Attempt to legalize unmarked law enforcement vehicles

I don't know how many of you are aware that I am currently in a legal battle with Thurston county over unmarked law enforcement vehicles. A lot of people say that it is legal for police to use unmarked vehicles for traffic enforcement purposes. These people are ignorant of the law and the intent of the law as stated by the original authors of the law. If it was legal to use unmarked vehicles, why does the state need to change the law to legalize it? They are attempting to do just that by re-wording and changing the punctuation in the current law. There is a hearing for the proposed bill on Feb 10th @ 0800. I ask all of you that can, please read up on the issue and speak out against the use of unmarked LE vehicles at the hearing.
I also have a copy of that Washington State Patrol Regulation manual that states in several places that all vehicles used for patrol and traffic enforcement must be marked with even more strict requirements than stated in the law. I don't know how to post a document but I can email it to anyone that wants it, same with the updated legal brief. Linked below are the proposed bill and a legal brief that has pretty much everything there is to know about the legalities of unmarked LE vehicles.

Proposed bill:
http://app.leg.wa.gov/billinfo/summary.aspx?bill=1951&year=2015

Informative legal brief (this brief is one I'm using in my case against Thurston county. The is an updated version, but I'm having issues getting it in a place that I can post a link to):
http://www.mediafire.com/view/30onoy9ecordwuv/UnmarkedCarCourtBrief2014.pdf


As a side note, recently the Sheriff of Grant County publicly recognized that he was breaking the law by using unmarked vehicle for routine patrol and had all of them marked to come into compliance with the law. Thank you Gavin Seim, www.callmegav.com.

Edit to add:
Here is the current WSP regulation manual:
http://www.mediafire.com/view/wv84bywkqvj84j9/2014_Regulation_Manual_(Entire).pdf

Wow this part is awful:

Traffic control vehicles of the
4 Washington state patrol may be exempted from the requirements of
5 subsection (2) of this section at the discretion of the chief of the
6 Washington state patrol.

Click to expand...

So the chief of WSP gets to waive this law for 'gotcha' speed traps and ticket duty whenever he feels like it.

Nothing like creating a police state where the citizens are always afraid the cops are going to "catch" them.

The whole thing reeks like rotting fish. The government is supposed to be transparent and accountable to the people. This goes the opposite direction. Shame on this phony Republican In Name Only representative Pike for proposing this!

Lets call her office and write to her and to our reps and sens and let them know we don't appreciate this.

WSP and traffic patrol.... now why does that sound familiar...
http://www.komonews.com/news/local/State-troopers-caught-ignoring-speeding-cops-278746621.html

Add to that that Mr. Bob Calkins, the WSP spokesman, told me that the clerks running the capitol can make whatever rules they want because they have the same rights as "private property owners." His words, not mine.

Add that to them refusing to enforce I-594 to make it's opponents look like fools at the "I will not comply rally" and they also refused to enforce 9.41.270 when idiots were brandishing at the Jan 15th rally which resulted in the open carry ban in chambers and hearing rooms and you'll see this pattern of willful scorn for Washington state law by the WSP. So since they don't care about the law we should just change the law to reflect that, right? Wrong!

The sponsor of the bill is Elizabeth Pike. Here is her email address and contact info:
liz.pike@leg.wa.gov
Call Pike:
January - March:
(360) 786-7812
Toll-free: (800) 562-6000
March - December:
(360) 210-4534

You can use this link to find your reps and senators office phone numbers, mailing addresses and email them as well.
http://app.leg.wa.gov/DistrictFinder/

We need to hit this from all angles:
-When contacting Republican legislators remind them that from a liberty and public accountability standpoint that this is counter to good governance and to the principles of a free nation that isn't subervient to the police. We don't have unmarked, plainclothes "finger men" constantly patrolling the streets waiting and watching for citizens to "slip up" so they can catch them. Police proudly wear their uniform. Undercover is one thing, traffic duty is another!

-When contacting Democrat legislators come at them from the angle of rabid cop bias that they have and how those 'terrible' (their words, not mine) police can't be trusted to have powers like this. If I were truly being perverse I'd tell you to sign your email with "hands up don't shoot" or "I can't breathe" to finally get some good out of those statements but I'm not sure I could stomach using those.

Whatever your stance on the above issues, I'm sure you'll all agree, we need to stop this bill.

Posting a link to the email address of the sponser is nice, but the member is the sponsor .. not going to change his/her mind.

Posting link to email addresses of all others on the committee or at min. the chairman would be good.

And the clerk of the committee's contact info so people can get testimony before the committee for those that cannot attend.

The bill is terrible and my best wishes on getting it squashed !

Then there is also this bit which grants the government authority to edit the law however they want without the consent of the people forever:

The department of ((general administration))
7 enterprise services shall adopt general rules permitting other
8 exceptions to the requirements of subsection (2) of this section for
9 other vehicles used for law enforcement, confidential public health
10 work, and public assistance fraud or support investigative purposes,
11 for vehicles leased or rented by the state on a casual basis for a
12 period of less than ninety days, and those provided for in RCW
13 46.08.066(((3))).

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Here is the committee contact information for the committee its currently in:
Goodman, Roger (D)
Chair 436B Legislative Building (360) 786-7878
Orwall, Tina (D)
Vice Chair 326 John L. O'Brien Building (360) 786-7834
Klippert, Brad (R)
Ranking Minority Member 122A Legislative Building (360) 786-7882
Hayes, Dave (R)
Asst Ranking Minority Member 467 John L. O'Brien Building (360) 786-7914
Appleton, Sherry (D) 132F Legislative Building (360) 786-7934
Griffey, Dan (R) 410 John L. O'Brien Building (360) 786-7966
Moscoso, Luis (D) 132A Legislative Building (360) 786-7900
Pettigrew, Eric (D) 434B Legislative Building (360) 786-7838
Wilson, Lynda (R) 418 John L. O'Brien Building (360) 786-7994

To email these people write their addresses with their names in this format:
first.last@leg.wa.gov
roger.goodman@leg.wa.gov
tina.orwall@leg.wa.gov
brad.klippert@leg.wa.gov
dave.hayes@leg.wa.gov
sherry.appleton@leg.wa.gov
dan.griffey@leg.wa.gov
luis.moscoso@leg.wa.gov
eric.pettigrew@leg.wa.gov
lynda.wildson@leg.wa.gov

It passed out of committee. Link to the video is here: http://www.tvw.org/index.php?option=com_tvwplayer&eventID=2015020142
Starts at about 1:21:12

They pass it with the hopes of somebody amending it to make it more clear. Classic. Gotta pass it to find out what is in it. How about you don't pass it out of committee with the recommendation that the originator rework it and resubmit it.

J1MB0B said:

<snip>
Informative legal brief (this brief is one I'm using in my case against Thurston county. The is an updated version, but I'm having issues getting it in a place that I can post a link to):
http://www.mediafire.com/view/30onoy9ecordwuv/UnmarkedCarCourtBrief2014.pdf

Click to expand...

Awesome info. Have you tried to contact the Seattle news media using the "police state" angle? Seems they would eat that up (although they might be overwhelmed by all the big words used and either pass on it or totally screw up the story).

Even Bill Maher rails against the police state and the constant militarization and elitist culture of police. Those people love Bill Maher.

Traffic control vehicles differ from traffic enforcement vehicles