Clubbing in Fortress Amerika (fwd)

[Trei, Peter]

> Jim Choate[SMTP:ravage at einstein.ssz.com] wrote
> 
> On Sat, 20 Oct 2001, Steve Furlong wrote:
> 
> > Jim, I'm going to have to call bullshit on that. A few minutes' checking
> > (google and the revised code pages of a handful of states) shows that
> > defacing a DL generally seems to be a violation, not even a misdemeanor.
> 
> You can go to jail for several years for defacing a license. In Texas it's
> illegal to photocopy it except for official or business purposes.
> 
'Except for official or business purposes' is a hole big enough to drive
a HAZMAT tanker through, privacy-wise. It means that any business
that want to can snarf the data, legally. I recently bought a car - every
dealer photocopied licenses before handing us a movable, disposable
asset worth several $10^4k to take away for a test drive.

I'd have been suprised if they hadn't.

All this does is provide the LEOs with yet another line in the laundry
list of violations they paste on accuseds, to up the time in jail if they
manage to get a conviction.

Peter Trei