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ICE is about to start tracking license plates across the US

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Re: ICE is about to start tracking license plates across the US

#121

Post by pg314 »

awakeasleep wrote: post #102
mschuster91 wrote: post #6

Yet another piece of evidence that the US is turning into an authoritarian state - as, to be fair, others do too (especially China!), but the US have the unique advantage of being the technologically most advanced civilization. In earlier times, when situations got too authoritarian, there were rebellions and revolution. With the level of militarization in police and military and the abilities made possible by today'…

one lesson can be drawn from Solzhenitsyn'a Gulag Archipelago. he talks about how the number of people to be dealt with vastly outnumbers the police state's employees. Therefore if everyone fights back when "they" come for you, the outcome for society is positive, even if hopeless for individuals. The insane gun ownership in this country could be a benefit. Sure, you're not going to beat the army, but if every 10 peo…

> Therefore if everyone fights back when "they" come for you, the outcome for society is positive, even if hopeless for individuals. The insane gun ownership in this country could be a benefit. Sure, you're not going to beat the army, but if every 10 people to be liquidated take out one secret police guy, then the civilian population as a whole will be safe.

That argument only works if it were an all-out battle between the population as a whole on one side and the secret police on the other. That is not how authoritarianism works. They start by isolating minorities, and target individuals one by one. In every single 'battle' the secret police outnumbers their opponents. Any resistance is used to justify the use of more force.

Imagine what would happen if 'illegal' immigrants (which number in the millions) that are being deported by ICE (about 20,000 employees [1]) start fighting back with guns. How do you think Fox News would react? Or public opinion?

Or just look at police brutality against minorities in the US. Do you think that the use of more guns by minorities is likely to lessen police brutality, or exacerbate it?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Immigration_and_Customs_E...

Re: ICE is about to start tracking license plates across the US

#122

Post by threatofrain »

tehlike wrote: post #47

I said this before, and i will say it again. Call your representative and voice your opinion. Donate to eff and aclu or any other civil and digital liberties organizations, to help them protect our privacy and rights through legal means. Privacy evasion is slippery slope and it only gets worse. Take this as your daily or weekly reminder to do something, even if that something is donating just the price of a coffee.

I feel very skeptical of calling your representatives. Firstly, it matters if they are in a contentious district. Secondly, even if they do see you as a potentially credible concern, they will still corroborate that concern with a political consultancy when election time comes.

Re: ICE is about to start tracking license plates across the US

#123

Post by pg314 »

b6 wrote: post #117
awakeasleep wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

one lesson can be drawn from Solzhenitsyn'a Gulag Archipelago. he talks about how the number of people to be dealt with vastly outnumbers the police state's employees. Therefore if everyone fights back when "they" come for you, the outcome for society is positive, even if hopeless for individuals. The insane gun ownership in this country could be a benefit. Sure, you're not going to beat the army, but if every 10 peo…

> The insane gun ownership in this country could be a benefit. I'm sorry, it's hard not to be a little snarky here. Yes, the guys who wrote the original rules for the country considered gun ownership so essential that they placed it second only to the freedom of expression. I don't like guns, but they represent a failsafe that we hopefully never have to use.

> the guys who wrote the original rules for the country considered gun ownership so essential that they placed it second only to the freedom of expression.

That is an appeal to authority. Those guys were not handed down the word of god from heaven. They wrote down what they thought was best at the time. They were not infallible (see the amendments), what they wrote down was not unambiguous (or the supreme court wouldn't be necessary), and society and technology has changed in the intervening 200+ years. Do you think they would come up with exactly the same text if they were alive today, with the benefit of hindsight?

Re: ICE is about to start tracking license plates across the US

#124

Post by leereeves »

pg314 wrote: post #121
awakeasleep wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

one lesson can be drawn from Solzhenitsyn'a Gulag Archipelago. he talks about how the number of people to be dealt with vastly outnumbers the police state's employees. Therefore if everyone fights back when "they" come for you, the outcome for society is positive, even if hopeless for individuals. The insane gun ownership in this country could be a benefit. Sure, you're not going to beat the army, but if every 10 peo…

> Therefore if everyone fights back when "they" come for you, the outcome for society is positive, even if hopeless for individuals. The insane gun ownership in this country could be a benefit. Sure, you're not going to beat the army, but if every 10 people to be liquidated take out one secret police guy, then the civilian population as a whole will be safe. That argument only works if it were an all-out battle betwe…

More than half of all people killed by police are white.

Re: ICE is about to start tracking license plates across the US

#125

Post by leereeves »

pg314 wrote: post #123
b6 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The insane gun ownership in this country could be a benefit. I'm sorry, it's hard not to be a little snarky here. Yes, the guys who wrote the original rules for the country considered gun ownership so essential that they placed it second only to the freedom of expression. I don't like guns, but they represent a failsafe that we hopefully never have to use.

> the guys who wrote the original rules for the country considered gun ownership so essential that they placed it second only to the freedom of expression. That is an appeal to authority. Those guys were not handed down the word of god from heaven. They wrote down what they thought was best at the time. They were not infallible (see the amendments), what they wrote down was not unambiguous (or the supreme court would…

> Those guys were not handed down the word of god from heaven.

No, they wrote down rules to prevent the forms of oppression and protect the means of opposition that they knew from experience.

Has society changed so much in 200 years that armed opposition to the government has become impossible? The US govs failure to control Afghanistan would argue: no.

Re: ICE is about to start tracking license plates across the US

#126

Post by beebmam »

leereeves wrote: post #124
pg314 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Therefore if everyone fights back when "they" come for you, the outcome for society is positive, even if hopeless for individuals. The insane gun ownership in this country could be a benefit. Sure, you're not going to beat the army, but if every 10 people to be liquidated take out one secret police guy, then the civilian population as a whole will be safe. That argument only works if it were an all-out battle betwe…

More than half of all people killed by police are white.

There's a lot of intersection between class and race when it comes to police violence, and I don't think the phrase "minorities" is sufficient in discussing the issue.

Re: ICE is about to start tracking license plates across the US

#127

Post by leereeves »

Clubber wrote: post #67
kd5bjo wrote: post #41

Wasn't there a Supreme Court case a while ago that ruled it illegal for the government to put a tracking device on your car? Given this recognition technology, could someone challenge the visible license plate requirement as an illegal tracking device?

Plate scanning is against the spirit of the law; it's a workaround for not being able to place a tracking device on your car. Unfortunately, since your car is in a public place, and your plates are in the open, I don't think place scanning will be ruled unconstitutional. Of course congress could always pass a law making it illegal, but both our major parties have authoritarian with regards to privacy.

> Unfortunately, since your car is in a public place, and your plates are in the open, I don't think place scanning will be ruled unconstitutional.

The question GP asked was a bit different:

> could someone challenge the visible license plate requirement as an illegal tracking device?

In other words, in a world where plate scanning is ubiqitous, have license plates become a tracking device? And if they are a tracking device, is requiring them unconstitutional?

Re: ICE is about to start tracking license plates across the US

#128

Post by oldandtired »

JBlue42 wrote: post #91
ActsJuvenile wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am feeling pessimistic man. We had a few decades of privacy and human rights progress post World Wars. But with Terrorism on the rise there is no way for privacy or human rights to make a comeback. We will see increasingly clever ways to water down laws we already have in place.

>Terrorism on the rise Terrorism in the US isn't on the rise (unless we're counting white supremacists marches, which the media doesn't) but the powers that be and their cohorts are still milking the teat and our fears from 9/11 on this stuff. People who have no reason to be scared of any of this also won't stand up to it ('I'm not a criminal so it doesn't matter...'). Also funny that when/if another attack does happ…

Terrorism is on the rise and is very much alive and well in the USA. The general populous just doesn't recognise it for what it is.

Every time anyone raises the subject from an official or semi-official position, they are practising terrorism. They want you afraid, they need you to be afraid. They will do anything to keep you afraid. All of this is so that you, the people, will be easily managed and controlled and will freely give up both your rights and privileges to be free so that you don't take responsibility for yourself and your decisions.

There maybe one or two small governments somewhere in the world that aren't on this track, but I don't know of any.

Being fully responsible for your decisions and choices is actually not easy for most people and they would rather have others take up that responsibility.

All of our cultures have taken up the "blame game". There are many problems to be faced and it is up to each of us to face them with aplomb and action as we come face to face with them. "Aorta" should be dropped from the English vocabulary as a verb.

As in :

Aorta stop them foreigners from taking our jobs. Aorta stop those companies from doing the wrong thing. Aorta may better laws to control those other people.

etc., etc., etc.

So your second last sentence has the truth of it.

> Fear is a business and some people are making bank.

The last should read, all the US presidents would be proud.

Re: ICE is about to start tracking license plates across the US

#129

Post by dragonwriter »

b6 wrote: post #117
awakeasleep wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

one lesson can be drawn from Solzhenitsyn'a Gulag Archipelago. he talks about how the number of people to be dealt with vastly outnumbers the police state's employees. Therefore if everyone fights back when "they" come for you, the outcome for society is positive, even if hopeless for individuals. The insane gun ownership in this country could be a benefit. Sure, you're not going to beat the army, but if every 10 peo…

> The insane gun ownership in this country could be a benefit. I'm sorry, it's hard not to be a little snarky here. Yes, the guys who wrote the original rules for the country considered gun ownership so essential that they placed it second only to the freedom of expression. I don't like guns, but they represent a failsafe that we hopefully never have to use.

> Yes, the guys who wrote the original rules for the country considered gun ownership so essential that they placed it second only to the freedom of expression.

The Articles of Confederation were the original rules of the country.

The base Constitution which replaced them as the rules for the country also didn't include anything about that.

The package of 12 amendments to the Constitution formally proposed after the Constitution was ratified did mention it, but only the third through twelfth of those were ratified fairly quickly by the states. So, it wasn't part of the original rules or the original replacement, and the drafters of the package known as the Bill of Rights put it fourth behind the right to minimal levels of representation in Congress, the right to a Congress without the power to raise its own salary between elections, and freedom of expression, not second behind freedom of expression.

So, aside from being a fallacious appeal to authority, your argument is grounded in falsehoods.

Re: ICE is about to start tracking license plates across the US

#130

Post by [deleted] »

beebmam wrote: post #126
leereeves wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More than half of all people killed by police are white.

There's a lot of intersection between class and race when it comes to police violence, and I don't think the phrase "minorities" is sufficient in discussing the issue.

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