Red Light Cameras Don't Work
Back in 2006 the City Council was enthusiastic about beginning widespread video surveillance in Worcester. This summer the state legislature considered making this plan even more appealing.
Personally I don't like such ideas because the potential for abuse is so high, and abuse is inevitable. (For a minor example see "Local councils in the UK use CCTVs to spy on dog owners, cute butts".)
Those who don't value their privacy, and don't mind infringing on the privacy of others, have a different set of objections: it's unclear if surveillance provides the expected benefits. For example, earlier this year we learned that "London's Cameras Don't Reduce Crime."
Now this week a much-Dugg blog post (via Schneier) summarizes the research and finds that Red-Light Cameras Just Don’t Work.
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Re: Red Light Cameras Don't Work
If the big bad government wants to catch you picking your nose while driving, they can!!!! Try to control your panic.
Traffic cameras are stupid, but in the context of other regulations they are utterly innocuous and completely Constitutional. We, as a nation, have decided that law enforcement is responsible for traffic safety, and law enforcement, faced with the impossible task of preventing stupidity among the masses, does whatever it must to try to live up to that responsibility.
Chillax on the cameras and start worrying about a government that tells you what to eat, how to set your thermostat and exactly what words can come out of your mouth. Those are personal freedom issues that actually matter.
Re: Red Light Cameras Don't Work
I don't think widespread video surveillance is innocuous. It helps government pry into more areas of our lives, and has repeatedly been abused by those individuals with access to the cameras, or who have friends with access. Rather than trusting regulation to prevent abuse of a new power, I'd rather not create that power.
Some argue that giving *everyone* the power--giving everyone access to the output from the cameras--at least prevents a power imbalance.
I don't think any of the arguments I'm referencing above are at core about Constitutionality.
(In fact, they're mostly about how the cameras aren't particularly effective. I'd be curious to read your arguments against those claims.)
Re: Red Light Cameras Don't Work
Unfortunately it may too late for us when it's time to worry about those rights if the little things are just taken lightly. The "little things" are stepping stones to a more dangerous situation.
Re: Red Light Cameras Don't Work
The difference is that traffic cameras can always be removed. Legislation governing our daily lives is vitually never repealed. Again, cameras are a small symptom of a disease that has already swept the State. Protesting against these innocuous cameras (a sign stating that a camera is running or a dummy camera would be just as "effective") is an example of not being able to see the forest for the trees. Or maybe it's being pennywise and pound foolish with your freedoms.
If I was of a conspiratorial bent, I'd say that the cameras are a great ploy to get people to waste energy protesting frippery while essential Rights are stripped from of us.
But I'm not, so I'll just call it what it is: A dumb, do-nothing plan from the same people who brought MA sterling successes like public education, transparency/ethics in Gov't, and free-speech buffer zones.
No doubt all of the responsible parties will be re-elected (or re-appointed by those who were re-elected) and people will scratch their heads wondering why the same failures/errors in judgement keep occuring.
Re: Red Light Cameras Don't Work
Red Light Cameras will never be removed, and traffic cameras to catch speeders will be next. They will never come down because they will become a revenue source that the city won't be able to live with out.
Then they will expand the program to get more money.
see...MA Turnpike.
Re: Red Light Cameras Don't Work
Buddhist:
See Massachusetts Income Tax.
One of the many signs our Republic is becoming a Socialist Trap.
Passion is inversely proportional to the amount of real information available.
Re: Red Light Cameras Don't Work
Yeah, the revenue thing is always the driver behind these scams. Once the expenses of (buying, installing, maintaining) the cameras and enforcing, processing, billing the violators is totalled up, the money raised by fines will be a tiny slice of the overall pie. Just another all around taxpayer screw job.
But, in a broader sense, can a population that chooses oppression really be said to be "oppressed"? The people being filmed by these cameras chose the people who chose the cameras. We're not talking about one election here and there, but a systemic pattern of the populace choosing representatives to whom individual freedom is anathema.