AI license plate cameras tore this town apart and led to a state of emergency ⁠100%

By Annie Gowen⁠0%

5/17/2026, 10:00:00 AM

BS Summary: This article contains 10 faulty reasoning types, including Availability Heuristic, Negativity Bias, and Post Hoc (False Cause), with Biased Writer Voice as the most egregious example at 100% saturation with 88 hits. Analysis detected 466 faulty-reasoning hits from 88 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 100% and a BS Rank of ⁠100% (37 of 21,886 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 99.80% of the article peer group.

TROY, N.Y. — The civic uproar began quietly, when a mom walking her newborn spotted a strange black contraption at the end of her block: a camera topped with a solar panel. 
Dierdre Shea researched the camera and learned that it was an artificial-intelligence-assisted license plate reader — the type that have caused privacy concerns across the country in recent months, leading to laws limiting their use in more than a dozen states. 
Article reasoning-pattern comparisonThis article: 46.6%Annie Gowen: 11.6%The Washington Post: 3.8%Confirmation Bias46.6%This article: 0.0%Annie Gowen: 0.0%The Washington Post: 1.3%Anchoring Bias0.0%This article: 83.0%Annie Gowen: 44.0%The Washington Post: 4.9%Availability Heuristic83.0%This article: 0.0%Annie Gowen: 0.0%The Washington Post: 1.0%Representativeness Heuristic0.0%This article: 0.0%Annie Gowen: 0.0%The Washington Post: 0.5%Hindsight Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Annie Gowen: 0.0%The Washington Post: 1.2%Overconfidence Bias0.0%This article: 17.0%Annie Gowen: 56.0%The Washington Post: 21.5%Framing Effect17.0%This article: 0.0%Annie Gowen: 0.0%The Washington Post: 0.8%Loss Aversion0.0%This article: 0.0%Annie Gowen: 0.0%The Washington Post: 0.9%Status Quo Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Annie Gowen: 0.0%The Washington Post: 0.1%Sunk Cost Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Annie Gowen: 0.0%The Washington Post: 3.6%Optimism Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Annie Gowen: 0.0%The Washington Post: 3.6%Pessimism Bias0.0%This article: 53.4%Annie Gowen: 35.2%The Washington Post: 18.5%Negativity Bias53.4%This article: 0.0%Annie Gowen: 0.0%The Washington Post: 1.5%Self-Serving Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Annie Gowen: 0.0%The Washington Post: 0.9%Fundamental Attribution Error0.0%This article: 0.0%Annie Gowen: 0.0%The Washington Post: 0.1%Actor-Observer Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Annie Gowen: 0.0%The Washington Post: 2.2%In-Group Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Annie Gowen: 0.0%The Washington Post: 0.8%Out-Group Homogeneity Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Annie Gowen: 0.0%The Washington Post: 2.1%Halo Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Annie Gowen: 0.0%The Washington Post: 0.4%Horn Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Annie Gowen: 0.0%The Washington Post: 0.0%Dunning-Kruger Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Annie Gowen: 11.6%The Washington Post: 2.4%Recency Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Annie Gowen: 0.0%The Washington Post: 1.0%Primacy Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Annie Gowen: 0.0%The Washington Post: 0.0%Blind-Spot Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Annie Gowen: 0.0%The Washington Post: 0.9%Ad Hominem0.0%This article: 0.0%Annie Gowen: 0.0%The Washington Post: 0.1%Straw Man0.0%This article: 46.6%Annie Gowen: 11.6%The Washington Post: 5.2%Appeal to Authority46.6%This article: 0.0%Annie Gowen: 0.0%The Washington Post: 1.5%False Dilemma0.0%This article: 0.0%Annie Gowen: 0.0%The Washington Post: 1.0%Slippery Slope0.0%This article: 0.0%Annie Gowen: 0.0%The Washington Post: 0.1%Circular Reasoning0.0%This article: 46.6%Annie Gowen: 15.9%The Washington Post: 5.9%Hasty Generalization46.6%This article: 0.0%Annie Gowen: 0.0%The Washington Post: 0.1%Red Herring0.0%This article: 0.0%Annie Gowen: 11.6%The Washington Post: 0.5%Bandwagon0.0%This article: 0.0%Annie Gowen: 22.4%The Washington Post: 6.3%Appeal to Emotion0.0%This article: 0.0%Annie Gowen: 0.0%The Washington Post: 1.0%Begging the Question0.0%This article: 53.4%Annie Gowen: 17.6%The Washington Post: 4.5%Post Hoc (False Cause)53.4%This article: 0.0%Annie Gowen: 0.0%The Washington Post: 0.2%Tu Quoque0.0%This article: 0.0%Annie Gowen: 0.0%The Washington Post: 0.6%Burden of Proof0.0%This article: 0.0%Annie Gowen: 0.0%The Washington Post: 0.1%Appeal to Nature0.0%This article: 0.0%Annie Gowen: 0.0%The Washington Post: 0.1%Composition/Division0.0%This article: 36.4%Annie Gowen: 18.2%The Washington Post: 1.9%Anecdotal36.4%This article: 0.0%Annie Gowen: 0.0%The Washington Post: 0.2%No True Scotsman0.0%This article: 0.0%Annie Gowen: 0.0%The Washington Post: 2.7%Ambiguity (Equivocation)0.0%This article: 0.0%Annie Gowen: 0.0%The Washington Post: 0.0%Gambler’s Fallacy0.0%This article: 0.0%Annie Gowen: 0.0%The Washington Post: 0.1%Middle Ground0.0%This article: 0.0%Annie Gowen: 0.0%The Washington Post: 0.0%Personal Incredulity0.0%This article: 0.0%Annie Gowen: 0.0%The Washington Post: 0.1%Special Pleading0.0%This article: 0.0%Annie Gowen: 0.0%The Washington Post: 0.2%Genetic Fallacy0.0%This article: 46.6%Annie Gowen: 11.6%The Washington Post: 4.8%Unattributed Quote46.6%This article: 0.0%Annie Gowen: 0.0%The Washington Post: 2.5%Quote-first Misdirection0.0%This article: 100.0%Annie Gowen: 54.3%The Washington Post: 15.2%Biased Writer Voice100.0%This article: 0.0%Annie Gowen: 0.0%The Washington Post: 2.0%Indoctrination0.0%This article: 0.0%Annie Gowen: 0.0%The Washington Post: 3.6%Politically Left Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Annie Gowen: 0.0%The Washington Post: 1.4%Politically Right Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Annie Gowen: 0.0%The Washington Post: 1.5%Attempt to Sell a Product or S…0.0%

88 words analyzed.

Speakers

1speaker47%attributed speech47writer words
Voice mapSelect a segment to jump to its words
Writer's voice • 15 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 32 words • 100.0% coverageDierdre Shea • 41 words • 100.0% coverage
Selected voice

Dierdre Shea

100%flagged-word coverage
41 attributed words100% of attributed speech100% writer coverage
0%50.0%100.0%Unattributed Quote+100.0 ptsWriter: 0.0%Dierdre Shea: 100.0%100.0%Biased Writer Voice+0.0 ptsWriter: 100.0%Dierdre Shea: 100.0%100.0%

Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.

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Analysis

Hover over highlighted words in the article to view the associated bias or fallacy analysis.