TTAC Called It: Big Brother Set to Arrive Stateside

by Edward Niedermeyer

Published: September 17th, 2008

ttac called it big brother set to arrive stateside

Just when Farago begins to question his ongoing coverage of the UK’s obsession with speed cameras, thenewspaper.com proves the significance of the story… Redflex and American Traffic Solutions (ATS) are already raking in tens of million of dollars of loot from dubiously justifiable red-light cameras; corrupting officials, invading privacy and subverting government accountability along the way. But they’re thinking bigger than that. WAY BIGGER (Brother). “We are moving into areas such as homeland security on a national level and on a local level,” boasts Redflex regional director Cherif Elsadek. New “optical character recognition” technology could be integrated with existing red light camera and speed camera systems, allowing full video records to be kept of passing motorists. Add that to ATS’s proposal to integrate Arizona’s speed cameras to a national database, and you can see where this is going. Or just ask Elsadek. “Imagine if you had 1500 or 2000 cameras out there that could look out for the partial plate or full plate number across the 21 states where we do business today. This is the next step for our technology.” Why? Amber Alerts and tracking stolen cars, of course. Nothing to see here.

Edward Niedermeyer

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Geotpf on Sep 18, 2008
menno : September 18th, 2008 at 8:06 am Please. Give it a rest about Bush & Co. I’m NO Repugnican, but puh-leeeze. Read the review of this book, and weep, you Democrats. Your “gang” is just as corrupt, and to blame, as the Republicans. http://www.amazon.com/Who-Killed-Constitution-American-Liberty/dp/0307405753/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1221739210&sr=8-1 Face it. The only way out of this mess is to NOT vote for Repugnicans OR for Dhimmicrats. They are two sides of the SAME COIN. Assuming, of course, that we have an election in November. (Not forgetting that Democrats are in control of 2 houses of Congress and ostensibly have a majority in the 3rd leg - the Courts, and Republicans are only in control of the Executive branch). Or,do any of you think that Adolph Hitler or Joseph Stalin ran their respective murder-inc nations BY THEMSELVES? Stalin murdered 55 million of his own people, Hitler was a mere amateur - only 11 million (you only hear about the 6 million jews - better PR obviously works). Albert Einstein said this; doing the same thing and expecting a different result is one definition of INSANITY. It’s simply insane to vote in ANY Republicans or Democrats, assuming, that is, that we a) are given a chance to vote and b) have brains enough to stick together and boot out ALL of the current politicians over the next 8-12 years, replacing them with the flip-sides of a DIFFERENT coin (i.e. the Libertarians and Constitution Party). Then in 100 or so years, our great grandchildren may well have to booth THEM out and start fresh. Couple points: 1. The Democratic Party and the Republican Party (in general) are quite different. If you can't tell the difference, you are as dumb as Nader. 2. The Republicans currently control the Supreme Court, more or less, and will have a firm hold on it if McCain becomes president (as the next presdient will certainly appoint at least one justice in the next four years). 3. Most importantly, voting for somebody other than the Republican or the Democrat, in 99.99% of races in the US, is a vote to not to vote, to not effect the outcome of the election. If you vote third party, you are saying that the two major party candidates are exactly alike and you really don't give a shit, and therefore your wants and wishes can be safely ignored. The US, due to the way it's voting system is set up (first-past-the-post with individual candidates running in specific races) means there will always be two dominate parties. If you want twenty parties to choose from, move to somewhere in Europe, which has a parlimentary system where you vote for the party, not the candidate. Now, that doesn't mean that the two parties have to be Democrats and Republicans. It's certainly possible for one of them to disappear, and a new party to take it's place. It's happened before (albeit over a hundred years ago). So, if that's what you want, you best choice would be to always vote for whichever party is currently dominating, in the hopes the other party completely collapses. Right now, that party is the Democrats. Prior to 2006, it was the Republicans, but that's no longer the case.

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Geotpf on Sep 18, 2008

Oh, one more thing-The best way to change the political parties is from the inside, via primaries. Pick a party that's most like your thinking, and vote (and give your time and money to) candidates who think very closely to the way you think.

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Bunkie on Sep 18, 2008

Domestic Hearse is right. It is about money. But there's a purely political reason for it. For decades now, we've been bombarded with the idea that all taxes are bad, they are too high, they are evil, etc. Most of this has come from one party. In the revenue vacuum created by this collective unwillingness to properly fund (and make sure that funding is appropriate and correct), we have the whole notion of "user fees", fines and unconventional revenue streams being legitimate lternatives to an honest discussion about what it takes to fund government at all levels. Couple this with the current paranoia about "security" and it's no wonder that our civil liberties are being destroyed. In my opinion we have no ones but ourselves to blame for this.

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Edward Niedermeyer on Sep 18, 2008
Civil libertarians: this is your moment. Seize it. I couldn't agree more. Unfortunately, anything resembling civil libertarianism is being scrupulously avoided by both major presidential candidates. What deficit? What corporate welfare? What wiretapping? What staggeringly expensive Drug War? It's all just so much pissing into the wind as far as the political mainstream is concerned. Not a good sign.

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