Speed Cameras: Stop The Surveillance State
The Globe and Mail’s Andrew Coyne takes a whole new slant on the-speed camera issue …. a position we haven’t seen in the extensive discussion of it on The Bulldog.
It’s well worth reading:
We have indeed become all too complacent about the surveillance state, too ready to yield to arguments of expediency: It raises money. It reduces speeding. If you’re not doing anything wrong you don’t have anything to worry about.
Sorry, yes I do. I have a right to move about without the state recording my activities, for the same reason I have a right to draw the curtains on my windows – and I have these rights regardless of whether I use this anonymity to commit some minor infraction.
The price of a free society is that we tolerate some level of lawbreaking. We could post a police officer every three feet, and it would reduce crime to zero, but it would be intolerable – not just because of what it would cost, but because of what it would imply. We are right to expect some limits on policing power, beyond the bare minimum of the presumption of innocence and probable cause.
To read the full column, click here. If you haven’t exhausted your free views on the Globe’s paywall, you can access it. Or better, you could take out a subscription and help out Canadian journalism under siege. The Globe is worth the price.
For You:
Where Are Speed Camera Injury Stats? PATTON
A Critical Look At Gower’s Speed Camera Essay
Simple Solution To Speed Camera Question
Bookmark The Bulldog, click here
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
– The Bulldog – News Feed Enter 
Couldn’t read the article, unfortunately. Maybe it has something to do with Ottawa meets Orwell?
sisco:
There’s a paywall and you get a few free visits. Did you visit lately or maybe the columns are behind the paywall.
i can’t tell because i subscribe to g and m.
cheers
kgray
This is a problematic statement: “The price of a free society is that we tolerate some level of lawbreaking.” As untrue as this is, it is up to the regulator to decide which laws to create/amend or remove. This comes with consultation and debate. Reporting it is up to the individual, once reported the law is enforced to some degree. In this case no demerits.
Speeding is endangering others as speed limits are created under a set of rules that consider safety, road and environmental conditions, and the typical drivers ability. I am not one to say which regulations are wrong in this case, but cameras are not the problem as they only operate when speed is excessive. Also the occupants are not identified only the vehicle, so is it really a surveillance state?
Even as a regulator myself, interpretation of a non-compliance often involved other experts interpretation. Sometimes a warning may be an effective tool, other times it indicates a bigger issue.