Say Cheese! - You are on Camera...coming to your state soon....

At one time Americans were proud of not being like the Europeans, you know Centralized health care, large government, over-regulated Financial Systems, bureaucratic politicians who were full of hot air from carefully crafted speeches read using teleprompters....

Aah yes, the United States was a land where we were free - freedom of speech, the free market system, liberty, personal privacy and respect for individual rights...

Seems like it's all going away so fast...the great messiah talking about the health care system needing overhaul and looking to use the European/Canadian model as a basis for the US, chastising Wall Street and looking to place even more government controls and oversight on the Financial system and money markets, the Obam(ination) administration is talking about implementing mandatory youth community service programs in place with "education" (Socialist translation: Indoctrination) centers, they were even discussing having a "uniform" for these youth volunteers. I suggest we save some money and ask Cuba if they have any uniforms left over....

But you all know this stuff already....but, did you realize that the number of "traffic cameras" has been slowing increasing across the country? Yes, say "cheese", chances are that that sometime soon you will get a ticket in the mail with a photo of your vehicle a couple of inches over the line with the traffic light was red together with a very polite letter asking for $200 or you go to jail....

These cameras are all the rage, I experienced them myself as a youth in London. They started off with the "Red light" thing....then they progressed to taking pictures of people who "looked suspicious..." and sending over a cruiser. I personally experienced this when waiting for a friend who was going to give me a ride. I sat on a wall waiting for my friend and a Police cruiser suddenly appeared and two of London's finest got out and started to interrogate me! (this was way before 9/11, and I certainly did not look like a terrorist...I was 17 years old!). Come to find out that the cameras had spotted me and contacted the cruiser to check out my "Suspicious activity..."

It's a very grey area between safety, Law & Order and invasion of privacy...we should be very careful not to step on this slippery slope....for it could lead to a place where I do not believe we want to go to, the founding fathers would turn in their graves....

These new traffic cameras are now able to read license plates and search whether the owner has any taxes outstanding and can automatically alert the authorities (Police) to immediately stop you and give you a ticket and fine and place a warrant for you to get the taxes. How's that for municipal revenue generation....oh, there is that bothersome invasion of privacy thing....but that's not so important with this administration, after all the people voted for CHANGE right....

It really does feel like the Carter years, doesn't it????

Author: Mahesh