious!

Not that I mind exactly, because I work at a bank and know how annoying it is for people to write checks when they have no money in their account...I guess I was just saying how backwards the system seems to be. If I did plan on taking care of my bank account, how would it be possible after I ended up paying to get my car back plus the rest of the fees I would end up owing after it was all said and done? Although I doubt it would add up to being $1000 like I exaggerated above. Not to mention the fact that after one's account is negative for a certain time they get charged off and can no longer open a bank account anywhere. How do they expect people to hold their heads above water? I guess it doesn't matter...if they get their money. I hate money. I hate that the world revolves around it and defines you by it. I hate the fact that I barely make enough to pay for rent, to pay for school, and to pay to live on a daily basis...but they have enough to spend billions of dollars on matters that don't even affect us...or affect us in ways that only cause us to have more taken out of our paychecks for taxes, etc. I'm proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm free, and I won't forget the men who died, or the government who took my money from me.

Isn't there something about the punishment fitting the crime?

Towing your car for an overdue library book seems harsh to you? You must be soft on crime.

Not to mention secure.

So, you got all those little problems cleared up then.

Maybe you shouldn't write checks you can't cover?

But if not, I doubt there's a bank on the planet that wouldn't be delighted to sell you bounced-check protection...but you won't get it free.

Oh, even better. You'd be surprised.

I doubt very much that speed enforcement is what the cabbies are worried about. They just don't want their company to know in real time when they're not where they're supposed to be.

I've always liked the comedic take on this sort of thing...namely, the fact that, when you bounce a check, they charge you for more of what they know you don't have in the first place.

Business is paradoxical that way. Got millions? Then you can get a 2% loan on large ticket item purchases. Stone broke? Then your rate is 20%.

It may make business sense, but it doesn't make a lot of sense.

It could quite easily cost you a grand around here. If they grab it on Friday and you can't get it until Monday.

If you don't know it was towed, and not stolen, it could take days or weeks to just find out where it went. If you report it stolen the cops should be able to cross check and discover it was towed, easily. But that doesn't happen in reality, because interdepartmental information exchange is poor at best.

Towing your car without notice for an overdue book or tax is stupid, but Florida grabbing your car, just because you have been accused, not convicted, of a misdemeanor, just boggles my mind.
How can that possibly be Constitutional? :headshake

Haven't you heard? There is no Constitution anymore. It's like the road blocks they put up around here sometimes. They say it is Constitutional because they pick, say, every 5 cars...so that somehow makes it "random" and therefore is not entrapment. Pffft.

I think they should just wait outside bars and gun you down for walking out of one. That will show those social animals a thing or two. I'm sure it will make them think twice about that second Smirnoff Grape. :rolleyes:

My point exactly. Hey, you break the law, you pay. I say, guilty until proven innocent and simply looking guilty is proof enough. Also, people who are mindless enough to forget to return library books or to bounce a check every five years or so are showing a pattern of escalating criminal behavior and it's better for ME if they are simply out of society for good.

:thumb: You said it! :rotflol:

Funny thing here in Florida...an awful lot of the confiscated cars seem to be be Porsches, Corvettes, Mercedes, Lexus, and Hummers. Or maybe I'm just jaded. A few (very dated) statistics on forfeiture:

I, personally, have nothing to hide but the erosion of our constitutional rights as given in the 5th and 14th amendments is frightening.

Stormie

Huh? I wonder if this is because the owners fled before they could be nailed?
Can't be plea bargaining before they were charged, can it?
Maybe an employee, relative, or friend of the owner was charged?
:confused:

Also, it's not quite as strong a statement as it appears to be:

In 80% of cases, the property owner is never charged with a crime.
"Usually" in these cases, so we'll say 51%, the government ends up keeping the property. The rest of the time they don't.

Or the process to reclaim property from the police is completely nonfunctional, and the stuff gets auctioned off before anyone even looks at your forms signed in triplicate.

I disagree. What can be a stronger statement than the government seizing private property without due process.
That flies in the face of the constitution and the entire legal system.
The sanctity of private property is the very foundation of the United States and our freedoms. :eek:

Why would you have to reclaim property from the police? Were not talking about lost and found umbrellas, are we?
The only case I can think of is weapons surrendered under a protection order but wouldn't you have to be charged to obtain an order? Maybe not? And that's surrendered not seized, but that's semantics I guess. :(

I'm totally in agreement with you Bruce, I just thought that the statistic was worded in a deliberately confusing way. And I think that the reason behind most of the never-reclaimed property is of the type you suggested,

rather than red tape and triplicate forms holding people back.

Yeah, I suppose if they seized my Luv-Ewe, I might just let it go. :redface:

Maybe they decided it was eminent domain!:rolleyes:

With the "it's ok to shoot somebody if you feel threatened" law in FLA, I wonder how many impoundment contractors will be killed. YeeeeeHaaaaa!:shotgun:

Example of an asset being involved in forfeiture:

State vs One Thousand Two Hundred Sixy Seven Dollars

http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/index.php/Forfeiture

This is one of the most abused functions of the police and courts. The CAFRA Act of 2000 is supposed to curb some of the abuse, but the forfeiture laws still tilt heavily towards the police/courts.


Stormie

I pity the poor schmuck that tries to repo something from my family, bad idea.
Better idea just to ask us to take care of the books or check.

Still itching to shoot a cop? Better make sure it's not just somebody who wants to use your soup kitchen.

No... I don't want to shoot anyone, ever.
But, our garage in the house we will be in next will be in the house, plus we will be in a gated yard with dogs. Harming my dog then breaking into my home means you are there to harm my family. There is no other safe assumption. Especially if you did not use the call button at the gate.

So...you should only be charged for things if you have money? I'm going about this all wrong, then.

Actually they don't know how much money you have. They only know how much you're letting them keep for you.

So from within your gated complex you sneer at the "mean-spirited Republican" folks in Las Vegas trying to get the mobile soup kitchen out of their park?

Nice.

A fenced in yard becomes a gated complex. :rolleyes:

He said it was gated, and has alluded to its fortress-like qualities in a previous thread. Do you really believe the fence doesn't enclose the house and garage as well as the guard dogs?

Look, there's nothing wrong with that per se...I'd love to be able to afford to fence this place properly, but I don't like dogs all that much. But held up against all the 'tude about the "mean-spritied Republicans" who don't wanna share their park in the other thread it's more than a little ironic.

Maybe he's just trying to keep out the repubicans. :p

"We have met the enemy, and he is us." --Pogo Possum

White Paper

July 17, 2006
Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids in America

by Radley Balko

Radley Balko is a policy analyst specializing in civil liberties issues and is the author of the Cato study, "Back Door to Prohibition: The New War on Social Drinking."

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=6476

Executive Summary

Americans have long maintained that a man’s home is his castle and that he has the right to defend it from unlawful intruders. Unfortunately, that right may be disappearing. Over the last 25 years, America has seen a disturbing militarization of its civilian law enforcement, along with a dramatic and unsettling rise in the use of paramilitary police units (most commonly called Special Weapons and Tactics, or SWAT) for routine police work. The most common use of SWAT teams today is to serve narcotics warrants, usually with forced, unannounced entry into the home.

These increasingly frequent raids, 40,000 per year by one estimate, are needlessly subjecting nonviolent drug offenders, bystanders, and wrongly targeted civilians to the terror of having their homes invaded while they’re sleeping, usually by teams of heavily armed paramilitary units dressed not as police officers but as soldiers. These raids bring unnecessary violence and provocation to nonviolent drug offenders, many of whom were guilty of only misdemeanors. The raids terrorize innocents when police mistakenly target the wrong residence. And they have resulted in dozens of needless deaths and injuries, not only of drug offenders, but also of police officers, children, bystanders, and innocent suspects.

This paper presents a history and overview of the issue of paramilitary drug raids, provides an extensive catalogue of abuses and mistaken raids, and offers recommendations for reform.