Portland police scanning 128,000 license plates a day

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PORTLAND -- Portland police confirmed Thursday they have 16 patrol cars equipped with automatic license plate readers.

The scanners are capable of capturing 8,000 images a day according to Officer Garrett Dow. Multiply that by 16 patrol cars on the streets and Portland police are recording as many as 128,000 plates a day.
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If the car never has down time, that's 1 picture every 10.8 seconds.

24 x 60 x 60 = 86400 seconds per day

86400 / 8000 pictures per car per day = 10.8 seconds per picture per car

I think the number's too high, but then, any number is too high. How does the technology work?
 
"If you don't have anything to hide you shouldn't worry about it"

Ultimate sheep think
 
We should all wear a tracking device by your logic

So they can make sure we don't wander away from the flock
 
3RA1N1AC said:
We should all wear a tracking device by your logic

So they can make sure we don't wander away from the flock
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Ya know, I can see why what's her name left.

You can really be an ass sometimes purely for the sake of being one.
 
The police system now holds more than 3 million images with date, time and location recorded.
 
BLAZER PROPHET said:
Ya know, I can see why what's her name left.

You can really be an ass sometimes purely for the sake of being one.
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Not following

We simply disagree, you are for the government tracking our movements, I am not

I haven't called you any names, or attempted to place blame on you where none is warranted, so why are you doing that to me?
 
I find this kind of surveillance disturbing.
 
This will catch bad guys to protect our freedom. The next step is to connect chains to everyone's ankles which connect to the police station. If you're not going places you're not supposed to, you have nothing to worry about.
 
The premise is sound I guess, but there's too many variables and issues from really making this an effective method. Criminals could recently sell their car to an innocent person who would then be wrongfully profiled, they can switch plates to a completely different vehicle, there's technological errors that could occur, etc. This should maybe be utilized when Amber Alerts are released and thats it. As a whole things like this come off creepy as shit though.
 
This is really just another way to look at the central theme that will be defining our era. What is the proper trade off between freedom and safety?

There are some freedoms that we all agree need to be curtailed, like the right to take whatever you want. OK, that's an extreme, we all agree that you should not be able to steal, permitting that would invalidate society and ruin any community. On the other side, we all agree that we should not be forced to wear anklet tracking devices. That would immediately make everyone feel accused and without free will.

Somewhere between those two points is a good balance. I really don't know where that balance should end up, but I just think that we go too far in the "more freedom" direction, we can always pull it back if it becomes too unsafe. But if we go too far in the "safety first" direction we will have a hard time adjusting back to the center because that direction gives power to some members of society to keep us safe and we all know that people with power don't give it up.
 
jlprk said:
This will catch bad guys to protect our freedom. The next step is to connect chains to everyone's ankles which connect to the police station. If you're not going places you're not supposed to, you have nothing to worry about.
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God, I worry when I agree with you.
 
GOD said:
This is really just another way to look at the central theme that will be defining our era. What is the proper trade off between freedom and safety?

There are some freedoms that we all agree need to be curtailed, like the right to take whatever you want. OK, that's an extreme, we all agree that you should not be able to steal, permitting that would invalidate society and ruin any community. On the other side, we all agree that we should not be forced to wear anklet tracking devices. That would immediately make everyone feel accused and without free will.

Somewhere between those two points is a good balance. I really don't know where that balance should end up, but I just think that we go too far in the "more freedom" direction, we can always pull it back if it becomes too unsafe. But if we go too far in the "safety first" direction we will have a hard time adjusting back to the center because that direction gives power to some members of society to keep us safe and we all know that people with power don't give it up.
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I don't believe in that tradeoff. While I pay taxes for public services partially to keep me and my family safe, I am also personally responsible for my own safety and that of my family.
 
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