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posted by martyb on Wednesday October 05 2016, @08:37AM   Printer-friendly
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.


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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 05 2016, @09:34AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 05 2016, @09:34AM (#410537)

    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.

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  • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday October 05 2016, @02:04PM

    by Immerman (3985) on Wednesday October 05 2016, @02:04PM (#410593)

    >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.