Editor:
Humour or satire? The cartoon in last week’s paper was probably a bit of both, depending on what stood out for the reader. Comparing a drunk driver to a stoned driver is a poor example of making the argument that they are one and the same. But it’s a cartoon. The caption, “Police training to detect marijuana impaired drivers” and how the conversation in the car describes that said “training” is also quite a belly laugh to most. But probably not to law enforcement. The cartoon captures perfectly the Keystone Cops approach to the quandary the poor officers find themselves in – having to hide and pounce on the next driver who stops and waits for the stop sign to turn green! That is the part which isn’t so funny. Lurking behind cover, in unmarked cars (which in some jurisdictions are not allowed), stopping drivers to simply ask them “where are you going tonight?/where have you been?” – and now the increased use of equipment that allows them to spy on innocent people driving down the road by scanning licence plates. Yikes!
Although this isn’t necessarily new technology, the use of this equipment (Automatic Licence Plate Recognition) has not been approved (by government) for use in Canada. A few months ago this paper did a small article which contained comments from the local staff sergeant in which he says this new piece of equipment “... can tell police within three seconds of scanning the plate of a vehicle driving by if the driver is prohibited ...” This is simply not so. The data they collect and store is related to the vehicle and not the driver. Even scarier is the fact that I can go out and buy one of these and pay a monthly service fee to have access to databases all over North America. And yet there are people who continue to say, “Well, if you have nothing to hide …” We are all entitled to reasonable privacy under Canadian laws. Don’t let yourself be bullied into thinking otherwise.
Don’t linger too long at the stop sign, my friend.
C.B. Cuff, Halfmoon Bay
