Don't like those speed cameras that generate traffic tickets without your being stopped on the spot? Chances are, you won't be keen on another new police technology that is being funded by Department of Homeland Security grants.

Automated license plate scanners, which enable cops to quickly check whether passing cars warrant stopping, are the latest police tool to take advantage of available digital technologies—and stir up fears of Big Brother. In Lakewood, N.J., nine police officers are now using the license plate scanners, which are really a set of six cameras mounted on top of the "reader car." The cameras are capable of photographing and transmitting a snapshot of a license plate to a central database within a second. "An alert beeps when a vehicle warranting examination is spotted and the officer then can initiate a motor vehicle stop," notes the Asbury Park Press.

Information such as the location of suspect vehicles is shared with a national crime database, per the terms of the grant.

The primary purpose of the technology is counterterrorism, said one police official. No doubt that was the genesis of the grant idea, but since routine traffic stops far, far outnumber any terrorist activity, the claim seems a bit disingenuous. Constitutionally, the technology is on shaky ground, since it amounts to conducting surveillance of plenty of innocent motorists. Moreover, the cameras create a digital police record of our whereabouts that may or may not be completely erased. Digital records have a way of being hard to kill completely, like movie monsters.

But the raw reality is that the technology now exists, therefore it will be used. The key is building in safeguards for its proper use.... or buying a can of PhotoBlocker.