The DEA is tracking your movements, in real time

I don't do drugs, but I certainly don't like this.

The Atlantic does their best Bill Maher impression: "We've traded our freedom to drive around without being tracked for next to nothing. Those who would cede essential liberty for the promise of security may deserve neither, but ceding it for the promise of a drug free America is just delusional."

From the DEA's website: "2014 Year in Photos"
Which is a little odd in itself, isn't it?

The DEA, and apparently other Police forces, track the movement of cars in real time via license plate readers, stop light cams, video cams, tolls, etc.  Everybody.  E v e r y b o d y. Completely innocent folks, who are not under suspicion of any crime.  Just because they can.  Well, they have the technology, anyway.  Whether they 'can' probably still hasn't been completely tested in court.

Don't worry though, they 'delete' the info in the database after 90 days.

But what happens when you turn this around?

Cops decry Waze traffic app as a “police stalker”

Want to know if the CHP are near you as you drive down the 405?  There's an app for that.

Waze, an app owned by Google, and "used by some 50 million people in 200 countries, is a free service that provides real-time traffic data about accidents, congestion, traffic cameras, and weather among other information. It also allows Waze users to report a police presence, which then appears on a traffic map for others to see."

And the police are not happy about that.  They claim, after the shooting of cops in New York recently, that it puts their officers at risk.  Waze spokesperson responds that it increases the safety of the public, because people tend to drive more responsibly when they know police are nearby.

I'm a day late posting this here, but I actually did post it on Facebook a day before Patterico made the same comparison on his blog. The main reason I mention this is because I initially wondered if I was being weird juxtaposing the two stories, and seeing that Patterico was struck the same way gave me a little confirmation.

As Patterico concludes: "And yet, there is a certain irony here, is there not? In one story, the authorities are saying that law enforcement can use technology to compile information on citizens based on public observations — and in another story, the authorities are trying to prevent citizens from using technology to compile information on law enforcement based on public observations." [original emphasis]