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From: gritz@homxa.UUCP (R.SHARPLES)
Newsgroups: net.auto,net.legal
Subject: Re: Radar Surveillance
Message-ID: <1090@homxa.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 7-Aug-85 15:58:47 EDT
Article-I.D.: homxa.1090
Posted: Wed Aug  7 15:58:47 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 12-Aug-85 04:33:46 EDT
References: <1081@homxa.UUCP> <4891@allegra.UUCP>, <269@ihlpl.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Holmdel NJ
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Xref: linus net.auto:6538 net.legal:1645

As the original poster someone asked me to clarify my position in my 
posting on radar surveillance.

My point is not that police should not apprehend speeders, I am all for
safe highways.  My point is that the use of radar guns to catch speeders
is basically unwarrented search, from which we have constitutional protection.
The police are "searching" every car, sometimes even before they can see the
car, to determine its speed.  They have no "probable cause" in most cases, 
certainly in the cases where they cannot see the car (or clearly determine which
car in a pack produced the reading) and yet they are still searching.

It is very easy to overlook this infringement of our rights because radar
is so unobtrusive; but so are wiretaps!  The police would probably aprehend
many dangerous criminals if they used equipment to eves-drop on conversations
in Times Square, but you can bet they need a warrant or at least "probable
cause" to do that.  How hard would it be to get a warrent to eves-drop on
every conversation in Times Square?

It is bad enough to let the govt. get away with this, but now NJ wants to
outlaw our only defense against this!  That's like the govt. outlawing 
devices that detect wire taps.  Does that sound constitutional?!?

Russ Sharples
homxa!gritz