[t vago]

Remember! Law abiding citizens have nothing to fear!

Don't Get Too Comfortable—Nationwide License Plate Tracking Will Be Back - Popular Mechanics

These are not just abstract fears of abuse. As the Washington Post reports, abuse is already happening. In Washington, DC, one patrolman kept track of license plates outside a gay bar, then tried to extort the car owners. In Edmonton, Canada, the abuse was higher-level: "Edmonton officials admitted in 2005 that authorities had improperly used police computer systems to gather information on a Canadian newspaper columnist and the former head of the city's police commission, both of whom had been critics of the police department. The two became targets of a failed drunk-driving sting targeting them, according to an official review of the operation."

This stuff is bad enough at a local-government level, but at least you could move. If the federal government—already accused of abusing IRS power to stifle critics, and still reeling from the revelations of the NSA spying on citizens—were to abuse this sort of information, it would be much, much worse. That's why people were worried when news broke of a potential nationwide license plate tracking system.