Posted on 12/02/2025 11:56:33 AM PST by yesthatjallen
Hours before the sun rose on Dallas police Chief Daniel Comeaux’s first day on the job, an elderly man in a wheelchair was shot dead near Fair Park.
Two days later, the new chief stood among a cluster of officers outside the suspected gunman’s home in west Oak Cliff. He was impressed by one tool the investigators had used to arrive there: the network of license plate-reading cameras scattered across the city.
“I was like, ‘Alright,’” Comeaux recalled saying, referencing the April case months later in an episode of Bridging the Divide, the Assist the Officer Foundation’s podcast, “‘explain this whole Flock camera.’”
Investigators tied the suspect to a second fatal shooting earlier the same month. The story, Comeaux said, was one of his favorites to tell. The chief described how the clarity of the vehicle images surprised him and how officers, with those photos in hand, were able to build a case for the arrest.
The license plate-reading cameras, usually mounted on 12-foot poles, have quickly become standard in police departments across the country, including the Dallas Police Department. Documents recently obtained by The Dallas Morning News through open-record requests indicate Dallas police utilize hundreds of the cameras across the city.
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The company markets what it calls its “vehicle fingerprint technology,” a system that doesn’t just read license plates but analyzes a vehicle’s make, model, color and other cosmetics — like bumper stickers or decals — to flag it across a network of cameras.
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(Excerpt) Read more at dallasnews.com ...
It was a step in the right direction but not for individual liberty. The reason was to block the tracking of illegals....
If only insurance companies knew how some of their half witted clients drove we would be better off.
Ugh. I should have known it.
“All of this is legal, excepting perhaps the paint and that’s not for sure.”
No everything you said is illegal in Texas. Nothing can be over your plate. NOTHING No covers, no plastic, no tilt nothing. It must be the raw plate mounted by bolts only to the frame or bumber, front and back , you cannot have a frame either if it covers more than 1/2” front the edge of the plate the number and 1/2 inch around them just be not only visible but in covered. You will be pulled over with valid probable cause if you violate this and God help you if your refuse the breathalyzer they will demand regardless of the time of day have anything above 0.01 BAC and they will use the subjective experience to bring you in for a blood test , you might beat the charge but you will not beat the ride to lock up. The process is the punishment. I guarantee Frisco, Plano and the Colony Texas will absolutely roast you for exactly what you think you can get away with they will take great pleasure in making the next 48 hours of your life the worst. My attorney friends make bank defending people exactly like your ideas. I have seen people taken to jail from a parking lot for not having a front plate. Oh out of state plates... How long have you been here do you have a rental even an airbnb here , have you been here for more than 4 weeks? Sure lie that is another now state jail level felony. They will pull credit card records post arrest as part of discovery bank on that and with Flock they can also just pull the records of when and how long that out of state plate has been tagged in Texas longer than 30 days you must change it and get a Texas DL too. Flock makes it easy to tag by time and place. It’s not just Dallas, Austin Houston and San Antonio use them too if you have been driving in Texas your plate is on them day in and day out. Most of the PD also have plate readers on their patrol vehicles themselves always scanning. Don’t be without insurance that’s in the state database too. I got pulled over when state farm had a glitch and it showed my insurance was lapsed it had not been 25+ years with state farm always on auto pay. Frisco PD pulled me over when it’s plate reader showed I didn’t have valid insurance it was automatic he got a alert from the system as his vehicle drove past me he slowed down and jumped behind because of that alert. What was his first question as @ 8pm it was not do you have insurance it was where are you coming from and have you had anything to drink tonight. Again probable cause they make BANK on DUI it’s what local cops live for. Wasn’t speeding and FSD was driving better than humans ever could it was the plate tagging that gave them cause.
I agree with you in principle and despise these cameras, but there is no expectation of privacy in public places.
You are, as usual, incorrect.
The only one doubtful is the paint, as noted.
I partially agree that it isn’t the private company taking pictures of license plates or cars or even facial recognition that I find objectionable, as I do agree with you on the absence of expectation of privacy in public places.
What find illegal, illegitimate, and unprincipled is the deliberate purchase of those images and data by government via taxpayer dollars to intentionally bypass legal restrictions and laws that have been put in place to protect our privacy from a prying government that is ravenous for more and more data on individual citizens in their efforts to control them.
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