Automated Photo Enforcement

Internet (Veil Guy) Blog | 8 -04-07 | Veil Guy

[capebuffalo]

Automated photo enforcement is a growing cancer that is underminding the very fabric of our civil liberties.

A number of foreign or multi-national companies have already established or are in the process of establishing U.S. operations in anticipation of an explosive new growth market—U.S taxpayers.

These companies—usually from countries that do not share our history of civil liberties—the professional lobbyists who sell them, the legislators who allow them and the progressive judges who re-affirm their legality are all contributing to the erosion of the very principles on which our country was founded.

It's time to tell our representatives that enough is enough and put an end to this heavy handed surveillance and monitoring by state and local governments for the purposes of corporate-profiteering.

Please read the following article(s) and then join the call to action!

http://veilguy.blogspot.com/2007/08/automated-enforcement-cancer.html

http://veilguy.blogspot.com/2007/08/automated-red-light-speed-camera-photo.html

[weegee]

Yep and they are looking at selling our tollroads to foreign companies too with non-compete clauses on new construction of highways.

The government is for sale to the highest bidder.

[MeanWestTexan]

Drive a motorcycle — no front plate.

[jdub]

Here in TN we don't have front plates, but we do have photo enforcement of traffic lights.

It seems someone by now would have fought a ticket on the basis that someone else was driving. Do we now hold a person strictly liable for any offense done by someone whom he lends a car too?

[jdub]

too=to. my bad.

[farlander]

In CA, it takes the picture of your car back and front, as well as a close-up of the driver window. I got nailed twice. Am I glad to be back in Indiana.

[weegee]

If it is like Texas, it isn’t a moving violation ticket in the standard sense, where the driver is cited. It is a fine against the vehicle’s owner and does not count against points on your license.

Some have said that failing to pay could impact your credit rating but not be grounds for arrest. I do not know if that is true or not.

I believe that I read in Texas that lack of payment of one of these fines would prevent license renewal. However they are willing to settle for a lower settlement payment at the time of license renewal.

[taxcontrol]

You know those computer security screens ... the ones that keep roving eyes from seeing your computer screen? I wonder if putting one of those over your license plate would prevent photo radar from being able to photograph your license.

[MeanWestTexan]

In Texas (unless there is an accident), there is no ticket possible unless a peace officer SEES the violation.

some cities get around this by having the cameras monitored.

Others have an ordinance, which, is probably what you are talking about, that is purely civil, and probably not enforced at all by the DMV.

[rednesss]

Just waiting for them to come near me. I need the target practice.

[jim_trent]

It is too late to stop this. Years too late. The groundwork was being laid nearly 10 years ago. At best, it can be slowed down slightly.

If you want to stop these kinds of things, you have to start opposing them before all the studies have been done showing the politicians how much safer we would be with them in place.

One example I can think of is “congestion pricing”. They just started to do the studies that will support them in the last couple of years. In 5 years or so, they will begin to be adopted. The New York state legislature just authorized some studies to be done for them.

Also keep in mind for congestion pricing to work, EVERY vehicle will have to have a GPS system so the government can keep track of where you are.

[mysterio]

It is up to the citizens of any particular area to make the maintenance of the cameras very unprofitable.

[rednesss]

....That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

[bill1952]

Hey, that is positively on the way as sure as God made rotten little lawyers.

The ticket can be fought in some locales by subpoenaing the software engineer(s) to the case.
You sometimes do have the right to confront and question the makers of such equipment and the programmers of the software that runs them to ascertain various aspects of the legal reliability of the photo evidence.
They never come, but of course you would need a lawyer.

[farlander]

That’s an interesting thought, tho, it doesn’t just take photos, it takes video. And then a live operator can pick and choose the ‘best’ frames. It is possible tho, that the angle would be sufficient to obscure the plate.

[MrB]

So, do they drag the camera into the courtroom so that you can have your Constitutional right to “face your accuser”?

[Hunble]

SPRAY PAINT!

No camera ever invented can photograph anything, once it's lens has been covered with paint.

If you have not painted you local camera, then you are just as guilty.

[386wt]

Maybe one way to avoid this is not run a red light?

[Dr.Deth]

I demand my Constitutional right to face my accuser.

[Dr.Deth]

I like the way you think.