If you give money to a police charity in New Jersey, they give you a card and a sticker for your car. If you get pulled over, cops will be lenient with you if you have one.
Illegal? No! you see, the card proves that the driver paid money to the police in order not to get a ticket. Nothing wrong with that! Wait, what?
PBA cards are a system to allow police officers to illegally not enforce the law on people they know. It boils down to buying / being family members with policemen getting you preferential treatment. That's like something out of a dictatorship!
If laws are unfair for police family, they're unfair for everyone!
Being influenced by a PBA card is illegal! Anyone who shows their PBA card to a cop along with their license is a criminal and guilty of attempting to corrupt a cop. Hiding illegal influence through a middleman of a police organization doesn't make it any better, it's still attempted bribery / misuse of influence.
Laws apply to everyone - we are a country of laws, not a country of influence. Look at all the corrupt countries out there - one thing they have in common is massive nepotism, and no rule of law. "Officer" is not a noble title, and the family of police are not nobility.
Police have lots of discretionary power, and the guys running police associations have found a good way to make money off of it. But that power is supposed to be used for the good of society, not to enrich police officers in general or to put them above society.
If family members of cops feel that the laws are unfair, and don't want to live according to the laws everyone else does, that pressure should influence cops to try to change the law!
Cops family members are one of the things that could stop laws from going out of control!
If a cop's mother in law gets busted by an unfair speed trap, the cop shouldn't give her invulnerability with the PBA card, he should solve the problem. If the trap is unfair to her, it's unfair to everyone.
It's like a CEO who is guaranteed a safe exit from the company no matter what - they'll have no motivation to do right.
Imagine how great the legal system would be, and how much amazing freedom we'd have, if every policeman, member of the senate, and their families were filmed 24 hours a day, and had the law enforced to the maximum against them.
They'd do nothing but remove unfair, illegal laws all the time! It'd take years of cleaning out junk, til what was left was all reasonable, understandable law. They'd think carefully about extending laws, and really do a good job making sure laws were fair.
Instead, what we have done is remove policemen from the group of people who have to live under law. This removes a really valuable feedback mechanism between legislators, enforcers, and the people. Police naturally have great credentials in court, to express their knowledge of the law - relieving them of the duty to make sure laws are reasonable is a huge mistake.
Unless you are sure that your people will rule forever, getting rid of basic freedoms for your temporary convenience will come back to haunt you. I don't want to live in a world where you have to know the right people to survive; fairness before the law is a good thing. As it stands now with PBA cards, laws can get worse and worse, and the people who have the best view of how they work, enforcing them every day, will not have any motivation to improve the situation, because they and their families have get-out-of-jail-free cards.
http://p066.ezboard.com/fnypdrant64609frm1.showMessage?topicID=14293.topic
Read this message board to read cops confessing to taking bribes.
"ok, these same mutts you are referring to could be mos family,
if he is a family member he gets off no questions ask, unless he is verbally
abusive, now friends are a different ball game. _if guy shows me mini sheild and
pba card, have a nice day no questions ask._
obviously mos gave these cards to people they deem worthy.
now as for the ebay scams or internet card, this is where your detective sheilds
come into play, i would expect a card to be signed but any perp
can sign them too, ask for command , name of cop, dude if you dont know that, you are getting one."
(my bold)
" if he gives attitude write him."
Why should that matter? how about, "if he broke the law write him, if not, don't". Not "if he grovels enough, don't write him".