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Comment by hombre_fatal

5 days ago

The Texas government decided that red light cameras can't enforce the law. That's how car-brained we are.

Muh privacy or something.

Ironically, the right to privacy was questioned by Alito when he helped nullify Roe v Wade. It will be "interesting" to see what other things we consider private aren't private in the eyes of this court. And even more "interesting" to see the converse.

The core issue is those red light cameras create a persistent database of who is where, which is then sold at a marginal cost to whoever wants it to advertise to/manipulate/track a population. Adding cameras everywhere invites a dystopian nightmare vs better urban design and occasional traffic police would solve the same problem.

  • i grew up somewhere that had red light cameras, the idea that they are selling the data is BS justification for diminished state capacity to enforce something really important.

    e: for those downvoting, please point me to a single case of a municipality selling red light violation data if this is such a real concern