Posted on 09/29/2012 9:56:28 AM PDT by Theoria
For more than two years, the police in San Leandro, Calif., photographed Mike Katz-Lacabe's Toyota Tercel almost weekly. They have shots of it cruising along Estudillo Avenue near the library, parked at his friend's house and near a coffee shop he likes. In one case, they snapped a photo of him and his two daughters getting out of a car in his driveway.
Mr. Katz-Lacabe isn't charged with, or suspected of, any crime. Local police are tracking his vehicle automatically, using cameras mounted on a patrol car that record every nearby vehicle—license plate, time and location.
"Why are they keeping all this data?" says Mr. Katz-Lacabe, who obtained the photos of his car through a public-records request. "I've done nothing wrong."
Until recently it was far too expensive for police to track the locations of innocent people such as Mr. Katz-Lacabe. But as surveillance technologies decline in cost and grow in sophistication, police are rapidly adopting them. Private companies are joining, too. At least two start-up companies, both founded by "repo men"—specialists in repossessing cars or property from deadbeats—are currently deploying camera-equipped cars nationwide to photograph people's license plates, hoping to profit from the data they collect.
The rise of license-plate tracking is a case study in how storing and studying people's everyday activities, even the seemingly mundane, has become the default rather than the exception. Cellphone-location data, online searches, credit-card purchases, social-network comments and more are gathered, mixed-and-matched, and stored in vast databases.
Data about a typical American is collected in more than 20 different ways during everyday activities, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Effective in Feb, 2013, there will be NO more toll takers on the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.
Everyone must pay electronically.
IF you go thru & don’t pay- they will take a photo of your license plate & send you a ticket—takes about 11 months to get that ticket.
I ask- what re they going to do with rental cars & the high convention trade they work so hard to garner in SF?
How about tourists? You must find one of their ‘bridge pass’ sales places in the city to buy your ticket before you go over the bridge.
I have crossed that bridge towing a 2 horse trailer to go to a N Calif ride. I paid for my toll. I cannot even think about trying to find a parking place for my truck & 2 horse trailer in the narrow SF streets to buy a ticket ahead of time.
Even in my car—screw it.
I will never go there again.
I’ve been here a time or two to survey systems being exported. They re the best in the business
When the bailout money was passed out my county put cameras on EVERY street corner. I don’t think many, or ANY, jobs were created but you get your picture taken about 200 times a day! My opinion is that this is a gross violation of the 4th Amendment! Of course the 0bama regime has declared The Constitution null and void and congress and the courts can’t be bothered to stop the emperor!
The NSA, CIA, FBI, DIA have used these and similar techniques for many years.
Look how well they applied the data and their skills, preventing 9/11/2001. Impressed yet?
I have had a Social Security number for 50 years, credit cards for 45 years, the same phone number for 41 years, my property ownership records have been public for 38 years, etc.
These and several other factors apply to each of us.
I don’t fear a roadside camera. I fear governments big enough to deploy resources aimed beyond criminals, to law-abiding citizens.
Currently we have governments too stupid to prevent known muslim terrorists from flying right into and out of major airports, obtaining driver licenses, getting officer commissions in the US Army, etc.
It is.
Consider this the next time you have to deal with the DMV. The department was originally conceived and sold to the voters as a regester of vehicles and their owners to make proof of ownership easier to determine. Now you spend days dealing with thousands of arcane regulations and endless forms, inspections and even weather or not the aroma of your car's exhaust is acceptable to a bureaucrat in a far distant city that you have never voted for or even known of.
When you get your mind around all of the personal information collected by the DMV consider the personal information collected by other agencies especially the IRS and you will begin to see the true purpose of such agencies is not to do what they were proposed to do but to find out what you the vassal of the rulers is doing in your so called private life.
(Rant off)
Catch evildoers? Forget it. In South Florida these cameras are used primarily to generate a revenue stream from law-abiding citizens who don’t come to a FULL stop at intersections.
Do a patent on your idea right away. The difference in brightness of the plate might not be noticable and if the camera shutter is slowed down to capture two frames of your plate, the motion of your vehicle would blur the numbers.
Excellent idea!
The surveillance genie is out of the bottle and can’t be put back in.
All we can do now is behave as the East Germans did under communist rule. Understand that every last move we make in public and many in what we expect to be private are recorded and try to keep from doing anything that draws attention to ourselves.
Our purchases are monitored, our travel is monitored, our communications are monitored, our associations and affiliations are known and cataloged and all of this information is available to the Stasi at the stroke of a few keys. And it is simplicity itself to find some unbeknownst to you law you’re not even aware you’ve broken to have you hauled in on a whim.
Frightening to say the least. And this time, there won’t be a Ronald Reagan to effectively break the back of OUR overlords.
Exactly, and despite the circumstances, you have no chance with the judge to contest any ticket. I got a cover for my license plate and I’m sure it has helped.
In many states that’s illegal because it cuts off a huge source of revenue....traffic light ticket-cams.
Although in PA you only have to have a rear plate.....
Get your digital camera and a tv remote and see for yourself.
Brilliant Idea!
Traffic violators do.
I just took a picture of the remote's IR transmitter while holding down the volume up button and it did not show anything. Also where do you get IR bulbs strong enough to affect cameras when placed in sequence?
Welcome to the USSA, comrades.
You must learn to love Big Sister.
Comrade, that would be a felony of some sort if you tried.
Anyway, comrade, what are you trying to hide, if you are not a criminal?
(Excluding FR, right?)
Surveillance State ping.
Gwinnett County is a major suburban ATL-area county. They have a ton of cars with the external cameras mounted on the trunk. It is really, really obvious.
And I now see I’m about 30 minutes slow on that ping.
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