This one’s important, and needs some action on your part to prevent a corrosive overreach of government power.
I also got this one from GOCRA yesterday; it’s not a “gun rights” thing, but it’s an important civil liberty issue, and it needs your attention:
Minneapolis Police (as well as many other departments) use automated license plate readers to log millions of times, dates, and locations of cars every month. They know where you were, and they keep this data as long as they want.
A proposed law, House File 474 (and Senate companion SF385), would force police departments to immediately delete data on non-suspect cars (like yours).
This bill is scheduled for a vote [today] in the House. If you think that the police shouldn’t track the every move of innocent citizens, ask your state senator representative to support HF474/SF385.
Please get on the horn and contact your Senator and Representative, and ask them – politely – to vote “Yes” on SF 385 and HF 474.
The police have no need to be able to track everyone, everywhere, all the time.
None.
Telling a copper he or she can’t do something is like waving a red flag at a bull. You need to remove the license plate readers from cop cars.
Also, although a bit of a departure from the topic, what is the MPD still doing with MP5 sub-machine guns in it’s arsenal? Seems one that was being waved around a couple of weeks ago got snatched by the guy they were chasing and two coppers got shot with it.
If I’m not mistaken (and I never am), the last time one of those crappy things was used another copper was on the recieving end of the (inherently, wildly inaccurate) stream of lead.
Those need to be removed as well, before an innocent bystander gets hosed down.
The Patriot Act is all we need to know about the loss of privacy and personal liberty.
I expect to see an increase in the use of CCTV and “automated license plate readers” as tools for law enforcement (both local and national agencies) as a result of the Boston bombing.
A corollary to “speaks volumes” is “all we need to know”.
Or the corollary, that freedom mattered last as well as first.