Comment by AdieuToLogic | Hacker News Reader

Comment by AdieuToLogic | Hacker News Reader

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>> First, I never implied disallowing analysis at a crime scene

> You weren't implying that video evidence of a car should be off-limits to the police?

No, I did not.

A car is not a crime scene. Neither is "video evidence of a car" a crime scene.

> If stealing hair is too hardcore for a criminal ...

What I wrote was:

  Second, "stealing your hair" is a very different thing than 
  stealing license plates off of your vehicle. This should be 
  obvious.

If you cannot see the difference between someone taking an attachment from a vehicle unbeknownst to you and being in your presence to take hair off of your head, then there is no reality which we share.

> ... just use your example and imagine that, instead of having the plate captured on camera, they find it at the scene of a vehicular homicide.

Then that would be entirely different than your original assertion, which was:

  The misuse of license plate data wouldn't make my top ten 
  list of potential powers that law enforcement might abuse.

Wouldn't it?

> Should that license plate be investigated, or should it be off-limits?

What are you even talking about? You said license plate data "wouldn't make my top ten".

When did I raise the question about license plates being investigated or off-limits?

Must be a misunderstanding here. You said:

> How about if your license plate were stolen without your knowledge, placed on another vehicle of the same make and model, then photographed leaving the scene of a crime?

> You would have to drop tens-of-thousands of dollars in defense of your not being one of the "real criminals." Because the police are not going to sit there and say, "gee wiz, veec_cas_tant could not possibly be a 'real criminal' because they said they are being framed!"

But are claiming:

> A car is not a crime scene. Neither is "video evidence of a car" a crime scene... When did I raise the question about license plates being investigated or off-limits?

It might be easier if you just stated your actual view instead of playing twenty questions, because I have tried to read your posts from multiple angles and can't find any way to reconcile them. If you aren't arguing against the use of camera footage of cars in police investigations, why bring up the stolen plate scenario, along with the legal costs of defending against it, in the first place?

Just to be clear: I would be absolutely fine with law enforcement investigating the appearance of my stolen plates at a crime scene using video footage obtained from private or public cameras. Police using camera footage to investigate a crime scene is not at all a misuse, and I think everybody would be happy that there was footage of the crime.

> Must be a misunderstanding here.

No worries, textual communications do not convey the nuances verbal conversation can provide, so misunderstandings are inevitable.

> It might be easier if you just stated your actual view instead of playing twenty questions ...

What I am saying is that criminals do their best to "throw off the scent" of who they are. The purpose of their stealing license plates is to infuse confusion and/or delay in discovering their identity.

> Just to be clear: I would be absolutely fine with law enforcement investigating the appearance of my stolen plates at a crime scene ...

Perhaps you would, depending on the circumstance and timing of said investigation. And perhaps others may not be as confident, including your future self.

Either way, a person otherwise completely uninvolved would now be a subject in a criminal investigation. The second-order effects of this only exist due to intentional identity misdirection, which is, of course, the whole purpose of license plates being stolen in the first place.

So you do or do not believe video evidence of a vehicle leaving a crime scene should be investigated?

> So you do or do not believe video evidence of a vehicle leaving a crime scene should be investigated?

I have expressed what I believe. The question you now pose is a strawman argument[0] unrelated to the subject of stolen license plates and how the act thereof implicates innocent people.

0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

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