--- "Kelsay, Brian - Kansas City, MO" wrote:
From the Article: "The program charts drivers' relative speed by measuring the time between the intermittent signals cell phones send to towers along a stretch of road. Then, that information - stripped of the personal identification and serial numbers that identify the cell phone's owner - is overlaid with highway maps to determine where the phones are and how fast they are moving."
This says ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about issuing speeding tickets. I assume that this is to add functionality to the KCScout system. The call for hoax on the original email stands. Though this has the POTENTIAL to do the speeding ticket thing ...
I'd love to see them try to prove this one in a court of law.
Prosecutor: According to the cell phone records this person was travelling westbound on I435 at 75 mph on Janaury 30th of this year.
Defendent: But your honor, I don't have a driver's license!
Prosecutor: Your honor we'd like to add the charge of driving without a license.
Defendent: Your Honor, I'm blind and can't drive!
Prosecutor: Your Honor, clearly this man must have been driving, we've got his cell phone records!
Judge: What was the type of vehicle the defendant was in?
Prosecutor: We don't know.
Judge: Where there any other person's in the vehicle?
Prosecutor: We don't know.
Judge: Do you have any eyewitnesses that he was driving?
Prosecutor: We don't know.
Judge: Case dismissed for lack of evidence.
Moral of this story, you can't prove a person was driving a vehicle simply because you are tracking a signal. However, the mere fact of tracking persons by use of a tracking device without a court order smacks of 1984 and one would hope is also a violation of constituional rights. But since our current government doesn't seem to care about constitional rights anymore, I doubt this law could be overturned. Not that we shouldn't try. But that is a topic for the KCLUG-PAC user group. ;')
Brian JD