California Officials Admit To Using License Plate Readers To Monitor Welfare Recipients (gizmodo.com) 170
According to a report from the Sacramento Bee, officials in Sacramento County have been accessing license plate reader data to track welfare recipients suspected of fraud. The practice dates back to 2016. Gizmodo reports: Sacramento County Department of Human Assistance Director Ann Edwards confirmed to the paper that welfare fraud investigators working under the DHA have used the data for two years on a "case-by-case" basis. Edwards said the DHA pays about $5,000 annually for access to the database. Abbreviated LPR, license plate readers are essentially cameras that upload photographs to a searchable database of images of license plates. If a driver passed by an LPR four times throughout a city, an officer with access would know where and at what time of day. Anyone with access to that data could use it track where someone drove and when, provided they were scanned by the LPR.
It's not immediately clear how travel patterns might reveal welfare fraud. As noted by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, welfare fraud is statistically speaking, extremely rare. In 2012, the DHA found only 500 cases of fraud among Sacramento's 193,000 recipients. Following an inquiry from the EFF, the DHA has instituted a privacy policy (one that didn't exist before their initial inquiry) requiring investigators to justify each request for LPR data. The Sacramento Bee reports the DHA accessed the data over a thousand times in two years.
It's not immediately clear how travel patterns might reveal welfare fraud. As noted by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, welfare fraud is statistically speaking, extremely rare. In 2012, the DHA found only 500 cases of fraud among Sacramento's 193,000 recipients. Following an inquiry from the EFF, the DHA has instituted a privacy policy (one that didn't exist before their initial inquiry) requiring investigators to justify each request for LPR data. The Sacramento Bee reports the DHA accessed the data over a thousand times in two years.
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And I am hearing that in the voice of Mr. Spacely now.
"You must have fucked up somewhere..."
welfare fraud rates (Score:5, Insightful)
from the ./ summary:
"welfare fraud is statistically speaking, extremely rare. In 2012, the DHA found only 500 cases of fraud among Sacramento's 193,000 recipients."
To be precise, detecting welfare fraud is extremely rare.
Re:welfare fraud rates (Score:5, Insightful)
from the ./ summary:
"welfare fraud is statistically speaking, extremely rare. In 2012, the DHA found only 500 cases of fraud among Sacramento's 193,000 recipients."
To be precise, detecting welfare fraud is extremely rare.
'detecting and proving'
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from the ./ summary:
"welfare fraud is statistically speaking, extremely rare. In 2012, the DHA found only 500 cases of fraud among Sacramento's 193,000 recipients."
To be precise, detecting welfare fraud is extremely rare.
'detecting and proving'
Not really. I had access to data 20 years ago and it was very easy. Simple oracle sql calls on the right databases. Things like do they have a bank account? What are the activities there? What about their tax returns? Look at phone records. Some homes have 80+ different people with phones that call that house home. Yea, bullshit. Not a 800 square foot home. Every one of them was collecting money from the government. These are usually illegals. So it really bothers me when people say illegals don't cost us a
Re:welfare fraud rates (Score:5, Insightful)
To be more precise, there are more people looking for welfare cheats than there are policing Wall Street.
You can follow the money two ways, follow the pennies, or follow the millions/billions.
But white guys stealing old ladies pensions is just good ol' American Capitalism.
Good lord, but are our values f'd up or what.
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I agree with the point you are making, but the plural of anecdote absolutely could be considered data. Do polls contain data? Is a scientists observations of his experiments data?
Maybe you are confused about the definition of anecdote or somehow believe that someone's direct observation of an event does not qualify as data (and if it did not, Darwin's theory of survival of the fittest would be invalid as his observations about finches is just a collection of anecdotal observations).
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You hang around with dogs and you get fleas, " I have met my fair share of welfare recipients, and none of them were honest", did you meet a lot because you shared one thing in common, starts with a 'H' and a lack there off.
Want a better return on investigation from the top down works much better, and PS welfare cheats refer to people who work and claim welfare. Reality, an incompetent loser who is incapable of doing reliable work, well, it's better for us when they are on welfare because they make shit wo
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You hang around with dogs and you get fleas, " I have met my fair share of welfare recipients, and none of them were honest", did you meet a lot because you shared one thing in common, starts with a 'H' and a lack there off.
Maybe I worked in a welfare office? Maybe I ran for a public office? Maybe I owned apartments? You know what they say about people that assume things, right?
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But welfare fraud hurts not only taxpayers but the fraudster, because they could be a contributing member of society, and they usually have children who they teach how to commit welfare fraud.
Well, if you can use $100 to prevent $500 worth of welfare fraud or use it to prevent $50000 of tax fraud, what should you do?
Of course, you should use $200 to prevent the welfare fraud. Because nothing is worse than some one poor getting something that they don't deserve and you know for certain that you will become a millionaire in just a few years and then you can profit from the tax fraud yourself. So a complete no-brainer, that one.
Obviously welfare fraud, because they're hurting themselves and children. If someone has $50,000 in tax fraud, meaning they should have paid $50,000 more in taxes that they didn't, they must be a contributing member of society to have so much that they did not pay to govt.
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Although your characterization is very one-dimensional and, frankly, racist (which is a truly "f'd up" value), I can point out a very important difference between welfare and Wall Street:
Welfare money originates from people coerced by the government to hand it over. Wall Street money originates from the free market/capitalism, and (partially) from elites who are rich enough to bribe other elites to maintain legal loopholes to line their elite pockets (corporatism).
These are the same elites who socially conv
Re:welfare fraud rates (Score:4, Funny)
The downward curve of credibility as your sentence progressed was delightfully smooth.
2006 called (Score:2)
Re: 2006 called (Score:2)
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So part of the question is - does it make financial sense to spend a significant number of man-hours trying to uncover those non-obvious instances of welfare fraud?
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The answer is no but, it's the political right's obsession to do it anyway because since they believe it, then it has to be true!. Facts are irrelevant.
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This is a Sacramento County program and Sacramento has a Republican mayor. (I'm in Sacramento County.)
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Sacramento has a Republican mayor
Historical data (i.e. wikipedia [wikipedia.org]) seems to be spotty regarding party affiliations, but Sacramento has had a democratic mayor for bare-minimum the last 36 years and counting.
Re: welfare fraud rates (Score:2)
Geez, you only had go back to the Clinton administration in the last century to find someone to blame for a California state policy you donâ(TM)t like that started some 15 years after Gingrich left office...
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The answer is no but, it's the political right's obsession to do it anyway because since they believe it, then it has to be true!. Facts are irrelevant.
You answered definitively no, but provided no facts to back up your position. I suggest you add your own facts if you are going to be critical of others on this.
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Yes we understand only the LEFT(I can use shift also) can be zealots.
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Considering that it stated that there was no widespread fraud in this article, it seemed a little unnecessary to back up my assertion that there was no widespread fraud and thus this was a waste of resources. But, if you feel you need more studies to prove it, there are plenty out there by many different states' welfare departments, not that I think you'll believe them, either.
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"The Division also tracks savings to ensure cost effectiveness. “Using state provided cost benefit formulas, our division has proven to be very cost effective,” said Shawn Loehr, Assistant Chief Investigator. “With the smart use of t
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1000 requests for data over two year period in a program that has 500 cases of fraud annually? provided that they are, in fact, only "investigating" those for whom they have reasonable cause to suspect them of fraud... sounds like a reasonable use of resources and funding, provided that the travel data does provide evidence that can further their investigations (like travel to casinos, known drug dealers, proof of some sort of employment that's not being reported,living outside of the jurisdiction they're c
Re: welfare fraud rates (Score:2)
The extraordinary efforts described in the article are database dips into someone elseâ(TM)s database for data collected by someone elseâ(TM)s LPRs - in reality, they are essentially free.
So all this talk of exceptional measures to combat welfare fraud has no relevance here, since the program essentially costs nothing, and has to be individually requested/justified on a case-by-case basis.
Re:welfare fraud rates (Score:5, Insightful)
does it make financial sense to spend a significant number of man-hours trying to uncover those non-obvious instances of welfare fraud?
It's more than just dollars spent vs. dollars recovered for the cases you find -- you have to factor in the deterrent effect you get from noisily making examples of the ones you find and thus increasing the known risk of playing the system.
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People who expected decades of federal and state "privacy" laws to never connect different state and federal databases and discover the created ID was fake.
Re:welfare fraud rates (Score:5, Informative)
Since June 2016, when the county started using ALPR data, investigators discovered fraud had occurred in about 13,000 of the 35,412 fraud referrals they investigated, or about 37 percent of the time, the DHA said.
I think BeauHD is putting on his liberal bias glasses when he edited up the summary. DHA says 13,000 confirmed cases of fraud in just 2 years. A far cry from 500...
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We'd rather pay the state to take care of the homeless than do it ourselves (or pay bible bashers to do it).
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However you do get a lot of liberals these days who take welfare for granted and not something meant to help people while they're looki
Re: welfare fraud rates (Score:2)
Why not relocate people that canâ(TM)t find work in a designated âoehigh unemployment area?â
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Do we have any detail on what this "fraud" is? Because if it's not leading to 13,000 prosecutions it's most likely just mistakes made on forms, probably by staff.
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After all, the goal of detecting welfare fraud is not to put people behind bars, it's to ensure funds available for welfare payments go to those that actually need it. The only
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Holy smokes, I wonder how they're using the LPR to detect fraud.
It went from 500 confirmed cases in 2012, before LPR was used, to 13000 in 2 years after LPR. That's amazing. They also improved the rate significantly, from 6.25% of referred cases confirmed to 37%. And the stats for 2012 say "For every dollar spent, the Division saves an average of $3.74" -- I can only imagine that's gone up as well.
This is probably one of the most effective government initiatives I've ever heard of. Hopefully other states ar
Re: welfare fraud rates (Score:2)
Citation? For example, a rouge employee at a private facility trying to file bogus welfare claims for immigrant children wouldnâ(TM)t really be something you could hold the president accountable for, unless you suffer from Trump Derangement Syndrome.
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I don't think it's true, but private prisons have basically been handed blank checks:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/t... [wsj.com]
I don't think anyone realizes how much corporate welfare goes on in the prison system in general.
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It's not the fraud rates that concern me, but the percentage of people on welfare in Sacramento county. 193,000 is 12% of the county's population. That means almost one out of every eight people is on welfare in the county.
That seems high for a place where the unemployment rate is only 3.9%.
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Note the definition of "unemployment" is NOT "he/she has no job".
If you have stopped looking for a job, you are NOT "unemployed", according to the current definition of "unemployed".
Which means it would be quite trivial to have 12% of the people on Welfare and only 4% unemployed....
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Here in Nevada you can't get welfare if you have a job that pays a few cents more than minimum wage. And just having a job period makes you exempt from most welfare services they offer. And they also scrutinize and harass you to boot.
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Ever heard of the 'working poor'?
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You've never been on welfare of any kind (Score:3, Interesting)
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None of that is true (Score:2)
As for how much you're paid, it's a few hundred amount in cash and another few hundred in food
Re:You've never been on welfare of any kind (Score:4, Insightful)
>"It's damn near impossible to game the system for long."
I don't know much about welfare fraud, but suspect it is pretty high in many ways; although the worst problems with it are designed right into it. But Social Security "disability" fraud is rampant and probably far more worthy of investigation. I know people that have been on it for many years who are perfectly able to work, some who even work under-the-table. Almost anyone who is denied just gets a lawyer and "presto", approved... complete with back payments.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/r... [forbes.com]
http://www.reformssdinow.org/w... [reformssdinow.org]
You suspect wrong (Score:2)
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If we put half the effort into finding Wallstreet cheats we do the occasional welfare cheat we'd never have another market crash again.
That's weird, you think market crashes are due to "Wallstreet cheats?" There's been so much misinformation since the financial crisis, it's really sad. It's a big part of the reason why millennials have less faith in the stock market than things like bitcoin.
By the way, there wasn't a single point of failure in the financial crisis. It was a culmination of failures at all levels. The part that Wall Street played was their bad risk calculations, which were based on historical data about default rates and the
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>"That's weird, you think market crashes are due to "Wallstreet cheats?""
For him it is not weird at all because he is a dyed-in-the-wool Socialist (even if he doesn't realize it). Most every post indicating that all our problems are due to big corporations and capitalism; and how more government will solve the problem, with socialized healthcare, socialized internet, "free" college, more welfare, more "wealth re-distribution", more regulations, more departments, more programs, etc. Spend spend spend s
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I don't think there's any political solution. Even something like changing the electoral system.. the problems you're talking about are deeper than lack of voter choice. Some voters will vote for more entitlements no matter what, corporations will lobby whoever is elected.
I'm kind of at a crossroads when it comes to government intervention. I just think of the social power of corporations today because of the internet... Infowars was banned from Apple, Facebook, and Google (Youtube anyway) in one day. How i
The 2008 market crash was caused by CDS (Score:2)
You're being had. A small group of people are making off with everything to your detriment. The sooner you realize this the sooner you can join me and help fix it.
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or Credit Derivative Swaps. Period. This is not up for debate.
There are a dozen things that all had to happen for the financial crisis to take place, it doesn't make sense to blame just one of them over the others. Credit default swaps exacerbated the situation but did not cause it.
And CDSes were only possible because they hid toxic debt in them.
You're really talking about CDOs here, collateralized debt obligations. CDSs didn't hide toxic debt, they were the insurance program for purchasers (and speculators) of CDOs (and other instruments). CDOs "hid" the toxic debt, particularly as things got layered and you had CDOs of CDSs -- ba
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This is what it looks like: https://www.app.com/story/news... [app.com]
Funny thing is the trials have yet to get through grand jury, and the State offered an Amnesty package to others for a period of time: https://www.app.com/story/news... [app.com]
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Yup there are some seriously dysfunctional pressures today. The people who get the most benefits are the ones who need it the most, but it also produces a pressure to become that type of person who needs it the most. That means, like you said, live with a boyfriend and don't get married. Have more children and don't list the father on the birth certificate. Obviously don't get a job, or if you must then get one that pays cash. Don't bother saving for a house because section 8 pays for rent, not a mortgage.
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Just google it. Example: Lakewood welfare fraud [app.com]. In light of that case, 159 people were granted amesty to the tune of $2.2 million.
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from the ./ summary:
"welfare fraud is statistically speaking, extremely rare. In 2012, the DHA found only 500 cases of fraud among Sacramento's 193,000 recipients."
To be precise, detecting welfare fraud is extremely rare.
What was the amount/yr of the fraud, and for how many years did it take place? Want to bet they could not recover any abuse taking of money, other than putting the person in double debt
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Are you sure it isn't an even bazillion? Y'know, while we are just making stuff up.
Of course there was plenty of money to give a big tax cut to the rich and cash heavy corporations back in December.
Re: Exactly. (Score:2)
You mean 50 years, and actually after steadily rising under the last administration, the number of Americans on welfare/snap benefits is shrinking under the current administration, in large part because of record-low unemployment figures across several demographic groups (blacks, women, Latino, etc.).
Re: welfare fraud rates (Score:2)
The license plate scanner network was not built for detecting welfare fraud, the welfare fraud investigators are tapping into the pre-existing LPR system to strengthen their cases. Should they not take advantage of a system already in place?
The wrong problem (Score:1)
"
"welfare fraud is statistically speaking, extremely rare. In 2012, the DHA found only 500 cases of fraud among Sacramento's 193,000 recipients."
"
I would guess it would be much more easier and cheaper to help 500 people get off welfare than tracking the same amount (not necessarily the same people).
If we spend our energy making sure people don't need welfare, then there would be less need to track down offenders.
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I do note that the law should recognize such things as full-time care for a sick or disabled family member as unpaid-work, the system is actually saving money by not
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This is totally different from the far more prevalent welfare abuse, where recipients don't actually try to look for work as they are supposed to under the law, content to live a meaningless existence with the meager assistance that welfare provides.
This quote demonstrates just how dumb the various plans by Democrats to compromise on an issue so it will be "off the table" forever.
Bill Clinton and the Republicans in Congress ended Welfare. Yet you still believe it exists more than 20 years after it ended.
It was replaced with a program called "TANF". It has a lifetime limit of 5 years. So no, it's not possible to live a meaningless existence with the meager assistance that welfare provides. Because the money gets cut off. Even if you're unlucky enou
Re:The wrong problem (Score:4)
benefit cliffs make it better for some people not (Score:2)
benefit cliffs make it better for some people not to work.
also people on disability who get better healthcare then say the shit that mcdonalds mini med is.
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That would mean actually solving real problems and that's hard and not usually politically rewarding in a short timespan.
I have found a new name for "Helpdesk" (Score:2)
Department of Human Assistance
Alert: I have officially found a new name for the "helpdesk".
what's the problem? (Score:1)
Don't want to be monitored? Get a job. The rest of the country (at least the parts that Made America Great Again) have record unemployment.
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The rest of the country (at least the parts that Made America Great Again) have record unemployment.
Actually, rural America has a far higher poverty rate, food-stamp rate and use of TANF than those terrible coastal areas.
You're welcome for all the money we send you, by the way. Hope you guys use it well instead of blowing it on red hats.
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yeah white trash are trash too. monitoring them causes nausea in 3 letter agencies because they fuck their relatives. what's your point?
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Yeah, those who don't have a job deserve less privacy than others. It's not bad enough to not have a job ; you need to be punished for that, because it's your fault, lazy parasite.
Is that a troll ?
Can be Used for Good... (Score:3)
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Worse still, since until now they didn't have to provide a justification to access the database some of those accesses were likely cases of spying on love interests. It happens with every secret investigative system. Even when there are good controls to prevent it, some people do it anyway and get snagged. Its called LOVEINT in the spy world.
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Yeah, I think there's nothing wrong with the whole program except for not getting a warrant...and with reasonable suspicion. Everyone has a right to expect privacy. They have the reasonable suspicion grounds, so why not use that to get a warrant?
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Most likely part of the terms and conditions of participating in the welfare program allow some level of investigation into their finances and assets, so why would they need a warrant? Do you think they also need a warrant to do the initial check on their income tax records and property tax records? Not every action in society needs the stamp of a judge. People can do things themselves from time to time.
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So you're saying you think that a government can ask you to sign away your rights through terms and conditions? Not a good precedent for a government agency at all, if not outright illegal.
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Yes, because you don't have to accept welfare. If you do sign up for it, it's reasonable to sign away certain rights to a limited degree. Think about it, it makes sense, kind of like if you apply for a permit to buy a handgun you are agreeing to let the state investigate you to some degree. You can't apply for a handgun permit and then say "Hey wait you can't investigate me at all without probable cause that I've done something wrong" -- that just doesn't make sense.
no way (Score:2)
They had warrants right? (Score:3)
What's the big deal? (Score:2)
Don't California welfare participants read the EULA?
"Rare"? (Score:1)
The Gizmodo article misstates EFF's claim about frequency of welfare fraud:
EFF says "The use of powerful ALPR data is disproportionate to the need. As Sacramento DHA officials acknowledged in 2013: “the percentage of fraud cases is statistically low.”. So, EFF is quoting Sacramento DHA saying "statistically low". Ctrl-F on EFF does not hit on 'rare'. EFF never said fraud was rare.
Sacramento Bee did not want to attribute the 'rare' quote to Gizmodo, so they dishonestly implied that EFF said th
Are these numbers right? (Score:1)
In 2012, the DHA found only 500 cases of fraud among Sacramento's 193,000 recipients.
Sacramento has a population of about 500,000 and there are 193,000 welfare recipients? So over 38% of the population is on welfare? Please tell me that this is not correct. If true, I think there are bigger issues than welfare fraud.
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They're spending more money on tracking these people down than they were likely receiving in benefits. It's spending good money after bad.
Re:JFC... (Score:5, Insightful)
Little experiment for those at home: Look up the Kelly Blue Book value for a 5-year-old C-class Mercedes, and a 5-year-old Toyota Camry. If you don't want to look, you'll find out the Toyota costs more.
You're doing well and driving a paid-off Mercedes. And then shit hits the fan. Selling the Mercedes is a bad idea because resale value on luxury cars is terrible. Drive it into the ground, because it will last quite a few more years without maintenance and you've already paid it off.
Even though people like this poster will insist you must be committing welfare fraud because you are driving what was once an expensive car.
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If you ever lose your job and are near-bankrupt...keep your car. It's not going to pay to sell it in the short or long term.
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Park the car. Take the bus. I might not sell my car. But I'm going to cut back on driving and maybe switch to a pay-per-mile insurance program. One effect will be to make tracking me by license plate scanning practically useless.
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I generally agree but there are always caveats. Is the car already paid for? Is it more car than you need? I've known people that struggled to put food on the table but were driving giant trucks or late model sports cars. You can buy a 10-20 year old Toyota Corolla or something similar that'll get you where you need to go reliably for a couple grand, and as a bonus you get better fuel economy and cheaper insurance rates. If your vehicle is unnecessarily expensive sell it, use part of the money to buy the sm
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They should hire DMV employees to do that job.
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And nobody's forcing you to ride the subway [slashdot.org] either. These recipients are also the public. They are also citizens with rights to privacy. They are only looking with reasonable suspicion, but they appear to not be getting a warrant and thinking that's OK just because it's a database that they pay for access to.