Law Enforcment question

[Okiehunter]

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[Shane77624]

Let me get this straight, you ran them but when you had to call the dispatcher (an unlimited number of times) it seemed okay. Now that the same officers have the same ability to run the exact same plate with the same public information, it is somehow wrong? It is the dispatcher that somehow makes it okay in your eyes?

The information the police are looking for is for known stolen vehicles and people that are known to have valid (public information) warrants. I am not sure how that is a bad thing when it does not intrude on the person in the least. In fact, it may intrude on the average person even less. With the plate readers, the officers will be going on less fishing expeditions and concentrating more of their efforts on known violators.

Nope, the dispatcher has nothing to do with the equation. Just stating the way things used to be. However, by going through dispatch it does slow down the process and reduces the risk of an overly eager patrolman running every plate in sight.

Let's see, an officer should be required to have PC to run a plate........

Okay, what is the definition of PC? Isn't it true that if you have PC then it gives the officer only two things? Those things are the power to arrest at that moment or the power to force a search at that moment. PC is not voluntary and requires no consent on the part of the citizen.

So in this section, you are saying basically that the police must have enough information to arrest you even before he runs a license plate or he has the information to force an arrest even before he knows who owns the car, if it is stolen or who may be driving it? You must have had some great clairvoyant powers when you were on patrol to be able to know all of that before running a license plate.

Hmmm......

For some reason, I would bet that is not the way you approached law enforcement when you were in it unless you want to claim that you never stopped anyone without at first having enough information to make an arrest before the stop.

This is easy. Seeing a license plate that is visible to the public and whose information is available to the public is not a search. You have no right to have a drivers license or drive on the roadways in your vehicle without first purchasing a license and then a registration for your vehicle. That is public information. If the public has the lawful ability to see it then why should the police not have the exact same public access?

Does anyone really want the police to stop searching for stolen property or people with warrants especially when it is by using publicly available information?

When I was on patrol I would only run a plate when I was in the process of pulling over a violator. I can say that I NEVER ran an arbitrary plate. Guess what? I'm good with that.