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From: eli@cvl.UUCP (Eli Liang)
Newsgroups: net.auto,net.legal
Subject: Re: Re: Radar Surveillance
Message-ID: <711@cvl.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 12-Aug-85 10:08:37 EDT
Article-I.D.: cvl.711
Posted: Mon Aug 12 10:08:37 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 14-Aug-85 02:07:23 EDT
References: <1081@homxa.UUCP> <4891@allegra.UUCP>, <269@ihlpl.UUCP> <1090@homxa.UUCP>
Organization: Computer Vision Lab, U. of Maryland, College Park
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Xref: linus net.auto:6576 net.legal:1675

> 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

As I recall, there is some state in which police aren't allowed to use radar
for that very reason.  In fact they don't even time cars between lines from
the air.  What they do do is fly (in helicopters?) low at some speed leaving
a shadow on the highway and watch for cars that move faster than these
shadows.  I heard this from a random source so I could be all B.S.
-eli
-- 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Eli Liang  ---
        University of Maryland Computer Vision Lab, (301) 454-4526
        ARPA: liang@cvl, liang@lemuria, eli@mit-mc, eli@mit-prep
        CSNET: liang@cvl  UUCP: {seismo,allegra,brl-bmd}!umcp-cs!cvl!liang