One thing you learn when you do police-supportive work is that there are a lot of people out there who wish to undermine the police.
I don’t just mean the tweakers who pause their skateboards long enough to scrawl ACAB on the nearest lamppost. I’m taking about highly-organized, well-funded groups whose stated purposes sound idealistic, and who may actually do some good work, but whose hidden agenda often includes weakening law enforcement. A good example is the Institute for Justice (IFJ), an outfit headquartered in Arlington, Virginia, a Washington D.C. suburb that is one of the most expensive cities in America. IFJ is a nonprofit whose efforts to combat what they call “law enforcement misconduct” and “the lack of accountability for law enforcement officers” puts them squarely in league with the “defund the police” woke left.
The IFJ claims to “protect the constitutional rights of Americans.” It’s only fair to say their lawyers do frequently represent “little guys” who are picked on by municipalities in many cases that, on the face, seem blatantly unfair. On larger issues, though, IFJ one of those rather secretive, well-connected D.C. nonprofits that have insinuated themselves into the political process as much as the legitimate three branches of government. Although the U.S. Constitution gives nonprofits no special privilege, the Courts have allowed these lobbying organizations unfettered access to both dark money and the power and influence money buys.
IFJ’s federal IRS Form 990 for the year 2023 reports total revenues of $39 million. The same form lists a financial account they have in the Cayman Islands. ISJ’s top management—president, vice president, general counsel—earn between $470,000 and $658,000 in salary. Sadly, the Form 990 does not include information about donors, and I was unable to dig up any related information. IFJ itself claims that 70% of their funding comes from “individuals like you,” but without specifics, this is just a slogan.
I go into all this detail about IFJ because the nonprofit just filed a lawsuit against the manufacturer of a popular License Plate Recognition (LPR) camera, Flock Safety, whose high-tech devices can read and analyze the license plates of vehicles involved in criminal activities, such as those used by thieves fleeing from retail theft situations. San Francisco and Oakland are among the cities utilizing Flock cameras, the latter after Gov. Newsom announced plans earlier this year to install 500 of them around Oakland. The cameras are important instruments in the hands of law enforcement and the courts in identifying and stopping criminals, yet IFJ claims they violate the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition of unreasonable searches and seizures.
There is, I suppose, some theoretical merit to this position, and certainly nobody wants America to become a Gestapo or Brave New World society where technology tracks our every move and reports it to Big Brother. That’s a nightmare scenario, but it seems rather far-fetched to claim that license plate readers, used exclusively to identify and track down criminals, will lead to the end of personal freedom in America. I simply don’t believe that. The fact is that our police forces need stronger and more effective technology to battle criminals, but every time such a technology comes along, we see groups like the IFJ and the ACLU try to stop it. I suspect that the great majority of well-paid lawyers working at these esteemed civil rights organizations live in wealthy, well-policed communities, like Arlington, where they don’t have to worry about being victims. But the rest of us, who are compelled to live in places like Oakland, have a vested interest in seeing bad guys put out of business, and if license plate recognition cameras can help us, then we should be all for them.
This is not to call into question the motives or sincerity of the people at IFJ. It is, however, apt to recall the old aphorism, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” All too often the left, including the civil liberties crowd, whines about the steady whittling away of our “freedoms,” while forgetting that the most fundamental freedom of all is to remain alive and safe. Safe, that is, from human predators. Anyone in Oakland who is more afraid of license plate readers than of drug fiends and carjackers has to get her head examined.
It’s sad that we have to make these Hobbesian choices: freedom from violence versus freedom from government intrusion. But we do. Welcome to the real world.
Steve Heimoff