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Big Brother Watch: TX Senate would authorize license plate readers on TX highways

I've been busy elsewhere and neglected to mention that the Texas Senate approved an amendment authorizing the damn license-plate readers after TXDoT denied a request by the DEA last year, discussed previously on Grits here and here. In their blog post on the story, the San Antonio Current lets us know that "Texans who are concerned about Article 33?s Orwellian implications can use a form set up by the ACLU to ask their representatives to call for it to be taken out of the bill."Potential for significant unintended consequences lie in these devices' deployment, particularly in Texas, where high traffic fines, sometimes with absurdist "civil" fees larded on top, have combined to leave more than one in 10 drivers with outstanding arrest warrants - mostly for traffic tickets - widespread use of license plate readers would make theoretically possible a dragnet that would overwhelm the jails and courts in a heartbeat if it were ever implemented to even a fraction of its full potential...continue to full post

Full post as published by Grits for Breakfast on May 29, 2009 (boomark / email).