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From: gritz@homxa.UUCP (R.SHARPLES)
Newsgroups: net.auto,net.legal
Subject: Re: Radar Detector Legislation
Message-ID: <1101@homxa.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 13-Aug-85 10:01:44 EDT
Article-I.D.: homxa.1101
Posted: Tue Aug 13 10:01:44 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 17-Aug-85 14:19:20 EDT
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>From: larry@kitty.UUCP (Larry Lippman)
>
>	Radar detectors are devices to facilitate the commission of a crime -
>speeding.  Period.  If you feel that a speed limit encroaches upon your
>personal freedom then, as I said above, get the laws abolished.
>		.....................

	I take it then, that if the police want to crack down on drug
	traffic in NYC they should feel free to search everybody on the
	streets of NYC.  You never know who will be carrying drugs.
	And, if they want to crack down on people who kill others with
	illegal guns they can feel free to search every house in NYC to 
	confiscate and illegal guns or find any guns that might have been
	used in the commission of a crime.

	Our legal system is set up not to ensure that violaters of laws are
	caught but rather that innocent citizens who are pursing their own
	LEGAL happiness are not subjected to unwarrented and humiliating
	police scrutiny!

>	Also, more sophisticated devices than radar detectors are presently
>being developed by at least two companies that I know of.  They use a low
>power infra-red laser which works on a doppler principle, and is precisely
>aimed at suspect verhicles using an optical sight.  One company is specifically
>developing their product around a video camera/recorder which will take
>photographs of vehicles exceeding a preset threshhold, with a superimposed
>time/date/speed legend.  
>		.....................

	As far as I know current law requires that evidence provided in
	court be validated by a human witness to the crime.  These picture
	taking devices have been around for a long time but have not
	been accepted as legal evidence of a crime.  I guess some people
	aren't comfortable with a machine producing ironclad evidence that
	they committed a crime.

	In Japan they put a time stamp on your turnpike ticket when you start,
	They calculate your average speed when you exit and write you ticket
	if it is over the limit.  I'm they would love to do that on the 
	turnpikes and parkways here execpt that there is no witness as 
	to when and where you were speeding.

>	I can't wait to see the detectors for modulated IR...  :-)

	I can't wait to see the lawsuits when one of those low power
	lasers blasts someone's retina.
	As to defeating it, since its infra-red, just put an IR source on the
	front of the car to scramble the returned signal.  Right now the FCC
	says it's illegal to do that with radar but they have no power over
	IR.

Russ Sharples
homxa!gritz