Police picture of your car license plate a threat to "individual freedom?"

Want to make solving crimes harder, if not impossible? Well then get on board with this almost surreal bill from tea party crazy Rep. David Craig.

Craig's bill targets and limits to 2 days the ability of police to retain pictures of vehicle license plates, which is currently 1 year. How outrageous? I'll bet most people didn't even know this was happening.

But according to Craig, license plate pictures held by our local police departments is an attack on our "individual liberties."  Paranoid son-of-a-bitch.

Perhaps Craig could also require that all public street cams erase their recording after two days too.

This ridiculous "busy hands are happy hands" bill supposedly has bipartisan support, although the story never mentions anyone else's name. From WKOW:

WKOW: A tool the Middleton Police Department says it uses to track down criminals can also infringe upon civil rights, according to some state lawmakers. Police agencies across the country have started using license plate recognition software in recent years. In Middleton, two squad cars have equipment to snap pictures of license plates while officers are on patrol. 

But a police departments secure data base isn't secure enough for a mere picture of our license plate?

Are people crazy?

A bipartisan bill in the state legislature would limit the amount of time the data can be saved. Rep. David Craig (R-Vernon) says one year is unacceptable. "We have advancing technology and we need to put limitations on how that technology can be used so that people's individual liberties are protected," he says. The new bill instead calls for a 48 hour time frame, unless the data is necessary for a criminal investigation. I'm concerned not about criminals, I'm concerned about 'John Q Public' that obeys the law and how long his information is on the books," Craig says.

This is crazy. What about Google Earth's pictures of our homes? What expectation of privacy do we have when were driving around? And solving crime...

But Middleton Police Chief Brad Keil says that two day time limit will hinder investigations. For example, if a car is parked at a crime scene but police don't find out about the incident for more than 48 hours, they won't be able to go back into their database to search that location for license plate numbers in the area at the specific time. Chief Keil also says the database has gotten results with tracking down stolen cars and helping identify suspect vehicles and their drivers. He believes the license plate data is safe. "We understand the concerns with privacy, that's why we have very strict policies on the use of that information."

Yea right. The police are just one arm of big government, that we all know can't do anything right:

Rep. Craig maintains some sort of restriction needs to be in place. "Regardless of what level it is, government has the propensity to bungle personal information," he tells 27 News. The bill has gained both Republican and Democratic support. 

I want the names of those idiot Dem's who bought into this paranoid wisp of fantasy.