I can hear it now. If you haven't done anything wrong, than you have nothing to worry about. Nyaaa. That will likely be the cry of the officials in Florida who plan on photographing every car that passes by and checking the driver and license plates against a database of criminals. Of course, they also make the empty promise that records will only be kept for 90 days.

Why 90 days? Why not 90 seconds? How long does it take to check a database any way? Watch and learn as 90 days becomes 6 months, and 6 months becomes indefinite. Should this wanton violation of privacy hold up, it will be the harbinger of things to come. It makes me think that the instant camera is quickly becoming one of the worst inventions of the 20th century.

Fifty years ago, had some town suggested stopping all motorists and checking their identity against a database of wanted fugitives, the Supreme Court would have slapped them down for violating citizen's Fourth Amendment protections. (For those of you that cannot remember, the long ago repealed Fourth Amendment used to read in part: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated...") Now stopping every motorist would be a blatant example of an unreasonable search. But what about photographing every motorist?

Photography has become so advanced and transparent that people no longer consider it unreasonable. Governments have the technology to set up cameras on every street corner in America and link them all to a central computer. Within minutes, they could know exactly who you are. Cross-reference that with a few databases like your tax returns, credit card records, or those grocery store discount cards, and they could quickly piece together your entire life's history. This should alarm everyone, no matter how squeaky clean you are.

Naturally, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Today, bureaucrats are promising they'll only use the system to catch criminals. But with the plethora of laws in today's society, I'm sure we could all be guilty of something. And why should we permit them to take away more of our rights today with no guarantee that more won't be taken away tomorrow? This time it's violent criminals, but next time it could be people who dare ride around without a seatbelt, or someone who has the audacity to light a cigarette within 25 feet of a building entrance. There comes a time when people need to stand against government encroachment into our every day lives. For Floridians, more than ever that time is now.