Thursday, March 22, 2007

Several months ago Tucson police got a new law-enforcement tool - a car-mounted license-plate scanner. It's very similar to a radar gun, or better to say to a police radar gun, it reads the license plates of moving or parked cars, and then links with remote police databases, immediately providing information about the car and owner.

But to be honest, this is nothing new. Police have always been able to run a license plate. But the biggest difference is that they would do it manually, and that limited its use. It wasn't possible for police to run the plates of every car passing through intersection or in a parking garage.

Technology changes the nature of surveillance tremendously. Many years ago, surveillance meant private investigators or detectives following people down the streets. It was extremely expensive and was used only when there was a real suspicion of a crime. Modern surveillance features the policeman with a license-plate scanner mounted on a traffic light and a policeman sitting at a computer in the station.

Be careful and drive safely!