Greed, corruption and the trampling of fundamental constitutional rights: Sounds like the laundry list of allegations stacked up against the jackbooted thugs of federal law enforcement agencies. It

 

Can someone tell me which of my constitutional rights is being violated when I run a red light, and a camera takes a photo of my license plate and me driving? Very

 

I should have put quotes around that, but its just part of the article, an interesting read and if you are a sci-fi buff or even come across some sci-fi movies - in the future, everything seems to be monitored, so in effect, its merely more ways to start such monitoring YOU in a daily, automated way. For instance, ever see "Brazil"?

 

In PRINCIPLE, I have to admit I can't really argue against the motivation behind red-light cameras. After all, driving is a PRIVILEGE, not a fundamental human right, and red-light running is a genuine safety concern that (again in principle) should override the momentary loss of privacy one suffers as the camera snaps. One is not even on one's own property at the time, remember.

Nevertheless, the PRACTICE of automated red-light monitoring has raised a lot of legitimate concerns. Among the practical abuses/concers: some districts have reduced yellow-light timing to increase the percentage of red-light runners, thus increasing their coffers; some camera manufacturers have been receiving a "cut" of each red-light ticket, creating a vested interest in a private, for-profit organization; and of course the "slippery slope" toward increased monitoring in our lives a la "Brazil" or even "1984" is also a genuine concern. Automated systems are ultimately controlled by a more or less centralized human organization; that group will necessarily have its own motivations, and may be able to limit its accountability to the public.

So do the practical drawbacks outweigh the safety benefits? I'm inclined to say yes. The slightly increased safety over what is provided by conventional police monitoring has not been shown to be compelling relative to the known concerns.

So, yeah, Big Brother sucks.

 

I have a couple of problems with these cameras:

1) As was mentioned in the article and on Nightline the other night when they discussed these things, many lights have yellow lights set for shorter durations than recommended. When yellows are set to the properly recommended intervals red light running is much less common and the red light cameras are unnecessary.

2) How are you going to feel when you go out of town for a week, loan your car to your nephew, he runs a red light, for whatever reason you don't see the ticket, and a warrant is issued for your arrest? You'll be able to clear it up after you get arrested and go to court but is that fair? I thought the burden was on them to prove your guilt and not on you to prove your innocence?

3) This is just the beginning. You can extrapolate this to say that if we put cameras every 5 feet so the government can monitor all public activities then crime would go way down. Or if we monitor all cell phone communications crime would go way down. Have you heard of the FBI's carnivore technology that can monitor ALL the e-mail going in and out of an ISP, even the legit stuff? I graduated high school in 1984. My english teacher considered it appropriate that we discuss the book 1984 and it scares me seeing us headed more and more down that road...

 

The monitoring angle REALLY bothers me. If a policeman witnesses someone running a redlight, fine, ticket them (including me). If a camera does, it seems intrusive.
NYT had an article in the past year or so concerning how many blocks in Manhattan have essentially solid overlapping coverage by security cameras- it isn't too much of an extrapolating to think of being "watched" constantly.

 

I don't think the problem lies with our being "watched", but is in our confidence in what that information is being used for. In an ideal world a camera on every corner to catch the bad guys doing bad things would be perfectly fine IMO. However, this is not a perfect world so concerns about "who" is watching us is justifed (again IMO).

 

I'm curious what other triggers can cause the camera to go off. Lets make a use case out of this and say I'm at a light, and there's a lot of traffic behind me, and also an ambulance with its sirens on, I run the light, get my photo taken and a ticket issued. Correct?

 

It is my understanding (from news coverage on this subject here in ATL) that these "red light camera" systems have more than one camera and several pitures are taken of the whole scene. I would think that the circumstances you describe would be taken in consideration.

 

It is hard to argue against giving out tickets for running red lights (a serious hazard). But automated monitoring seems invasive. It feels like after a few more steps in the process we'll all have government GPS monitors in our cars and if you exceed the posted limit they'll mail you a ticket (and know where you are at all times). That'd sure take the steam out of the kills list!

Everyone has their own soapbox on this sort of issue. Heck, mine is, if most automobile fatalities are head injuries then make EVERYONE wear a helmet. But I'm more an advocate of choice so I prefer government kept their damn nose out of as much as possible.