Tag: traffic

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crime and punishment Fourth Amendment rights general freedom ideological culture too much government

I Spy vs. They Spy

Flock, surveillance, traffic, police

There is an argument making the rounds: Flock cameras are good because cop cams have proven themselves so useful. More transparency!

Flock cameras, you may remember, are the traffic cameras integrally linked to an artificial intelligence that tracks car license plates (and thus the cars, and drivers) that come within the cameras’ field of vision. 

The company contracts with cities and other governments. To surveil us. 

You know, “to protect us from crime.”

The fear — and I know it, because I fear it — is that this will lead to a total surveillance state where “innocent until proven guilty” has no real meaning. Watched and analyzed, our every action on the roads and sidewalks would potentially become ensnared in Big Brother tyranny.

A somewhat secondary fear is that police and other government workers — or hackers — would be able to access the database/a.i. for reasons of an, uh, extra-legal character.

And that has happened aplenty!

The latest tale comes from Sussex, Wisconsin, where our “public servants” tracked a specific person — Napoleon Jones, a Navy Veteran — after he had recorded a traffic stop that “just didn’t feel right” and had then been arrested and (understandably) filed a complaint.

While it is legal to record a public traffic stop, for some reason cops really don’t like “civilians” to record them.

In the course of reviewing the complaints, Jones’s lawyer discovered that the police had been tracking him through the Flock system.

Before you shout the now common protest of “What the Flock,” remember what we are up against: government workers using the system to defend their own misbehavior.

This is not the transparency we were looking for.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability crime and punishment general freedom government transparency moral hazard national politics & policies privacy property rights too much government U.S. Constitution

Thwarting Cops Who Are Robbers

asset forfeiture, corruption, police, traffic, theft, robbery, traffic stop

“Carrying cash is not a crime,” Institute for Justice attorney Dan Alban informs us, “yet too often the government treats it like one.”

Musician Phil Parhamovich learned that the hard way. He was porting his life savings, almost $92,000 — earmarked for a down payment on a recording studio — when cop-robbers of the Wyoming Highway Patrol stopped him for not wearing a seat belt.

It turned out to be an extremely expensive infraction. The officers intimated that it was illegal to travel with so much cash and pressured him to hand it over. Scared and believing that his alternative was jail, Phil signed a preprinted waiver letting them grab his life savings.

Preprinted waiver? This means it’s routine for these guys to try to legitimate their actions as they premeditatedly intimidate and rob people.

The state of Wyoming tried to keep the money. Fortunately, the Institute for Justice took Phil’s case, and a judge accepted the facts presented by Phil and his IJ lawyer. After months of tribulation and suspense, the robbery victim got his money back.

Another win for the good guys.

Thankfully, the Institute for Justice’s freedom-defenders have won a great number of such cases. Yet, IJ lawyers certainly cannot litigate all the forfeiture injustices being committed by government  authorities all across the country.

That’s why the group is pushing to reform civil asset forfeiture laws, requiring a criminal conviction before property can be forfeited. 

And you can help. How? Launch efforts in your town or state, or work to push infant efforts to a higher level. Take the initiative. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Categories
crime and punishment initiative, referendum, and recall nannyism too much government

Greenlighting Red Light Cameras?

Politicians seem to love what are called “red light cameras” — cameras that take pictures of cars that run red lights. And then ticket the registered owners.

Citizens? Not so much. I’ve reported how Tim Eyman — an activist who usually sets his sights on tax increases — orchestrated a citizen initiative petition campaign to get rid of the red light cameras in his town. There are many other such movements.

But those who habitually side with government don’t get it. They see the issue as the Washington Post editors see it, as “common sense. Police can’t be everywhere, and officers should not be diverted from high-crime areas to police every high-risk intersection.”

A new study from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety backs up this “common sense” with, uh, science. Sort of. The study’s method has been attacked pretty thoroughly.

More importantly, as Radley Balko notes, there are better alternate policies — more effective in saving lives at intersections, and far less creepy.

Like what? you ask. Well, bear with me. It’s hard to understand: Longer yellow lights.

Yes. Longer yellow lights save lives. What a shock. And yet it turns out that when politicians have red light cameras installed, they tend to decrease the time of the yellows — the very opposite policy.

For our safety?

No.

For their revenue.

People who “go into politics” show their true colors when they prefer to pump up surveillance state powers instead of enacting simple, decent reforms.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.