Red Light Cameras and the People's Rights

I could have a lot of categories and titles for this blog. I don't even know where to begin. I was probably around eighteen or nineteen when the cameras went up. They were used in traffic enforcment. The idea was that a camera, situated near the traffic signal opposite the intersection of the driver would take said driver's photo, "flashing" them if and when they ran the red light. The aim was to reduce red light runners and other violators by "catching them right in the act." In a perfect twist of coincidence, this system also proved wholly lucrative both for the state and the private corporation that installed the cameras and administrated the tickets! What a coincidence!

Am I the only one who feels like the PUBLIC'S law enforcment has been contracted out to a private corporation (in my state, it's RedFlex Traffic Systems, but there are others), and that this is alarming. After some initial research, I found out that RedFlex isn't even a U.S.-based company. It's based in Australia. Since when do these people have the right to watch us and enforce our laws?

There was a great public outcry when the cameras went up. People felt entrapped by the system. Many others felt it infringed on our "right to privacy." There have been more complaints. One man from Knoxville, TN, one Clifford E. Clark, was even alleged to have opened fire on a camera after he had been flashed, He later filed a lawsuit against the company enforcing the cameras, had his house broken into by police, and was terribly beaten. He has his own website, and there's even an article about the occurrence, respectively, here:

Cliff Speaks:

http://www.cliffspeaks.com/

The incident:

http://www.piratenews.org/kill-robocops.html

http://tnjn.com/2008/may/03/some-knoxvillians-wont-say-che/

An attorney from Tenessee, known for his long, flowing locks, denim overalls, and left-leaning politics, also filed suit against the traffic enforcment company, delivering sharp-tongued indictments against them, including this one:

"The City of Knoxville has commenced systematic and widespread photographic and video surveillance of the everyday activities and comings and goings of people. This is being done without warrant and without any showing of probable cause. Such widespread and systematic surveillance (is) evidence that the nightmare age envisioned by George Orwell is now upon us in full force (and) cannot but have a chilling effect upon our freedoms of speech and peaceable assembly guaranteed by the First Amendment."

It has been proven that the average U.S. citizen is on camera or otherwise under some sort of surveillance more than ever before, and the installation of these cameras is just another twisted turn in this nightmarish scenario.

My complaints about the cameras also includes Constitutional arguements. For example, "probable cause" is much discussed, and used, in the search or monitoring of someone or their residence in law. Probable cause is a way of ensuring one's right to privacy and guarding them against "unlawful searches and seizures." One has to show there is "probable cause" for this type of activity, and be granted a warrant before commencing with this sort of activity. The cameras have neither.

Also, aside from right to privacy arguements, we have due process, as essential as habeus corpus in which one has the right to face his accuser (it literally translates as "to deliver the body") to enforcing the law in a fair and balanced way. Have you ever "served" someone? I have. You often have to resort to using a friend, the police, or a process server in order to do it. Subpoena's, I think, must also be "Served." When you are pulled over by a cop, you are essentially "served" with a written document, signed by the officer. I don't think sending someone a ticket by mail qualifies. At least, it didn't when I was trying to take someone I knew top court. Apparently Redflex goes by different rule than the rest of us? This is all necessary because the accussed has a right to be notified, publicly, of the accusations against them.

I also have reason to beleive that Redflex is knowingly lying to the public on a regular basis. This video shows some evidence of that: http://www.mefeedia.com/entry/ron-paul-4409-redflex-ats-wages-war-on-we-...

The company's trump card when they have been accused of "spying" or surveillancing the public has always been "We only photograph people who break the law." Have you ever been flashed by one of these cameras? In many instances, you can view a video of your automobile committing the supposed violation. The video, and often the photgraphs (themselves still images taken from the video) shows your car before it reaches the intersection, committing the supposed violation, and after the supposed infraction. If they only photograph people who break the law, then why is there video of your car BEFORE you even reached the intersection of the red light? Does RedFlex have ESP?

Things are getting worse all the time too. At first, there were only a few cameras at the busiest intersections. They multiplied like rats, and have sprread all across the country (and have met particular resistance in Oregon, Arizona [where civil suits have been filed against the company, and from where the 4409 campaign, highlighted in one of the above videos, originated) and especially in Knoxville, TN, where Roland Cowden hails from, and where the City, after much controversy and a missed deadline, decided not to renew their contract with Redflex). The cameras have traditionally met the most resistance wheh the new speeding radar cameras were installed. This is not surprising. They are coming to California, I hear, and, again, there is much public outcry.

I myself have spoken to around three lawyers, two of which were possed both on ethical and professional standpoints, and another who admitted they were irritating, but felt they helped prevent accidents. For those of you who agree with this, the city of El Monte in VCalifornia recently decided to give the axe to the Reflex program after statistical data failed to show a decrease in red-light related accidents. I don't know about you, but those cameras make me a more nervous driver, and not a better one. The flashes themselves can also be blinding. A street here in Ventura, CA has a camera that has a hair trigger and goes off constantly, even when people are not violating the law. This distraction, in itself, could cause an accident. There is more evidence I've seen to suggest that the benifits of the cameras are at best marginal. What they do do is generate a hell of a profit for our struggling cities and for a large, for-profit, out-of-country corporation which not only takes our photographs, but processes the tickets! Am I the only one who sees something creepy about all of this?

Even if the cameras were hugely benificial, I must ask: at what COST!? Once we give up our rights, or have them stripped away by the likes of the Bush administration, or by a corporation favored by corrupt politicians in bed with said corporation, it is VERY hard to get said rights back. To paraphrase Benjamin Franklin, those who give up permanent liberty for temporary security neither deserve neither.

I myself have fought and won these tickets in court, and not on Constitutional grounds (and believe you and me that many interpret these cameras, and increasing surveillance in general, as "Big Brother's" growing power) but on grounds involving the visibility of the light and camera. I have fought another one as well, but regardless of what happen, I have pledged to myself that I am going to fight these companies and those who allow them dto do what they do. I acknowledge that money speaks louder than my words, but if I can't change things, I hope to at least become a thorn in the side of Redflex Traffic Systems.

One last thing: I beleive that those who run red lights, especially chronically or purposefully, need to be gheld accountable. What I argue with is the means our current law enforcement agencies are using to do just that.