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from the use-virtual-reality,-instead? dept.
Federal agents have persuaded police officers to scan license plates to gather information about gun-show customers, government emails show, raising questions about how officials monitor constitutionally protected activity.
Emails reviewed by The Wall Street Journal show agents with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency crafted a plan in 2010 to use license-plate readers—devices that record the plate numbers of all passing cars—at gun shows in Southern California, including one in Del Mar, not far from the Mexican border.
Agents then compared that information to cars that crossed the border, hoping to find gun smugglers, according to the documents and interviews with law-enforcement officials with knowledge of the operation.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/gun-show-customers-license-plates-come-under-scrutiny-1475451302
First they came for the Muslims, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Muslim.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Bot on Wednesday October 05 2016, @08:53AM
hopefully the same zeal is used against other potential threats, immigrants from countries you are/have been at war with (pretty hefty list for you USians), people of religions bent on imposing totalitarianism, and the most dangerous of all, corrupt officials who take order from the international ultra rich mafia?
Or is the police just being lapdogs of the political directive of the month, make citizens feel guilty?
I have nothing against the notion that guns, not people, kill. I am against a government that controls guns and lets all the other factors loose, or increase their presence. Because then we are not being against violence, it is like removing the weapon from one of the two persons in a duel.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 05 2016, @09:34AM
See, I'd be the opposite.
I firmly believe people, not guns, are the problem and police of perfectly justified to make observation on public events.
That said, this is just begging for these events to be by invitation only, to where police would require a warrant to be on the property.
In short, police are pushing for the development of a black market.
Perhaps they didn't think this through.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday October 05 2016, @02:04PM
>to where police would require a warrant to be on the property.
How would that help with license plate scanning? You just put the scanners at the entrances and exits - probably already what they do anyway - why have expensive officers wandering the parking lots when a few automated cameras can be hidden in the bushes?
Also, I'm fairly certain I recall that precedent has been established that police can in fact enter private property without a warrant, peek in windows, etc., unless you have a serious fence completely around the property to establish a "reasonable expectation of privacy". Welcome to the land of the free, comrade.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 05 2016, @03:46PM
How do you do such without targeting ethnic groups? It's not like all immigrants from Country X hang out together, except maybe in a religious gathering, but then you are examining an entire religion, not just from a specific country. Collateral targeting.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Wednesday October 05 2016, @10:06PM
You do not target ethnic groups. You do not target Italians. You target those Italians that want to enter YOUR OWN country. Not because they are Italians. Because they want to stay in YOUR OWN country.
The indisputable fact that racism is used to reduce people to mindless conformism does not prevent anti racism to do exactly the same.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Wednesday October 05 2016, @04:23PM
If the government really cares about reducing gun smuggling maybe they should stop smuggling guns.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 05 2016, @07:58PM
I assume you refer to Operation Fast and Furious [legalinsurrection.com], wherein gun control agencies knowingly funneled US-made firearms to Mexican cartel criminals in the hopes that said firearms would be used in crimes, crimes which in turn would be used to push for more illegal US gun control laws.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday October 05 2016, @06:28PM
The current approach is more like removing the weapons from one person at a duel.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.