Are police officers allowed to randomly run licence plates tag without any visible violation?
Question Details:
It seems as if this is a violation of the 4th amendment.
As frustrating as it may sound, police officers are permitted to run license plates while they drive behind people and pull them over for violating the state laws regarding registration and so forth. This is an effective way to ensure that drivers obey the motor vehicle laws. More importanly, this enables officers to run the driver's record and locate people that have outstanding warrants so that they can be arrested and prosecuted. It is important for the state to be able to catch people running from the law and the license plates are purposely placed in plain view for officers to be able to conduct searches.
