"Earlier Monday at a news conference, Thompson said he wanted to re-evaluate use of the device but that there were no plans to stop using it.
"It's too good a tool" to cease using, he said. "I personally want to sit through this to get a clear understanding of how this works and get a good comfortable feel before we move forward."
What's more:
"The state paid $5,000 for the devices and $1,500 for training, and the company that makes the devices, ERAD Group, gets a 7.7 percent cut of any funds seized and forfeited through use of the device."
So to summarize, the Okie Dept. of Public Safety is very temporarily pulling this $6,500 money making scheme not because it does nothing to with Public Safety but everything to do with getting familiar with the product. They probably spend more on new propaganda pamphlets from the SPLC every year so the cost is not so much in the grand scheme of things. The cost is not the issue, the kickbacks to the developer are. Moving on.
“We can do nothing with someone’s bank account. We can do nothing with someone’s debit card,” Adams said. “What we can tell is if it is yours, if the information on the back of a gift card is your personal credit card information.”
So this machine that costs $5000 and all they claim it can do is read out the name and banking information from the person that bought it. It cannot touch the bank account of the purchaser but it can swipe the money from the card. All without a shred of due process. Moving on.
“If we didn’t have this technology … we would lose out on the ability to help people that live and work here, or the people passing through here,” Thompson said."
I don't even know what that means, but I love it. Sally Struthers was clearly being upstaged with this tearful mush-mouthed pile of garbage. Moving on.
“In order for us to use those card readers … we have to have reasonable suspicion a crime has occurred to stop someone, then we have to have probable cause before we can move forward to swiping that card and seeing what’s on the card,” Thompson said."
In other words, a stop for a burned out tail light is PC to run your cards. And they wonder why people are pissed. Thank you War on (Some) Drugs (c).
"Thompson said law enforcement agencies in at least 25 states have ERAD devices. The inventor of the device, T. Jack Williams, told Oklahoma Watch last week that hundreds of law enforcement agencies around the country have the device."
"So far, no prepaid card funds have been seized by the Highway Patrol using the devices, Thompson said. The department’s use of the devices is to combat criminal organizations that have taken to using prepaid cards as a way to fraudulently obtain money or disguise illicit operations, such as drug or human trafficking."
But hey, it's totally cool because, crime. Or something.
So first they took money from bank cards and were so kind as to give it back from a machine that can only read names on gift cards. But then they did not take money from gift cards and it was all just a big misunderstanding but it's totally cool because 25 states us the technology.
Is it me, or do you have the feeling you're standing waist deep in a huge pile of male cow excrement?