Steven Greenhut, director of California’s Pacific Research Institute Journalism Center, offers unusual insight into how government growth harms the rest of us. California government workers and their families, drivers of nearly 1 million of 22 million registered vehicles statewide, have been protected by a “shield” in the state records system between their license plate numbers and their home addresses. It turns out there are great practical benefits attached to a secret "shield."The “shield” program started in 1978 to hide the personal addresses of police who argued that bad guys could otherwise call the DMV to get addresses, and use them to harm officers or their family members. Then the “shield” program expanded from one set of government workers to another--parole officers, retired parking enforcers, DMV desk clerks, county supervisors, social workers, and other categories of employees from 1,800 state agencies.
Meanwhile, the "shield’s" justification become obsolete: the DMV long ago stopped giving out personal information about any driver. What was left was a perk:
Vehicles with protected license plates can run through dozens of intersections controlled by red light cameras with impunity. Parking citations issued to vehicles with protected plates are often dismissed because the process necessary to pierce the shield is too cumbersome. Some patrol officers let drivers with protected plates off with a warning because the plates signal that drivers are “one of their own” or related to someone who is.
Greenhut adds, “it’s clear that government workers have a rank above the rest of us.” As he notes, if 1 in every 22 California drivers had a license to drive recklessly, people would demand the police protect Californians from the potential carnage. But until a newspaper series exposed the practice, government remained mum. The reason, of course, is that the scofflaws are law enforcement officials and legislators.
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