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The Age of ‘Pre-Crime’ has Arrived

posted by martyb on Wednesday December 02 2015, @05:35PM   
from the you're-kidding,-right? dept.

AndyTheAbsurd writes:

Los Angeles City Council is considering sending "Dear John" letters to the registrants of cars seen in an area of San Fernando described as having a "thriving street prostitution problem". The plan would use automated license plate readers to identify vehicles that stopped in the area. Council member Nury Martinez claims "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."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2015/12/01/the-age-of-pre-crime-has-arrived/

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Original Submission

• Re:Even Sweden didn't go thru with this. Re:Even Sweden didn't go thru with this. (Score: 4, Interesting) by K_benzoate on Wednesday December 02 2015, @08:54PM

  by K_benzoate (5036) on Wednesday December 02 2015, @08:54PM (#270912)

  Sweden's prostitution laws seem incredibly insulting to women especially. It is based on the idea that women shouldn't or can't be held responsible for their side of the interaction. It's refusing to treat them as equal adult humans out of some misguided and flawed interpretation of feminism. But this is Sweden so I'm not surprised. It's the country whose Foreign Minister (Margot Wallström) announced that they would have security and foreign policy based on feminism. [newyorker.com] Sweden is also the country that lightens the skin of criminals before pixelating their faces for broadcast because they believe showing black criminals is racist.

  Sending shaming letters is incredibly ill-conceived on many levels. Since it's just based on geography in this case, it WILL have false-positives. And although there are technically no damages done in a strictly legal sense, it could cause all sorts of problems socially for wrongfully accused individuals. Woe to the husband whose car breaks down in that neighborhood and has to explain to his wife why he got that letter.

  You wouldn't see these sorts of things proposed if it wasn't assumed (probably rightly) that the vast majority of people buying sex will be men.

  --
  Climate change is real and primarily caused by human activity.

  Parent

  Starting Score:	1		point
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• Re:Even Sweden didn't go thru with this. (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 03 2015, @09:03AM

  by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 03 2015, @09:03AM (#271261)

  It's the country whose Foreign Minister (Margot Wallström) announced that they would have security and foreign policy based on feminism.

  So basically, only go against terrorism that threats women? :-)

  Parent