Your License, Registration, Insurance Card - and Fingerprints
The next time you’re driving through Green Bay, Wi., you might want to ease back a bit on the gas pedal. Because, if you get pulled over for speeding (or apparently any traffic-ticket related reason), you will be fingerprinted. On the spot.
Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that you’re driving from Milwaukee to Green Bay to watch the last Packers home game of the season. You’re toolin’ along up I-43 in your automobile, blastin’ the tunes, and hop off the Interstate around Lambeau Field. Heading down S. Military Avenue, you realize (too late) that your foot is a bit heavy on the accelerator, and the red lights are flashing in your rear view mirror.
You pull the car over - you haven’t been drinking, so that’s not a concern - and you roll the window down. “Sir, I clocked you at 60 in a 45 zone. Can I have your license, registration, and insurance card?” Crap. Busted. A routine traffic ticket, right? Yeah, that’ll do wonders for your insurance rates at renewal.
But wait. A few minutes later, the officer returns to your car with the ticket written up. “Sir, I need you to step out of the car for a moment.” What?? Just give me the damn ticket. My tailgating buddies are waiting for me! “Sir, please step out of the car.” He’s getting testy. You step out of the car.
“Sir, I need to capture your fingerprint on the ticket. Please follow my directions, and roll your thumb on this pad.”
Yes, you got that right. The Green Bay Police Department has started fingerprinting anyone that gets pulled over for a simple traffic violation. This is scary, and I’m sure that it’ll be challenged in court. (And the case will probably be lost.)
If you’re ticketed by Green Bay police, you’ll get more than a fine. You’ll get fingerprinted, too. It’s a new way police are cracking down on crime.
If you’re caught speeding or playing your music too loud, or other crimes for which you might receive a citation, Green Bay police officers will ask for your drivers license and your finger. You’ll be fingerprinted right there on the spot. The fingerprint appears right next to the amount of the fine.
Police say it’s meant to protect you — in case the person they’re citing isn’t who they claim to be. But not everyone is sold on that explanation…
When I first read this story, it was rather unbelievable. But the more I think about it, it’s the logical extension of the surveillance and police state that we’re effectively living under. What drives me nuts is when I read a response like this:
“I would feel uncomfortable but I would do it,” Carol Pilgrim of Green Bay said.
Of course you would do it, Carol, because you’re a good little citizen. Cop tells you to do something, you do it, whether or not it’s legal. And, of course, you could refuse. Yeah. You could…
i bet that in less than 5 years every police dept. will do this, and everyone will go into that new database forever. and i bet the fingerprints of newborn babies will soon be required by the fbi too.
hey today i learned it’s not illegal to yell at a cop, but they could tase you for it as though you were physically resisting arrest. but you’re right…the good germans go along with it all because someone said it was for their protection.
well fuck it all. soon we’ll all be in the camps together.
ok i just read the article…uh, word to the wise - don’t hire this defense attorney?
what the the hell kind of lawyer does whatever the cops tell them to do whether they have a right to say no or not? and would you believe that it doesn’t go into a database? it’s just more getting us used to the police state. do not resist.
not surprising that this would happen in wisconsin. that state has a progressive reputation because of Madison and Russ Feingold, but make no mistake: wisconsin is an authoritarian state.
I was born in Wi., Brendan. Last time I was there was 5 or so years back. My mom and dad met at UW (actually, they were both working at the Edgewater in Madison).
My impression has always been that cheeseheads are a pragmatic bunch, and not so much conservative. There are some strong conservative enclaves, but that’s true in any state. For the most part, I really never really felt that Wi. was any more conservative than, say, Minnesota. Seems to me that Wi. voters are a fairly independent bunch.
I truly hope that some good civil libertarian in Wi. challenges this fascist move by the Green Bay police. As somegirl noted, though, when defense attorneys advise compliance, well, that’s not a guy that I’d want to defend me in traffic (or criminal) court…
This is one of those tough trade offs. Identity theft is the boogey man that has everyone scared. First it was your credit cards, now people are making fake IDs with your information but their photograph. If they get arrested and skip trial, the police come looking for you. California cops are starting to write tickets with PDAs on a cellular network. I could see adding instant fingerprint readers to the process as a next step. I think I would be more offended by getting my fingers dirty on the ink pad rather than the process itself. In Georgia the police fingerprint elementary school aged children and store that info for identification if the children are kidnapped. Firearms licenses require fingerprints too. If you apply for a permit to sell alcohol or lottery they take your fingerprints.
Your fingerprints are on file in multiple places already. Since the cat is out of the bag does it really matter? The police can learn a lot more about you from tracking your cellphone GPS than your fingerprints.
Um, isn’t that why they put pictures on driver’s licences?
OT, Wisconsin cops are well-known jerks when it comes to traffic stops, especially on cars with Illinois plates. It’s an easy way to make their ticket quota, since the victim probably won’t take the time to come to court.
Bitter Scribe, I indicated in my post that identity theft for the purposes of creating fake IDs is becoming more common. When someone steals your SSN and other information, they go to the DMV and claim to have lost their ID. They present a social security card, birth certificate, or billing invoice (the latter can be obtained by going through your trash). After the DMV person verifies name and DOB or street address, they tell you to stand in front of the camera to have your picture updated. Now a criminal has a real ID with your information, but their picture. This means photos are absolutely useless now for 100% guaranteed identity verification. One of the Atlanta TV news organizations did an investigative report on this and they turned up cases obvious cases where a black man was arrested for failure to appear in court for a traffic violation, but when they had the DMV print out the ID card it had a white guy’s photo on it. The previous stored record had the real person’s photo on it.
On a traffic violation how do you prove a case like that, unless a fingerprint is taken? If a criminal is booked into jail and routinely fingerprinted, your attorney can easily argue that the fingerprints of his client (you) and the person arrested do not match. Without a fingerprint you are depending on the memory of the cop and his honesty to say that you weren’t the guy he ticketed or video records from the police car camera, assuming you stepped out of the vehicle.
Stealing identities in this manner is nothing new. When I was in college people would routinely skim the obituaries for deceased individuals of similar age and go order a birth certificate so they could have a genuine ID made up that said they were over 21. It isn’t that hard to do and most states have no way of proving the person claiming to have lost their license is the real owner assigned to that driver’s license number.