Why licensing your car with a New Mexico LLC plus a faraway ghost address may save you some serious grief ...

The following quote is from Duncan Long’s book Protect Your Privacy:

“According to the FBI, a Washington, D.C police officer was attempting to extort $10,000 from a married man who had visited a gay bar. The officer had apparently employed a law-enforcement computer system to identify automobile license plates of cars that had been recorded as being outside the bar, and then linked the plates to the names and addresses of the vehicles. He then cross-referenced to see if the men were married, and if they were, he attempted to extort money from them. According to the FBI, the officer threatened to send photos showing the men at the bar to wives and employers if the victims didn’t cough up silence money.”

You may never visit a gay bar but think of the many other dangers of allowing your name (and sometimes even your home address!) to appear on your vehicle’s registration. Just one example: You innocently park in front of a home known to harbor a meth lab. You may get a visit from the police. Or perhaps the home is a so-called safe house for a Muslim terrorist cell. You may get a visit from the FBI. Or suppose the home is that of women who’s being stalked by her insanely jealous ex-husband—you might even get beaten up!

Each of our five vehicles is titled in a separate New Mexico LLC. The address for each New Mexico LLC is in Spain’s Canary Islands. We often lend our vehicles to friends. What if one of these friends would happen to park in front of the wrong home or the wrong bar? As Alfred E. Neuman would say, “What? Me worry?”