COP Radar!
Community Organizer
Joined: Jan 2006
Posts: 7,961
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From: Oregon City, OR
A lot of radar detectors advertise laser detection as well.
My point was that lidar guns use a literal laser beam to measure speed, whereas radar emits a wave. The radar waves bounce around and reflect off of things pretty easily, which is how radar detectors alert you, they pick up on those superfluous waves. With a laser, there's no waves for the detector to pick up on, because a beam travels in a straight line and then terminates shortly after it makes contact with an object (for the most part). 9 times out of 10, if you did happen to get a real laser alert, the officer already has your speed.
My point was that lidar guns use a literal laser beam to measure speed, whereas radar emits a wave. The radar waves bounce around and reflect off of things pretty easily, which is how radar detectors alert you, they pick up on those superfluous waves. With a laser, there's no waves for the detector to pick up on, because a beam travels in a straight line and then terminates shortly after it makes contact with an object (for the most part). 9 times out of 10, if you did happen to get a real laser alert, the officer already has your speed.
Not much, really.
Joined: Oct 2003
Posts: 11,950
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From: MAHT-O-MEDI
I work in the political arena and have been sitting in committee hearings around my legislature listening to testimony on bills regarding license plate readers. Cops can set these devices out and they will read the plate of every car that goes by. If it is registered to someone with a warrant they get notified immediately and pull the person over for arrest.
If the plate belongs to someone with a suspended license for DUI, or speeding points or reckless or whatever, no sneaking out just to buy a pack of smokes or carton of eggs, this thing will nail you. Warrant for a domestic? Boom. Unpaid parking tickets. Boom, you are in the squad. Might even pull you over if you got lots of back child support due. I am all for getting people breaking the law but it is kind of creepy. I have seen a demo and they are really fast, five cars zing by the thing and all the plates are scanned and run against whatever criteria they set for an alarm and it goes off in a second.
The Orwellian part though that is the big discussion is that you could have a network of these things around a city track peoples movements and patterns. How much data is the government allowed to store when it reads plates of law abiding citizens? Can they store it at all? Can they sell the data? Should that data be public? How can it be used in court? If it was all public, thieves could track the patterns of a wealthy family and know when to break into their home. Suspicious spouses track each other. Etc etc.
Radar and lidar don't bother me. This does.
They also have devices that spoof cell phone towers and can pull the phone numbers of cells in the area if they are looking for a suspect, and grab the content of any calls or texts that pass through. 1984 got here a little late.
If the plate belongs to someone with a suspended license for DUI, or speeding points or reckless or whatever, no sneaking out just to buy a pack of smokes or carton of eggs, this thing will nail you. Warrant for a domestic? Boom. Unpaid parking tickets. Boom, you are in the squad. Might even pull you over if you got lots of back child support due. I am all for getting people breaking the law but it is kind of creepy. I have seen a demo and they are really fast, five cars zing by the thing and all the plates are scanned and run against whatever criteria they set for an alarm and it goes off in a second.
The Orwellian part though that is the big discussion is that you could have a network of these things around a city track peoples movements and patterns. How much data is the government allowed to store when it reads plates of law abiding citizens? Can they store it at all? Can they sell the data? Should that data be public? How can it be used in court? If it was all public, thieves could track the patterns of a wealthy family and know when to break into their home. Suspicious spouses track each other. Etc etc.
Radar and lidar don't bother me. This does.
They also have devices that spoof cell phone towers and can pull the phone numbers of cells in the area if they are looking for a suspect, and grab the content of any calls or texts that pass through. 1984 got here a little late.
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