It's probably never going to happen because neither party cares about protecting Americans rights, but we need to have some sort of law that creates a Chinese firewall between these mass surveillance data and the government, or whoever else.
I don't know if you could ever collect this data and never have foreign entities or NSA moles infiltrate into it by sending their agents to work at that company and steal the data whenever they want. But I can see how this would be good at fighting crime but also a completely and absolute destruction of privacy.
We need politicians that actually care about Americans and their rights but no one who cares is dumb enough to want to go into politics, which is the sad thing.
In socal people might not even use license plates at all. Some people mask them with a towel or something like that. Some run paper dealership plates which I guess don't need to have any license number on them at all, just the dealer logo. Others just take them off and drive. I've seen plates that were sanded clean and with different numbers stuck on them that don't match then indented numbers.
And then of course all the texas plates. No, it isn't just visitors from texas. Texas has a cool loophole where there is no registration information on the plate, it is on a little sticker on the dashboard. As such, there are a dozen plus cars that have been regulars in my neighborhood for years with texas plates, with some several years old sticker on their dashboard.
It is kind of surprising that they don't get hit with a huge ticket for failing to register their car after 20 days. Some even park on the street quite brazenly. But maybe that shows how these systems are, today at least, very poorly connected between states. I've even seen a car being sold locally where the owner openly admits it was never registered or smogged, and they used it as their local neighborhood runabout just rolling the dice that they would not get pulled over. Just an aspect of the driving culture.
> Some run paper dealership plates which I guess don't need to have any license number on them at all, just the dealer logo
In California, isn't this just a normal person buying a new car? If bought from a dealership lot, a new car will run on temporary paper plates for several weeks until the permanent registration and new plate is processed. You see this all the time in CA, because CA buys a lot of new cars. There are even circumstances a used car will roll of the dealer lot with paper plates pending processing.
You can tell when it isn't a normal person buying a new car when it is your neighbor's car you see for multiple years with those "temporary" tags. I catch a lot of out of date registration too. Usually those cars are parked off street but sometimes not. I usually see about two dozen on my walks. Easy to tell at a glance when you recognize what color tag is now very stale.
Car culture sucks, but on the other hand, I'm kinda glad we don't live in such a police state that we got people going out of their way looking over our shoulders at this level of detail.
Although, this does get enforced in some places, at least. I remember on Parking Wars, PPA ticketed or maybe impounded a car that had an out of state expired registration.
Well, it directly leads to registration fees and insurance rates being higher than they would normally with everyone paying in properly. There's also air quality concerns with people not going for smog checks. So people not playing that game are getting hurt by the people who do.
I had already assumed that they were using Flock data for exactly this. I guess paying to speed the nationwide rollout makes it official and will free them from pesky courts and human rights.
Exactly. It is not that they are not already spying on all of us; they are. Or that they cannot already nail you for something. It is that they need a way to launder their evidence so that it is kosher come prosecution.
These have funny loopholes usually. For our county they have a few connected to running the red light for a busway. But notoriously the information is collected by some company out of state with no actual policing power, who then begs you to pay the ticket with a letter every couple months. You can actually ignore this if you avoid any sign of life that indicates you might have received the ticket, such as looking it up on the county ticket portal. They don't serve you or send it via certified mail. The county courts motioned years ago that they aren't enforcing these tickets. They don't affect your ability to renew your license, register your car, or insurance rates. They don't come up when you get pulled over for anything else. It is basically a scam to support the traffic ticket company out of state hoping you pay them and sustain their business model.
From a taxpayer perspective, it's such a waste to have multiple agencies doing their own unconstitutional surveillance. Why have two Ministries of Love when one would do? :)
This is the purview of the FBI. The NSA is focused on the rest of the world.
Is there overlap? Sure. But the amount of disinformation on the website about the FBI vs the NSA is comical. If anything, when people say “NSA” they really mean “CIA” and just don’t understand the difference.
Presumably it's a system that can be viewed from a phone or from dispatch remotely right? All they'd have to do is share the credentials and that's that.
It's probably never going to happen because neither party cares about protecting Americans rights, but we need to have some sort of law that creates a Chinese firewall between these mass surveillance data and the government, or whoever else.
I don't know if you could ever collect this data and never have foreign entities or NSA moles infiltrate into it by sending their agents to work at that company and steal the data whenever they want. But I can see how this would be good at fighting crime but also a completely and absolute destruction of privacy.
We need politicians that actually care about Americans and their rights but no one who cares is dumb enough to want to go into politics, which is the sad thing.
In socal people might not even use license plates at all. Some people mask them with a towel or something like that. Some run paper dealership plates which I guess don't need to have any license number on them at all, just the dealer logo. Others just take them off and drive. I've seen plates that were sanded clean and with different numbers stuck on them that don't match then indented numbers.
And then of course all the texas plates. No, it isn't just visitors from texas. Texas has a cool loophole where there is no registration information on the plate, it is on a little sticker on the dashboard. As such, there are a dozen plus cars that have been regulars in my neighborhood for years with texas plates, with some several years old sticker on their dashboard.
It is kind of surprising that they don't get hit with a huge ticket for failing to register their car after 20 days. Some even park on the street quite brazenly. But maybe that shows how these systems are, today at least, very poorly connected between states. I've even seen a car being sold locally where the owner openly admits it was never registered or smogged, and they used it as their local neighborhood runabout just rolling the dice that they would not get pulled over. Just an aspect of the driving culture.
> Some run paper dealership plates which I guess don't need to have any license number on them at all, just the dealer logo
In California, isn't this just a normal person buying a new car? If bought from a dealership lot, a new car will run on temporary paper plates for several weeks until the permanent registration and new plate is processed. You see this all the time in CA, because CA buys a lot of new cars. There are even circumstances a used car will roll of the dealer lot with paper plates pending processing.
Sometimes, yes, but some groups of people just run with temporary tags for a very long time and roll the dice.
You can tell when it isn't a normal person buying a new car when it is your neighbor's car you see for multiple years with those "temporary" tags. I catch a lot of out of date registration too. Usually those cars are parked off street but sometimes not. I usually see about two dozen on my walks. Easy to tell at a glance when you recognize what color tag is now very stale.
That isn't how it works anymore, as far as I know (it used to). The dealerships now can print paper license plates with numbers on them.
Car culture sucks, but on the other hand, I'm kinda glad we don't live in such a police state that we got people going out of their way looking over our shoulders at this level of detail.
Although, this does get enforced in some places, at least. I remember on Parking Wars, PPA ticketed or maybe impounded a car that had an out of state expired registration.
Well, it directly leads to registration fees and insurance rates being higher than they would normally with everyone paying in properly. There's also air quality concerns with people not going for smog checks. So people not playing that game are getting hurt by the people who do.
I had already assumed that they were using Flock data for exactly this. I guess paying to speed the nationwide rollout makes it official and will free them from pesky courts and human rights.
It's not that they don't have access but that they don't have legal access that they can use as leverage. Parallel construction is a pain in the ass.
Exactly. It is not that they are not already spying on all of us; they are. Or that they cannot already nail you for something. It is that they need a way to launder their evidence so that it is kosher come prosecution.
I believe technology is great but we must regulate to assure personal privacy is maintained.
I think we can’t easily choose both, because these agencies will portray it as something they need in order to help children.
They'll also need it to track down terrorists. And who determines who is a terrorist? Why, the department of justice does.
My local town runs their own license plate readers for red light and speed cameras. Not sure how the feds could get access to those.
These have funny loopholes usually. For our county they have a few connected to running the red light for a busway. But notoriously the information is collected by some company out of state with no actual policing power, who then begs you to pay the ticket with a letter every couple months. You can actually ignore this if you avoid any sign of life that indicates you might have received the ticket, such as looking it up on the county ticket portal. They don't serve you or send it via certified mail. The county courts motioned years ago that they aren't enforcing these tickets. They don't affect your ability to renew your license, register your car, or insurance rates. They don't come up when you get pulled over for anything else. It is basically a scam to support the traffic ticket company out of state hoping you pay them and sustain their business model.
The NSA would presumably have all of this.
From a taxpayer perspective, it's such a waste to have multiple agencies doing their own unconstitutional surveillance. Why have two Ministries of Love when one would do? :)
This is the purview of the FBI. The NSA is focused on the rest of the world.
Is there overlap? Sure. But the amount of disinformation on the website about the FBI vs the NSA is comical. If anything, when people say “NSA” they really mean “CIA” and just don’t understand the difference.
Presumably it's a system that can be viewed from a phone or from dispatch remotely right? All they'd have to do is share the credentials and that's that.
It already goes to your local DHS Fusion Center.
By offering money?
Or withholding money (grants).
Does anyone sell am eInk display that's 12"x6"? Doesn't have to be color, though bonus points for that...
Something like this? https://reviver.com/