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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

#161

Post by JumpCrisscross »

btown wrote: post #160
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I feel very skeptical of calling your representatives Based on what? For contentious issues on which most voters are decided, e.g. guns or abortion, you are correct--calling in is unlikely to do anything. If you care about a big-ticket issue, join an organization and do the whole camping out at town houses and protesting local and D.C. offices and filing lawsuits schtick. It's hard, but it works. For niche issues,…

SLA?

Senior Legislative Analyst. They're junior enough to have their hands in the weeds but senior enough to have clout. The most tangible discussions I've had when calling my representatives came in debates and negotiations with and the giving of advice to SLAs.

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

#162

Post by 0x445442 »

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…

> Do you think they would come up with exactly the same text if they were alive today, with the benefit of hindsight?

With respect to property rights and a citizen's right to arms, yep pretty close.

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

#163

Post by tptacek »

refurb wrote: post #96
tptacek wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In general, the individual engineers do. The point of ethics training is to recognize that you have ethical obligations that extend past your job responsibilities, and that when your ethics conflict with your work tasks, it's not your ethics that should compromise. For some of us, that might mean not working on a project that we could reasonably foresee would result in the deportation of children who don't speak Span…

Ok, so if I'm an engineer and I think the ethical thing to do is help build a better license plate scanning technology to protect everyone from terrorism, then what?

Then I guess you build better license plate scanning technology. That isn't obvious?

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

#164

Post by dragonwriter »

arca_vorago wrote: post #141
dragonwriter wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

And what you are entirely missing in the philosphical basis for the constitution is the principle that we have natural rights that are independent of any government and that government is established in order to protect those rights, and that government cannot and does not grant those rights, which was the original argument about what we call the bill of rights. That by listing what rights the government was specific…

> And what you are entirely missing in the philosphical basis for the constitution is the principle that we have natural rights that are independent of any government and that government is established in order to protect those rights,

That is among the purposes of government in the view of the “philosophical basis of the Constitution”, but not it's sole purpose that stands alone. Now, on the one hand, I really deeply understand that and the balancing of multiple interests that went into the Constitution because I have a degree in Political Science that was focussed predominantly on the theory and practice of government in the United States, but on the other hand I would probably know it without that because the first sentence of the Constitution, while not going into detail about the whole conflicting set of concerns that led to the drafting of the Constitution, lists six purposes, including a different phrasing of the purpose you identify (as the last of the six.)

> I'm so tired of hearing people shit on the constitution and it's principles

And I'm sick of people lying about its content, it's principles, and its role in American history to advance political agendas, and I'm sick of people treating it like holy writ, too.

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

#165

Post by TomMarius »

mschuster91 wrote: post #34
dogma1138 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t understand, Europe has national ID laws I can fill up a form and get the details including owner details for any license plate in the EU (you need cause but it’s not verified in most cases it would land you in trouble if it’s abused tho), and automated license plate tracking is pretty darn common across all EU countries yet no one here yells Stasi about this.

> and automated license plate tracking is pretty darn common across all EU countries No it's not. It may be legal in some countries, yes, for example the Italians are doing it for speed-tracking in certain highways, but the data is not shared between the countries, aggregated to form movement profiles or stored longer than required. With ICE one can be sure that: a) nothing ever gets deleted b) it WILL get data-mined…

Automated tracking from road cameras is everywhere on literally all major roads in western and central EU (not sure about eastern EU).

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

#166

Post by TomMarius »

arca_vorago wrote: post #143
adventured wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd love to see you break out the stats on that, country by country, and support it. There are 300 million cars in Europe. France as one example, has about one passenger car per adult between the ages of 18-65. The high prevalence of diesel autos in Paris, is why the city started to look like Beijing not so long ago due to pollution. So exactly how big is a huge chunk?

This should visually help put how vehicle dependent the US is in context a bit. That's just Texas overlayed on France. https://www.texasmonthly.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/fran...

I'm not sure what is this supposed to mean. Yeah the US are huge and sparsely populated. The EU has almost 200 million bigger population.

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

#167

Post by tehlike »

threatofrain wrote: post #122
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.

That is the part that is most disturbing. The more people think that way the more marginal each caller becomes. We need crowds to call, raise issues.

Part of why things got bad wrt housing, for example, only the people that had houses raised their opinion in city halls, which led to these people trying to protect their investments, which eventually lead to nimbysm.

I am not a citizen, yet, so i am going through the route of donating an amount i am comfortable with, but in 2.5 years, i will be one, and raise my voice through other channels too.

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

#168

Post by sctb »

oldandtired wrote: post #128
JBlue42 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 wi…

This seems like the kind of ranting that we've already asked you not to post, so could you please stop? Generic tangents just don't bring about the kind of discussion we're after here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15768285

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

#169

Post by [deleted] »

sctb wrote: post #168
oldandtired wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wi…

This seems like the kind of ranting that we've already asked you not to post, so could you please stop? Generic tangents just don't bring about the kind of discussion we're after here. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15768285

[deleted]

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

#170

Post by arca_vorago »

TomMarius wrote: post #166
arca_vorago wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This should visually help put how vehicle dependent the US is in context a bit. That's just Texas overlayed on France. https://www.texasmonthly.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/fran...

I'm not sure what is this supposed to mean. Yeah the US are huge and sparsely populated. The EU has almost 200 million bigger population.

>Yeah the US are huge and sparsely populated.

Mostly you just answered the question. The primary factor is that the US just simply doesn't have the same public transportation infrastructure the EU has, not even close. I could travel just about anywhere in the EU without ever getting in a car... that's impossible in the US.

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