The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Banning Traffic Cameras

Posted on | January 20, 2012 | 12 Comments

by Smitty

Insty’s link on Iowa banning traffic cameras leads to a subversive thought serious question: why do we have unmarked police cars? In military terms, the idea of having the authorities pose as civilians is a matter of OPDEC. Going undercover makes sense when, say, infiltrating criminal organizations.

Is that an example of overkill, in the common case of the work commute? Or are traffic tickets really part of the business model for police departments?

When elected Benevolent Dictator for Life, I promise to snuff both traffic cameras and unmarked police cars. Put the police bill right out front and center where it should be.

Category: Uncategorized

Comments

12 Responses to “Banning Traffic Cameras”

  1. AngelaTC
    January 20th, 2012 @ 9:12 pm

    “Are traffic tickets really part of the business model for poice departments?”  

    Is that a serious question? Of course they’re part of the business model.  

  2. JeffS
    January 20th, 2012 @ 9:22 pm

    “OPDEC”?  Do you mean “OPSEC”?

  3. Charles
    January 20th, 2012 @ 9:27 pm

    I grew up in a small Iowa town that did have one umarked police car that everyone called the gray ghost. There was another unmarked state police car mostly prowling the interstate that everyone called the silver streak.

  4. Mike Rogers
    January 20th, 2012 @ 10:08 pm

    If the Bomb is a nuclear deterrent, are plain clothes police cars unclear deterrents?

  5. Adjoran
    January 20th, 2012 @ 10:09 pm

    Some localities, especially smaller ones, do in fact depend upon and budget for traffic fines as a large part of their revenue, but I believe most states prohibit that at least in theory.

    Unmarked police cars are an entirely separate issue, though.  The idea is that if drivers know there are unmarked cars, they will be more careful about their speed in the vicinity, and that is good for public safety.

    It is hardly some covert infiltration – criminals have no constitutional right to know exactly where the police are.

  6. smitty
    January 20th, 2012 @ 10:10 pm

    No, I meant Operational Deception, not Operational Security.

  7. smitty
    January 20th, 2012 @ 10:10 pm

    In a vaguely ambiguous way, maybe.

  8. Anonymous
    January 20th, 2012 @ 11:25 pm

    Yeah, a few years ago in AL, the troopers decided to go into unmarked cars in a big way…. until a serial rapist realized anyone could buy / make a flashing blue light and pick up a used Crown Vic. People stopped pulling over for unmarked cars, and judges stopped the cops with charging anyone (especially females in his target profile) with eluding police, etc.

    Unmarked cars are an invitation to abuse.

  9. Finrod Felagund
    January 20th, 2012 @ 11:38 pm

    Don’t forget to mandate that all traffic fine money and everything confiscated from criminals goes to the State, and not to the municipality.  Letting municipalities keep what they confiscate is an open-door invitation to abuse of the system.
     

  10. Quartermaster
    January 21st, 2012 @ 10:18 am

    The police, and the “authorities” don’t have to “pose as civilians,” they are civilians. Those clowns like to see themselves as the “other” and refer to us as civilians, but that’s led to soem pretty bad stuff.

    If the attitudes they demonstrate are actually outworkings of the truth, then we are a full fledged fascist society.

  11. Quartermaster
    January 21st, 2012 @ 10:19 am

    And that’s exactly what we have gotten with “civil forfeiture.” 

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    January 21st, 2012 @ 1:14 pm

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