L.A. Politician Proposes Bold Plan To Wreck Homes, Destroy Lives And Abuse License Plate Reader Technology
from the conversely,-the-government-is-able-to-fuck-you-free-of-charge dept
Nick Selby says an LA councilwoman has just proposed "the worst use of license plate data in history." He's not lying.
Automatic license plate readers gather tons of plate/location data, which can then be used for law enforcement purposes (when not being sold to, or by, private entities to insurance companies, repossession firms, etc.). The plate/location data may help recover stolen vehicles or track mobile criminals, but they also create massive databases of people's movements. This can create a chilling effect on motorists, as someone said to Selby at a surveillance-focused conference.
“The issue is the potentially chilling effect that this technology has on freedom of association and freedom of transportation.”Cue chilling effect.
That’s literally the phrase that leapt into my mind when I read the monumentally over-reaching idea posed by Nury Martinez, a 6th district Los Angeles city councilwoman, to access a database of license plates captured in certain places around the city, translate these license plates to obtain the name and address of each owner, and send to that owner a letter explaining that the vehicle was seen in, “an area known for prostitution.”This should create some additional household friction in the Los Angeles area. There's nothing like a letter from the city informing a vehicle owner that their car was spotted in an area known for prostitution, with the underlying assumption that the only reason a vehicle would be in these areas is because the driver was looking to exchange money for sexual favors.
Martinez says the non-guilty have nothing to worry about, because she's an idiot.
Councilwoman Martinez feels that prostitution is not a “victimless” crime, and that by discouraging johns, the incidence of the crime can be reduced. Martinez told CBS Los Angeles, “If you aren’t soliciting, you have no reason to worry about finding one of these letters in your mailbox. But if you are, these letters will discourage you from returning. Soliciting for sex in our neighborhoods is not OK.”There are plenty of legitimate reasons for someone to be in an area law enforcement has determined is "known for solicitation." Many drivers live or work in areas "known for prostitution." Many other drivers may have to drive through areas "known for prostitution" to shop, go to work, or just get to the nearest freeway entrance ramp. So, there are plenty of reasons to "worry" about being falsely labelled as a john by the city. And it won't be the city that has to deal with the fallout. It will be the families that are destroyed by Martinez's horrifically misguided proposal.
Even if innocent drivers toss the letters before they do any damage to their personal relationships, each letter generated from this abuse of technology meant to aid police in locating stolen vehicles and/or dangerous criminals will create a public record that can be requested and published by nearly anyone. So, even if a person throws the letter in the garbage after receiving it, someone else could make this information public -- threatening personal relationships, damaging reputations and possibly costing people their jobs. And all because their vehicle happened to be in an arbitrarily "wrong place" at the wrong time.
Selby reports the city council is currently working with the district attorney to see how -- or if -- this can be implemented. Hopefully, someone more aware of the legal ramifications of this proposal will shut it down before it does any damage.
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Filed Under: alpr, letters, license plate readers, los angeles, nury martinez, prostitution
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and this will reinforce the more equal pigs problem
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or will they all be included in the do not harrash list too?
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It's the price we pay for living in a civilised society. Besides, slaves are property so don't pay tax themselves.
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That's like saying Chicago has a gun problem. No, it has a gang problem.
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After all if she's not guilty of taking bribes from, oh let's say, various license plate reader companies to get their readers into wider use, then a letter all but accusing her of doing so shouldn't cause her any problems, or bug her in the least, right?
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don't go in for too many 'me too' posts, but that was spot on...
i LOVE taking someone's own (purported) values and turning the tables on them, as you so ably did there...
bravo, sir/lady poster, well done indeed...
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It must be true.
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http://i3.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/012/132/thatsthejoke.jpg
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You'd still send the owner a letter explaining that the vehicle was seen in "an area known for prostitution." Except that you're accusing the owner of being a "top lobbyist."
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It's the law that makes the *prostitute* the victim. Now, given how thoroughly every politician (such as a councilwoman) prostitutes him- or herself every day... well, I guess that makes all of us their victims. Yeah, that's all bassackwards.
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Hmmm, maybe we should term that as renting rather than selling.
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It is shed when you start the profession. A lot less of those items are sacrificed on the job than the sales offers would suggest.
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and voluntarily trade sexual favors in exchange for other favors
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Yup, it's the law. It has nothing to do with kidnapping, human trafficking, blackmail, paying down "debts" related to illegal immigration, or needing a way--any way--to support a drug habit; all of those women are just ordinary citizens trying to make an honest living degrading themselves of their own free will and choice. And they would have gotten away with it, too, if it hadn't been for those pesky legislators and their laws!
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Of course that issue is endemic to vice laws and the subsequent stubborn refusal to see when a law has failed.
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Ahem...most of us who work for a living in a legitimate job or industry (though I'd certainly argue that prostitution should be considered a legitimate industry if done correctly,) could be doing the same. Ask anyone standing near a Home Depot looking for a job, or ask the many people working under the table in construction, agriculture, and domestic services industries where their money is going, and I suspect you'll find they are doing the same.
Hell, I am using my paycheck to pay off my debts too. What's to say that one or more of these debts may be illegal too (though they certainly weren't when I took them on,) just because some politician somewhere felt that they should get more of the pie in order to make the system more fair for others?
I get it, let's make working illegal, and send everyone to jail because someone somewhere may be using their paycheck to do something illegal.
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It destroyed nearly all of the corruption (mostly police interestingly) and allowed the sex workers to have complete empowerment of themselves.
Oh and it annoyed the crap out of the religious twits.. BONUS!!!
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Citation needed.
Or do you have some personal experience you would like to share?
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Every time I've tried to have that conversation with someone who is active in the sex trade I get a tirade of abuse, not a straight answer. I don't all defensive about my occupation when asked what's involved and what the risks are. A job like any other? I think not.
If you have to ignore uncomfortable realities to promote your point of view, you're not going to win me over. This principle applies to the other things I tend to get into arguments about.
While I emphatically don't approve of prostitution as a career choice I've been persuaded by the facts that the most pragmatic solution to a demand-driven problem is to tax and regulate it. Let's face it, prohibition isn't working and we can't just ignore it. Better to manage it and keep it under control.
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and their job descriptions tend to be pretty similar
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Your tropes do not stand up to actual reality, and nearly every single one of them has been destroyed by factual data from real life examples that are currently operating in a HUGE amount of countries world wide.
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More "exotic" items would, however, remain available on the black market since where there is demand, supply will rise to meet it. So yeah, the black market would reduce to "only" include kids and people willing to work without using condoms, etc., because we couldn't reasonably make that legal.
I see no value in continuing the status quo, and if you don't either, what's your solution?
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Instead of muddying the issue, just state that prostitution is a social offense, and its overt existence is an offense to some people because it reveals a face of humanity that many would rather not address. And on the other side, the victims are everyone who enables it, not just those who sell their bodies.
Personally, I'd be much happier with a law that made it illegal to profit off of someone else's consentual sex. But that would be even harder to police than what we've got right now.
Maybe the route to go for those who want to be prostitutes is to re-name themselves lobbyists and accept lobbying instead of cash. Sexual favors are then just standard adult consensual behavior again.
Of course, this doesn't do anything about the drug addiction angle, which isn't really about prostitution at all -- they could be abused for anything else, such as being a money mule, building bridges, cheating on the stock exchange, selling body parts/eggs, or any of the other things that *men* generally end up debasing themselves at to get the cash to pay off their drug habit.
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That sounds like a few jobs I've done in the past, some of which I found after a while were far more degrading, working for far less reputable people, and getting paid far less than prostitutes do. I found myself envying them at times.
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It seems the USA criminalising the industry is the problem.
But hey what do I know, I only consult and volunteer pro-bono to a fair amount of sex workers and their industry organisations.
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I was listening to a "public service program" on the radio the other morning about human trafficking of teenage girls. One example they gave to "educate the public" was that of teenage girls who have sex with their boyfriends as a result of peer pressure from other teenage girls.
I guess if you define it broadly enough, almost any sex act can be a form of "human trafficking". Educate yourself, indeed.
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Gee, just like the same pressure teenage boys are under from their peers to "get laid." Just sayin'.
How about we give them both a little education, explain what their hormones are doing to them at that age and what they can do about that, supply them with contraceptives, then butt out?
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Great Way To Motivate Mass Transit and Bicycling
Also, I just like to know where everybody has been because I am a humongous busybody. But, that is another story....
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Wait until you pass a school zone...
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Excellent idea
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Re: Excellent idea
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It is about time for a lawsuit
The supreme court ruled that using a GPS mounted on a car is invasion of privacy and the violation of the 4th amendment, this is not a far leap.
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“an area known for prostitution”
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it is not only the Dickpic program you know?
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The reason I ask is that ALPR units will naturally get smaller and cheaper, and more and more of them can be set up by city governments. Link 'em to a central database, and throw in private ALPR data to boot. The result is pretty obvious: as the density of ALPRs approaches infinity (or distance between ALPR units goes to zero), the resolution of the path followed by any individual car becomes indistinguishable from that generated by a hi-rez GPS transmitter.
Shouldn't ALPR data be at least as restricted as cell tower data? Not that the restrictions on cellular records are all that good in the first place...
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My understanding is yes, as the law stands such a requirement can be made since driving is a privilege granted by the state. Whether or not it would survive a constitutional argument in court is an unknown.
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I feel like I am the only one in the world that believes driving is a right and not a privilege.
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Self driving cars would be a tenable rights situation.
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No need to tag vehicles with GPS. It's expensive and obvious. Mobile phones are much easier, given that they're nearly ubiquitous and generally speaking are carried voluntarily. You also get far better granularity at the mobile-device level than you do the vehicle level.
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The government can't (yet) require us to carry phones, and I wasn't going for a dystopian future scenario where it does. I was just projecting the use of an existing tech (cameras) to track an existing, legally required ID (plate number), and how it could approximate more obviously questionable methods of mass surveillance.
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I don't see why not if it can require people to wear GPS tracking bracelets.
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I'm assuming that our courts would naturally decide to err on the side of 'fewer rights' rather than more, but it was kind of interesting to ponder. (Weird little things, like the idea that a warrant could be necessary to track one car, but not to track every car.)
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Remember, a warrant is only necessary if you want to use that evidence in court. However, if you just use it to fish for offenders, then follow up with an investigation which finds other evidence on said offender, you need never mention the original warrantless search. It's sort of like parallel reconstruction, but even cleaner looking.
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Today's plan
2. Use computer and decent-quality printer to produce replicas of them.
3. Drive to outskirts of KNOWN PROSTITUTION AREA (TM).
4. Tape a replica over real plate.
5. Drive through KNOWN PROSTITUTION AREA (TM).
6. Stop at outskirts, remove replica, and discard in nearest recycling bin.
7. Tomorrow, return to step 3.
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Re: Today's plan
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or just 132 bullets
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What the honkers?
Helping unsuspecting citizens avoid driving through areas where they are in danger of having to gouge out their eyes and cast them away rather than be led into temptation by them?
Or what? Is this supposed to be the equivalent of a polite "Dear Sir! I could not help noticing two days ago on Elm Street that your fly was open. In case you are still up and wearing the same trousers, I would strongly suggest that you either go to sleep right away or, in case that you are undead, rezip your fly before bats fly out."?
As a warning, this cannot reasonably arrive timely. The only workable purpose is as a harrassment. And if anybody wanted to get harrassed, he could solicit for it more directly.
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Re: What the honkers?
The primary purpose of the vast majority of laws has nothing to do with getting people to follow them, and everything to do with making sure people don't (and occasionally can't) follow them. A nation of law-abiding people provides no benefit to the bureaucrats, judges, lawyers, politicians and police officers whose primary duties consist of creating and enforcing laws. On the other hand, create a system where laws cannot be followed, enforced or clearly interpreted, and every one of these people can then cash in on guilt (whether actual or imagined).
Thus, this policy, which serves to create imagined guilt where none existed before to the clear benefit of the listed parties.
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Seems to me the value of the proposal is very limited for fighting crime, but pretty nice for organized crime if they gain access. Sounds like a good way to help criminals to me.
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I can easily imagine the same (or similar) being true in other cities, including the good councilwoman's. Heaven forbid anybody actually have to drive through these places for legitimate reasons!
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Our main facility was in the middle of the downtown area red zone, and you couldn't get food delivered after dark. Prostitution, drug houses, doc shops, and all kinds of illicit businesses literally surrounded our building. It was not uncommon for our night-shift operators to be pulled over on the suspicion that they were looking to buy any number of illegal items.
I'd have gotten a minimum of 2 letters a day in the mail under this program. More if I needed to travel to any of our secondary/overflow facilities during a given shift.
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Instant city revenue.
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Yeah, sure. We know why you really go there.
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“an area known for prostitution.”
Now if she's talking about strip clubs and massage parlors: every one that I've seen (and yes I've patronized a few) have surveillance cameras outside looking out. Thus nobody can approach one without being on camera.
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Re: “an area known for prostitution.”
dunno how much you travel, but there are informally identified "no-go" areas in every major city I've ever been in. They're easy to spot (and hence avoid) if you know what to look for, and the locals always know where they are, but you won't find them on maps.
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So what she's proposing, really, is...
1) drive around town
2) wait for letters to arrive
3) go back to the areas listed
4) score!
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Now I know why: you only want to be seen leaving.
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Technology should take blame
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she said her car wouldn't start and she had quite a walk back to her home. would i mind dropping her off there? i was in no hurry and said i wouldn't mind at all.
on the drive she explained she was short of cash and worried about paying for fixing her car. could she do anything for me in return for a little cash?
no.
we drove on a way in silence until we were to where she wanted out. she then explained she really needed $8 and wanted to talk about it. i fished out 8 bucks just to get her out of the car.
now, how would my free man's record look today if these assholes running this stuff we're out of their diapers back then. i shudder to think of living in this man-made hell-hole these creeps are harking up.
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Know-Nothing Nitwitt in Wonderland
After the LA city council enacts council woman Nury Martinez's boondoggle of a delusion into law the council should move on to other pressing city business such as voting to set aside funding for the purchase of another of Nury's delusions a pretty pink pony.
Every council woman needs a pretty pink pony like every commuter needs a Dear John letter in the mail.
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Stupid is as stupid does.
No, I don't think so, for all the reasons you stated. Nobody is going to take this sort of "tattle taling" seriously. It's just a very silly and misguided "idea" which should be laughed at by everyone. The fact that council is seriously studying this proposition (pun intended) does not speak well of them.
Perhaps a better idea would be placing a CCTV camera across the street from some of the better hotels in town, thereby allowing them to tattle tale on the high class call girls'/guys' clientèle, such as her fellow council members? That sort of hearsay dirt could be used constructively, such as when it shows up on TV during election campaigns.
If I were a journalist, I'd be looking for things like this from politicians as red flags. Anyone proposing such things would get 24 hour surveillance. "Lets find out what she's been up to, shall we?"
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Re: Stupid is as stupid does.
Really;
They have just had an argument and such a letter arrives......
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Oh look, she is a Democrat
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Re: Oh look, she is a Democrat
Really? This sort of Puritanistic BS is usually a Republican trait. Hmm, maybe there's no longer any fucking difference to speak of between them and they're both reprehensible trash.
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No she isn't. The chilling effect is clearly the intended outcome. She even claims as much.
When people in power (business or government) propose something wild and problematic like this, a common reaction is to claim that this must be due to that person's ignorance or stupidity. The wilder the proposal, the more it makes the person look "stupid'.
In normal social interaction, Hanlon's razor is a useful heuristic. When all else is equal, blaming stupidity is useful because stupidity is common.
That changes when power is involved, because all else is not equal. These people have an agenda. Ignore that agenda at your own peril.
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What goes around...
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Re: What goes around...
Remember, 'One law for you, another for me'.
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Whore-Busters
When one of my friends was finally old enough to get a drivers license, we'd all pile in his car and head downtown for some cheap sightseeing. All the shops closed by 6PM, and after that the hookers came out on some side roads off Mainstreet, on the outer edge of the ghetto. His father's car was a Chevrolet Caprice, a model which at the time was commonly used by police. Apparently the sight of 2, 3, or 4 guys (never mind that the oldest was only 16) sitting in a police-type car stopped on the side of the road somehow didn't fit in with the normal nighttime ambience of downtown, a place where male visitors always entered alone (but seldom left that way). Because after we arrived and parked in a good vantage point, cars would no longer stop for the ladies (or if any did stop, they tended to quickly leave empty-handed) and the hookers would usually end up walking away after a short time of our arrival.
It was a cheap form of entertainment for a bunch of guys who were not even old enough to work at McDonald's. But the party didn't last long. Later that year police suddenly started patroling those streets in force, and the hookers disappeared for good.
Of all the things that ever happened to us, such as getting stopped by police for no reason, car searched, etc, getting a letter in the mail would have been far, far worse, as none of our parents had any idea of the things we got up to in those mischievous high school days. And my friend with the car would have had a devil of a time trying to explain to his ultra-strict parents -- who were old-school Southern racists-- what the hell he was doing stopping in the 'dark' side of town anyway.
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Re: Whore-Busters
wait for the letters
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So...
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Easy fix
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