A bad track record

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

Just image, it is Saturday, 1pm, a police car scanning the license plates of cars parked at the Maine Mall and one of those plates happens to be yours. Days later, you are pulled over and arrested because you and your car match the description of a criminal. You are charged with a crime that occured in Portland at 1pm on Saturday. You then inform the police that you were at the Maine Mall, but regretfully you don't have a recepit or witness to put you at the Mall. The police check the plates scanned and you plate proves you were there. They let you go. Yes, this is an isolated and highly improbable case, but it could happen. With any new technology there are benifets and disadvantages and they must be weighed out.

Law enforcement officals have abused the technologies they have had. Should we remove all their technology because of a few bad officers?

Two things

1 Police can already run any license plate they won't. No if's and's or but's they can do this, the camera makes it easier.

2. How does it violate your right to privacy if by law you are required to display your license plate on the front and rear of your vehicle so that law enforcement officer can read them.

Yes, Big Brother is alive and well in the USA. Little by little our right to privacy is being taken away. It is a death of a thousand cuts.

Ever the old saying:

"If you have nothing to hide...."

Sorry Government, the burden of proof is on you that you have something to seek that necessitates you scanning thousands of citizens license registrations, noting the time and location of where they were located, and storing this information for at least thirty days without any reasonable grounds that any of the citizens were involved in unlawful behavior.

Government states that nothing will be done with this information unless it comes back to a known 'Hit?'?

Right....    I worked in Law Enforcement for twenty years, and I no more trust this assertion than I believe the 'Rolling Stones' were drug-free.  

But hey, if you want to give up a few more privacy rights for a little more supposed temporary safety, knock yourself out.

Just not in my Country with my Bill of Rights.

Just another step towards everyone having their government assigned serial numbers tattooed on the left cheek of their #$$%^.

Your license plate was photographed BECAUSE you were doing something criminal, not because you were just going through the toll booth.

If you have nothing to hide whats the problem. If you do and your driving I want you off the road.

The turnpikes have been doing this for years, where was the opposition when they started doing it?  I got nabbed at the Hampton, NH toll booth for failure to pay the toll fee (I was later exonerated because of circumstances beyond my control).  Anyway, they took a picture of my license plate and sent me the fine in the mail.  I did not feel that that was an invasion of my privacy.  And now that Maine is introducing a bill for automatic license plate readers in Maine, I'm all for it.  There is a significant shortage of law enforcement personnel and this is a great tool for them to further enforce the law and protect us.  Could it be that people who are so vehemently against license plate reading have hidden agendas rather than worrying about invasion of privacy?