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;
Quote:
Bucholz, who designed some of the first mobile license plate reading, or LPR, equipment, gave a presentation at the 2006 National Institute of Justice conference here last week laying out a vision of the future in which LPR does everything from helping insurance companies find missing cars to letting retail chains chart customer migrations. It could also let a nosy citizen with enough cash find out if the mayor is having an affair, he says.
Giant data-tracking firms such as ChoicePoint, Accurint and Acxiom already collect detailed personal and financial information on millions of Americans. Once they discover how lucrative it is to know where a person goes between the supermarket, for example, and the strip club, the LPR industry could explode, says Bucholz.
Private detectives would want the information. So would repo men or bail bondsmen. And the government, which often contracts out personal data collection -- in part, so it doesn't have to deal with Freedom of Information Act requests -- might encourage it.
"I know it sounds really Big Brother," Bucholz says. "But it's going to happen. It's going to get cheaper and cheaper until they slap them up on every taxicab and delivery truck and track where people live." And work. And sleep. And move.
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So, Big Brother is watching, so what? I'm not a terrorist or a criminal.
Maybe.
Quote:
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Kathy Martone of New Haven owed just $85 in taxes when the city -- without warning -- confiscated her Dodge Neon right out of her driveway while she was doing the dishes last week.
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Maybe not.
Quote:
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Arlington, VA Uses Bootfinder Camera to Tow for Overdue Library Books
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But it doesn't really matter.
Quote:
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The Florida Supreme Court allows cities to enact ordinances allowing seizure of vehicles belonging to those accused, not convicted, of misdemeanors.
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Maybe this should go in the WTF thread.
