Councilman fears police technology may go too far

[Vex]

Ok so if I am open carrying as I walk down a public sidewalk (committing no crime), then do the police have a right to stop me and "confirm" that I am allowed to own that weapon?

That would be an interesting encounter, something that I think the supreme court should eventually tackle just to make it well known that people have a right to be armed for their protection and stop the second guessing the antis promote.

In the end, the difference is this: You have a right to own a vehicle. You do not have a right to operate the vehicle on a public street without licensing, and the license plate(s) must be visible for everyone to see. This is in the best interest of the public. In contrast, you have the right to walk down the sidewalk, and you have the right to arm yourself for protection. There is no licensing required to practice your right to self defense. Therein lies the difference.

If I choose not to answer and express my desire to go on about my business then does it become a detainment which requires RAS?

That's really tough to answer, because even though something may be 'technically' legally doesn't mean it's not 'suspicious' activity.

[TRR8]

Maybe the law enforcement community in Ohio should focus on a "back to basics" program before they experiment with new technology. CaIl me nuts, but I expect all law enforcement personnel to know how to conduct a lawful encounter with an Ohio CHL holder or open-carrier. Right now, there's many who haven't achieved this basic competency. So, maybe remediation should be first on the list before we spend more money on new gadgets.

If we do get to the new gadget stage, we better know how to manage the database into which all this automatically gathered info will be dumped. I think that's where the danger (potential loss of liberty) is -- wait until they mess up the data and your innocent wife is pinned down by a SWAT team. All thanks to a database that the police don't have the means to manage properly and consistently (during times of budget cuts). You know it's going to happen. I think this is where we quote Franklin ("Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.")

Moreover, what comes after automatic license plate readers? Bar codes are on the verge of being replaced by RFID chips. The first place besides Walmart to adopt RFID technology will be your local library. Will it be OK if the police just scan your briefcase with an RFID reader as they drive buy, just to make sure you're not reading anything odd?

--TRR8

[Vex]

CaIl me nuts, but I expect all law enforcement personnel to know how to conduct a lawful encounter with an Ohio CHL holder or open-carrier.

That's easy for you to say, because that priority is the highest on your personal list. Since you think it's important, you think it should be important to everyone else, as well.

But the fact is LEOs don't deal with CHLs every day. These days I only have an interaction with 1 or 2 CHLs per year through traffic stops, and in the past 4 years I've only ever had 1 'other' situation with a CHL, and only because he was the victim. Even in my heydey when I focused solely on patol, I only had 3 or 4 per year. It's just not big on the priority list for police departments that also have to teach and constantly update their officers on the other 999 pages of the 1000 page law book.

As a supervisor, I run into a similar problem often with my officers. They all some ideas, some of them are really great and would really improve our department. But I don't have time to personally implement every single idea they want, so I tell them to get involved. Do the research themselves. Write up a proposal. If they can convince me in 20 minutes that their idea is helpful and popular, and they have their ducks in a row including funding, then I'll be much more open to the suggestion than if they say, 'Hey, I got another idea for you to do.'

So, instead of expect others to do the work you want done, and to learn what you think they should learn on their own, get more actively involved in educating people. You have the ability to make a difference. Send information leaflets to your police departments, and donate to organizations that protect your gun rights, like OFCC. Smaller, local organizations such as OFCC will get more results because they don't focus on the lobbying scam that the NRA does. Speak with the police supervision in your area about what they can do to make your lives a little easier and stop the harrassment. If someone came to me and said, 'Hey, we were harrassed because we were gun owners,' I would include some sort of information about this in the daily books or send a department wide e-mail. Stand up at a trustee or council meeting and be heard about your opinion, and you'll see results, too.

There are plenty of things you can do to help the cause, and bellyaching about expected treatment on a forum visited by a handful of LEOs who are already sympathetic to your cause isn't one of them.

[bignflnut]

And since we know that operating a vehicle on a public road or a road used by the public for vehiclular travel is a privilege and not a right, the argument against reasonable right to privacy of a license plate and against the ability for the license plates information to be run over a computer system, is null and void. There is no physical search unless the police are in a constitutionally protected area.

LEO SUPERVISOR FAIL

Link
"The use of the highways for the purpose of travel and transportation is not a mere privilege, but a common and fundamental Right of which the public and the individual cannot be rightfully deprived." [emphasis added] Chicago Motor Coach vs. Chicago, 169 NE 22; Ligare vs. Chicago, 28 NE 934; Boon vs. Clark, 214 SSW 607; 25 Am.Jur. (1st) Highways Sect.163.

"The Right of the Citizen to travel upon the public highways and to transport his property thereon, either by horse drawn carriage or by automobile, is not a mere privilege which a city can prohibit or permit at will, but a common Right which he has under the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." [emphasis added] Thompson vs. Smith, 154 SE 579.

"...For while a Citizen has the Right to travel upon the public highways and to transport his property thereon, that Right does not extend to the use of the highways, either in whole or in part, as a place for private gain. For the latter purpose no person has a vested right to use the highways of the state, but is a privilege or a license which the legislature may grant or withhold at its discretion."State vs. Johnson, 243 P. 1073; Hadfield, supra; Cummins vs. Homes, 155 P. 171; Packard vs. Banton, 44 S.Ct. 256;

"The right of the Citizen to travel upon the public highways and to transport his property thereon, in the ordinary course of life and business, is a common right which he has under the right to enjoy life and liberty, to acquire and possess property, and to pursue happiness and safety. It includes the right, in so doing, to use the ordinary and usual conveyances of the day, and under the existing modes of travel, includes the right to drive a horse drawn carriage or wagon thereon or to operate an automobile thereon, for the usual and ordinary purpose of life and business." Teche Lines vs. Danforth, Miss., 12 S.2d 784; Thompson vs. Smith, supra.

[Shadow]

Do you believe that if you're open carrying, an officer should be able to stop you for the mere purpose of making sure you're really legally allowed to possess that firearm? It's the same thing... if you're not doing anything illegal, then the police shouldn't have the right to "look into" things just to make sure.

The difference between a LPR and a stop for gun check is that the LPR doesn't stop you. They are fundamentally different.

If a policeman reads your license plate, he's using public information. That is different from stopping you and detaining you.

LPRs are not any more unconstitutional than you or I writing down a license number and turning it over to police, for example. The entire purpose of a license plate is to make a public display of identifying information. This should not be confused wiht the purpose of a licensing system, which is to catalog information and collect a tax.

Shadow

[jabeatty]

The difference between a LPR and a stop for gun check is that the LPR doesn't stop you. They are fundamentally different.

Ah, ok.

So, if we RFID-embed the OLTCACH (or our driver's licenses), licensees should have no issues with being scanned by passing patrol cars?

Said scanning will include (of course) a quick records check to ensure that you've done nothing inappropriate since your last scan.

All constitutional and all so convenient, right?

I bet we'll catch a lot of "bad" guys, and we'll be able to fund more exciting department interactions with the cash/property we'll seize from them.

Vex is right though - there's no slippery slope concern here at all. We're already plumbing the depths of the pond at the bottom of the hill.

[TRR8]

So, instead of expect others to do the work you want done, and to learn what you think they should learn on their own, get more actively involved in educating people...[instead of]...bellyaching about expected treatment...

This is an example of a classic ad hominem attack -- you offer no cogent argument to advance your opinion, but instead attack me personally.

Why would you assume that I am not already involved in trying to be a constructive agent for change? In fact, I frequently talk to my police chief, mayor, and city council members; I teach CCW classes; I contribute in multiple ways to OFCC and other state and national gun-rights organizations; and I'm about to have a book published on the history of the Second Amendment. Does your "logic" compel you to conclude that anyone who expresses a strong opinion on a forum is automatically a lazy complainer who's not constructively involved in the cause? Your reasoning pattern does not inspire my confidence in the Ohio police culture.

TRR8

[rDigital]

So, instead of expect others to do the work you want done, and to learn what you think they should learn on their own, get more actively involved in educating people. You have the ability to make a difference. Send information leaflets to your police departments, and donate to organizations that protect your gun rights, like OFCC. Smaller, local organizations such as OFCC will get more results because they don't focus on the lobbying scam that the NRA does. Speak with the police supervision in your area about what they can do to make your lives a little easier and stop the harrassment. If someone came to me and said, 'Hey, we were harrassed because we were gun owners,' I would include some sort of information about this in the daily books or send a department wide e-mail. Stand up at a trustee or council meeting and be heard about your opinion, and you'll see results, too.

+1 If you speak up, people will listen! You just have to take the time to do it.

[Vex]

So, instead of expect others to do the work you want done, and to learn what you think they should learn on their own, get more actively involved in educating people...[instead of]...bellyaching about expected treatment...

This is an example of a classic ad hominem attack -- you offer no cogent argument to advance your opinion, but instead attack me personally.

My argument was not meant to be personal. It was meant to be an attack on your position, not on you. My 'cogent argument' was this: It's just not big on the priority list for police departments that also have to teach and constantly update their officers on the other 999 pages of the 1000 page law book.

But you didn't quote that part, did you?

Why would you assume that I am not already involved in trying to be a constructive agent for change?

The odds are on my side, and I took a calculated risk to make a point to the general population. I was wrong to assume you were not involved in the cause, and I apologize for that assumption. However, that doesn't make my statements meaningless to every other person on this forum.

In fact, I frequently talk to my police chief, mayor, and city council members; I teach CCW classes; I contribute in multiple ways to OFCC and other state and national gun-rights organizations; and I'm about to have a book published on the history of the Second Amendment. Does your "logic" compel you to conclude that anyone who expresses a strong opinion on a forum is automatically a lazy complainer who's not constructively involved in the cause?

I again apologize if you took my statements personally, that was not my goal. I meant to make a point to everyone who reads this forum, not just you, that simply preaching to the choir is not 'getting involved.' I personally think 90% of this forum just posts and reads without actively being involved in changing society. Too often I see key words such as 'expect' (in the manner you used it) that implies, to me atleast, that someone thinks a certain action should happen all the time without intervention or education. The big fallacy in this argument is best exemplified by these statements:

I expect every pizza to taste the same as every other pizza.
I expect every computer to perform identical to every other computer.
I expect every sales person to negotiate in the same manner.

By expecting the police to treat every CHL holder the same, I think you're setting yourself up for disappointment.

Your reasoning pattern does not inspire my confidence in the Ohio police culture.

What was that you were saying about ad hominem?

I'm going to repost the part of your original statement that started this:

CaIl me nuts, but I expect all law enforcement personnel to know how to conduct a lawful encounter with an Ohio CHL holder or open-carrier. Right now, there's many who haven't achieved this basic competency. So, maybe remediation should be first on the list before we spend more money on new gadgets.

LEOs are trained to conduct the same encounter with every person with emphasis on safety to everyone involved, but you seem to have an expectation that the encounter should be different for someone with a legally carried gun, even going as far as saying it's a 'basic competency' that many [police officers] haven't achieved. This doesn't appear to be good enough for you, and the State would disagree with you, since the officers can not possibly know the motive of every person they come in contact with.

I'm interpreting your statement to this: A police officer should sacrifice other parts of his job until he gives special treatment to the gun culture. I'm probably wrong on that interpretation, but that's the appearance you give when you say one thing should be traded for something else.

In fact, I think this entire breakdown in understanding centers on the open carry portion of your statement. For the most part, I think encounters with CHL holders should be pretty much uneventful, but when you throw in the open carry portion, it complicates things. Atleast with a CHL holder, you can say they've had a background check and have proven to not be a criminal in the past, but you can't say the same for someone open-carrying, since it's a right without regulation. So, enlighten me, please. How do you think a police officer should handle an encounter with an open carrier and why it differs from any other encounter? I want to see why you think it deserves special consideration.

[Shadow]

So, if we RFID-embed the OLTCACH (or our driver's licenses), licensees should have no issues with being scanned by passing patrol cars?

Said scanning will include (of course) a quick records check to ensure that you've done nothing inappropriate since your last scan.

All constitutional and all so convenient, right?

Not the same case. Scanning a concealed document is not the same as scanning a public license plate.

We'd have the similar situation if you wore your CCW license info on a sandwich board, and you are free to do so. There'd also be no need to deploy CHL 'scanners' as it's much easier to simply cross check the data base upon conviction of a crime, which, I understand, is done.
Another point on this is that RFID is not a good technolgy for remote scanning as the antenna length is so short, and given most RFID tags are unpowered. If they were to issue such licenses they would be useless and, for those too worried, simply place it the Amana for a few seconds.

Scanning people in public for confidential items or features is an ongoing legal exercise. We do scan people down to the buff in airports and it's recognized as constitutional. The question is, is it doing any good? The Israelis think we're nuts for looking for weapons and DDs. They look for people.

Anyway, public information is public and private information is private.

Shadow

[bignflnut]

And since we know that operating a vehicle on a public road or a road used by the public for vehiclular travel is a privilege and not a right, the argument against reasonable right to privacy of a license plate and against the ability for the license plates information to be run over a computer system, is null and void. There is no physical search unless the police are in a constitutionally protected area.

FYI : http://www.apfn.org/apfn/travel.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

CASE #1: "The use of the highway for the purpose of travel and transportation is not a mere privilege, but a common fundamental right of which the public and individuals cannot rightfully be deprived." Chicago Motor Coach v. Chicago, 169 NE 221.

Is this a new legal interpretation on this subject? Apparently not. This means that the beliefs and opinions our state legislators, the courts, and those in law enforcement have acted upon for years have been in error. Researchers armed with actual facts state that case law is overwhelming in determining that to restrict the movement of the individual in the free exercise of his right to travel is a serious breach of those freedoms secured by the U.S. Constitution and most state constitutions. That means it is unlawful.

So, having ones plates run would be a violation, then, since we've established the premise of travel as a privilege to be false?
Is it so much to ask for a retraction, or for supervising LEO's to understand our Rights?

[Vex]

So, having ones plates run would be a violation, then, since we've established the premise of travel as a privilege to be false?

Chicago Motor Coach v. Chicago was a case heard by the Illinois Supreme Court, a fact that nearly every website devoted to proving we have a constitutional right to drive fails to mention. Since it was by the Illinois Supreme COurt, it doesn't apply in Ohio.

Also, Chicago Motor Coach was a case from 1929 about whether the city of Chicago could require a corporation to get a city-wide license to use the streets, which the city deemed necessary because the heavy trucks were tearing up the roads, even though the company already had a license from the state. Also, even though the word 'license' is used in this case, it refers to a license issued by the city for using the road for commercial traffic. This wasn't a driver's license case, it was a home-rule case, yet another fact that is never mentioned by the 'driving is a right' crowd. Instead the internet lawyers quote one line from the case law and leave the rest up to the imagination.

Something else that is also rarely mentioned is that the Chicago Motor Coach case further goes on to say that the ability to drive may be regulated for public interest and convenience by the legislature. Remember, this was a home-rule case, so the court opined that the city had no legal basis for regulating roadway use, but clarified that the legislature has the ability to regulate it. It's obvious that making sure people know HOW to drive, and licensing them as such, is in the best public interest. If we didn't require licensing, anyone could drive: illegals who don't understand signs, 12 year olds, older people with bad eyesight, and habitual drunks. Think of it this way: A driver's license is shall-issue, just like a CHL.

You can't just quote one single line from a relatively obscure 1929 court case and expect people to swoon. The entire case must be taken in totality. Many websites, from Prison Planet, Free Man Society, and The County Guard are publishing this case as if it's the ultimate smoking gun in the driver's license debate, but I doubt a single one of them has read the entire opinion. Even places like idlicense.com, which issues laughable 'international driver's licenses' for people to use, is using the case to peddle their wares.

For example, I could quote page 54 of the Heller decision: "Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited. From Blackstone through the 19th-century cases, commentators and courts routinely explained that the right was not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose." Post this on an anti-gun website with the reasoning, 'This means the court sees semi-auto weapons as too destructive and not protected by the 2nd Amendment,' and someone somewhere will believe that Heller bans semi-auto weapons.

So, you see, you can post all the case law you want, but you're not changing reality. The simple fact is we have driver's licenses in every state, and every state also has laws against operating a vehicle without a license. If this case law actually said what people WISHED it said, Illinois (and probably many other states) wouldn't require driver's licenses.

However, randomly running license plates was approved by the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee, in US v. Ellison in 2005.

Get the US Supreme Court to rule a driver's license is unconstitutional, and then we'll talk.

Is it so much to ask for a retraction, or for supervising LEO's to understand our Rights?

Is it too much to ask for a retraction, or people to understand case law before quoting it?

[bignflnut]

I'll retract that case if you'd like...but you've not answered for the dozen or so others that I've referenced or linked to.

[pws]

So, having ones plates run would be a violation, then, since we've established the premise of travel as a privilege to be false?

Chicago Motor Coach v. Chicago was a case heard by the Illinois Supreme Court, a fact that nearly every website devoted to proving we have a constitutional right to drive fails to mention. Since it was by the Illinois Supreme COurt, it doesn't apply in Ohio.
...
Get the US Supreme Court to rule a driver's license is unconstitutional, and then we'll talk.

Is it so much to ask for a retraction, or for supervising LEO's to understand our Rights?

Is it too much to ask for a retraction, or people to understand case law before quoting it?

Is it too much to ask that those who propose they have the right/authority to restrict others, acknowledge they have no more right to do so than any other claiming the right to restrict their ability to do so? (i.e. law enforcement has no more right to force others to abide by their management's desires, as their employers, the general public permit; regardless of what the largely increasingly self-serving judicial system and its dependents may desire.)

[DEFCON1]

I'm not so much opposed to this kind of technology as it will be used right now. My concern is for the future abuse after full implementation.

Be careful the tools you give your allies. They may fall into the hands of your enemies in time. I cite the Patriot Act as a prime example of that. I had no particular objection to it being in the hands of an administration I did not feel was trying to persecute me personally. Now it is in the hands of a braying jackass. The very same politicians decrying the Patriot act during the last administration are now strangely silent, and the sheeple are getting used to it being there.

The other problem I see is that officers are already overwhelmed with information flooding in all the time, (while driving around yakking on their cell phones. Don't deny it. I drive for a living. I see it every day. I wish I could pull them over for going left of center. I digress). So let's add ANOTHER screen blinking and beeping information all the time.

This is just as bad as the stoplight cameras, and the speed cameras. It might be an encroachment, or it may not, but it gives me the heebie jeebies. It fosters my distrust of a system that at every turn happily shows it does not trust or like me. And it wants my money.

Chris