Privacy

Dad’s Permanent Trailer Plate Has Entered the Surveillance State

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Dad thought “permanent trailer plate” meant permanent. Government apparently meant, “until you buy another trailer, peasant.” For generations, recycling an old trailer plate was the kind of technically-wrong rural economics nobody noticed unless a cop had an actual reason to look. Today, cameras, databases, and algorithms potentially can notice—and remember—things no human officer ever would have bothered with.

That raises a bigger question than Dad’s Great Trailer Plate Crime Spree: **When technology makes it possible for government to notice nearly everything, should it?**

Flock You: The Fourth Amendment Would Like a Word

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America has built a surveillance network King George III could only dream about. License-plate cameras may help catch criminals, but when government can potentially turn millions of innocent motorists into searchable dots on a map, the Fourth Amendment deserves a seat at the table. Catch the car thief. Find the missing child. But when the government wants to reconstruct where ordinary citizens have been, Americans should remember two beautiful words our Founders would appreciate: Flock you.