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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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The Age of ‘Pre-Crime’ has Arrived
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Don't believe everything you hear or anything you say.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Wednesday December 02 2015, @05:43PM
Think how happy the local businessmen must be to hear this. I bet the politicians will have an impressive wave of donations. Or maybe not.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by edIII on Wednesday December 02 2015, @08:31PM
Probably not. It's incredibly stupid to begin with, attempting to use shame. It requires one to be subject to it (I'm not personally myself), and also assumes every john has a girlfriend or wife at home. I'm sure some working stiff without a GF cares anymore about a letter saying he was with a prostitute anymore than he cares about the package from Amazon. What's interesting is that they're starting off with really the threats of shaming, not the shaming itself. Do I care that the government knows I'm visiting hookers? What does that mean? 3 blowjobs and I go to jail? What? Am I supposed to feel shame the government knows of my sexual activities? Why?
The local business owners, and especially the local property owners, are going to go ape shit. This only works by creating literal zones where your license plate (real or not) triggers off a government warning when you enter it. Just how valuable is that property right now? If it ever took off, I can easily see Google, or anyone else, start listing it just as they do traffic. I would want to be warned if I was about to drive into that area. How can anyone attempt to bring businesses back onto property that generates these warnings, I have no idea. If the city is really interested in this, then they might was well just bulldoze down the entire area through eminent domain and fence it off. For the property owners their property was effectively condemned, and most likely worth less than the dirt on it.
For the people really subject to shame? Boy howdy are they going to have a field day suing the city into submission. Proof your vehicle was in that particular area is not adequate proof you were receiving the services of a hooker.
Another poster had an idea about how to fake information to these license plate readers. False positives? The city is going to learn a lesson about false positives, and then later on false negatives when regular johns get wise to obfuscating their plates.
I'm sure the city lawyers are busy explaining just how legally dangerous this idea is, and how costly is might be.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 02 2015, @08:57PM
> It requires one to be subject to it (I'm not personally myself), and also assumes every john has a girlfriend or wife at home.
No it doesn't. It isn't just shame, it is a threat. A threat that anyone you know might find out. Including people you depend on, like your employer.
And don't even try to play that randian uberman canard: "I would never work for a company that would fire me for paying for hiring a hooker." The people who work for those kinds of employers have very little choice in the matter.