Red light tickets were declared unenforceable by St. Louis courts and alderman this past Sunday. To quote: “If you threw it in the trash,” says St. Louis Alderman Freeman Bosley Sr., chairman of the aldermanic Traffic Committee, “nothing would happen.”
Nothing would happen?! You hear that folks? An unenforceable mandate by the government. Go crazy, shred that stupid ticket and refuse to pay the spy camera’s fine.
BEWARE: Other cities are resolving “shortcomings” in the plan by creating yet more stupid laws to penalize not responding to the ticket. Apparently the government still doesn’t understand that “two wrongs don’t make a right.”
Citizens in Balcones Heights are rejoicing. Mark Cevallos filed a lawsuit against the city Balcones Heights, claiming the city violated his rights by taking his picture with a red light camera and sending him a traffic ticket.
In his words the red light cameras violates the plaintiff’s due process rights under both the Texas and United States Constitutions. “You don’t have any right to a trial, a right to confront witnesses,” Cevallos said referring to the red light camera tickets.
Former Balcones Heights Councilman Steve Walker, a lone dissenter against the installation of the cameras and voted against the ordinance in 2006 says, “From what little I know about the alleged lawsuit, it appears that Mr. Cevallos is saying exactly what I maintained back when we voted to allow the cameras.”
Nopes-this is not a crazy, doomsday blog. It’s a real live, this stuff was covered in the Washington Post type of blog detailing a domestic government spy program. In fact here is a quote:
Critics cited its potential to expand the role of military assets in domestic law enforcement, to turn new or as-yet-undeveloped technologies against Americans without adequate public debate, and to divert the existing civilian and scientific focus of some satellite work to security uses.
Hm, all very valid points. Chertoff however is still insisting it’ll be like a weather map. There is no way the US Government is investing millions in homeland satellites for information we already have access to on every local news station. In my opinion Chertoff might as well stand in front of congress and say “Trust me. I’m a virgin.”
Remember when I told the states to let the Airlines worry about REAL ID? Well apparently Homeland Security read that advice and only saw opportunity. The Financial Times writes:
Until recently the only thing apart from love that money could not buy was a guaranteed place at the front of an airport security queue. That is changing, as an additional 500 US air passengers a day agree to hand over a $100 (£50) annual fee, plus their fingerprints and iris scans, for the right to become “registered travellers” in private programmes supervised by the Department of Homeland Security.
So now people are voluntarily handing over hard earned cash to be spied on. And you know what? I’m fine with it. You want to volunteer to be watched–that is your business. Let’s just hope this doesn’t equal another national mandate by DHS in a few months.
Which leaves me to ask…how many of you perked up at the idea of skipping ahead of security lines at the airport?
Breaking news–the FBI lied. To us, citizens of the United State of America! Was it for our protection? No. For someone, anyones protection? No. To further their own cause? Why yes. Yes it was.
Slashdot exposed exactly how FBI wrangled around working procedures in order to support the Patriot Act. An employee was forced by superiors to return information he received by a subpoena then request the information again via an National Security Letters (NSL). At the time this was illegal. It was illegal because NSLs do not require probable cause, cannot be discussed by the public, and lack accountability.
As Slashdot wrote
This delay in a supposedly critical anti-terror investigation then became a talking point used by FBI Director Robert Mueller when the FBI wanted to justify their need for the power to issue National Security Letters.
Luckily FOIA laws nabbed them in their tracks and they are now having to face the lie. Won’t help much in stopping the abuse of NSLs but it is a baby step in the right direction.
The Texas Government is NOT happy. You see–they set up red light cameras all over Texas, made a deal to split the $75 fine in half of every red light violation captured and even tempted citizens by saying it wouldn’t apply to their driving record. I’m sure they even considered sending subliminal tapes to every resident whispering “Go speed racer!” into their ears.
Only here is the thing: the little spy cameras worked. People are not running red lights and no revenue is being produced. The result?
Well two cities tried to remedy the situation by cutting yellow light times. Citizens are (of course) outraged and clamoring for pitchforks.
Dallas however simply took 1/4 of their red light cameras down.
…Can you…can you hear me laughing? This is just classic.
The CTA and Chicago Public Schools are now tracking high schoolers every move. The reduced fare student cards have been implemented with a chip to create a “smart card” that tracks every stop the students make. As is the every popular trend with the government they are combining the student photo id with the CTA pass.
Plans are already underway to use this smart card as a way to punish and track truant students. (And no-school administrators have not checked on the legality of the project.) They also have discussed plans to use the CTA card as a way to track parents of truant children. (Side note: This punishment was set into place years ago by the over-reaching Chicago School Board, this is an extension of that program.)
Worse, the schools never had any intention of telling the student they were going to track them according to the ACLU.
“This permits the tracking of these young people beyond school hours,” said Ed Yohnka, spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois. “It’s not at all clear how it is helpful to know how students used the CTA on a given day.”
One smart cookie, Elizabeth Avelar, 16 said “It’s ‘1984′ coming to life.”
The States won with a resounding “NO!” to the REAL ID. So what did the federal government do? Took a couple steps back, evaluated where they went wrong and VOILA–the Social Security Identity Theft Prevention Act, otherwise known as H.R. 5405. It’s currently being penned on Govtrack.US as:
H.R. 5405: To protect seniors from identity theft and strengthen our national security by providing for the issuance of a secure Social Security card
When you stop laughing at that watch this video:
Blatant spinning by Congressman Mark Kirk includes:
“This card will not be mandatory”
-Psh-yeah right. It’s mandatory by age 16.
“This card is secure. What happened with the VA laptop won’t happen with this.”
-Do you think we’re stupid? University of Virginia students hacked the RFID computer chip in this card last week. Who needs laptops anymore?
“The price will be covered in Social Security Card fees”
-Again-do you think we are stupid? Fees equal more cash out of my pocket!
“This is not a National ID card.”
-Riiiiiiiiight. It is simply a card issued to everyone in the nation that holds computer chips, information gathering magnetic strips, biometric maps of our faces, social security numbers and our finger prints. Its for “our security” for all this to be in one easy to access database whose sole line of defense is “no laptops.”
Here is a great article from the Washington Post describing fusion centers.
Fusion Centers are creepy. They collect, buy or steal private data about residents in a state and store it. Meanwhile there is no transparency or due process involved because of “Security Reasons.” So here we are–stuck with fusion centers spying on our own citizens and no way to revoke it. Disturbing.
And since I blatantly stole this article from my friend Richard, I figure I’ll steal the money quote as well:
“There is never ever enough information when it comes to terrorism” said Maj. Steven G. O’Donnell, deputy superintendent of the Rhode Island State Police. “That’s what post-9/11 is about.”
