EGGS IS TENSE #22: Trespassing In Her Own Home, or, The Battering Ram

TRAFFIPAX, HATTIESBURG, AND THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CONTROL GRID

The city of Hattiesburg will be treated to a sales presentation by Traffipax, a company that sells intersection camera-enforcement equipment. Here are a couple of posts on the subject that I put up at the HA forum:



"This is just a stepping stone for us to get used to. Just wait till Big Brother has us watched every where we go to be sure we are not planning to overthrow the socialist regime that is coming to the U.S."

This statement is exactly right. Right now, they're trying to convince us to accept cameras for "safety" reasons. After all, who can argue in favor of running red lights?

But it's the beginning of the control grid. Soon we'll have the cameras scanning license plates (if they aren't set up to do so from the get-go), checking inspection stickers, and issuing tickets for that.

And then the argument will be "who can argue against making people renew their license plates and inspection stickers?"

Then the cameras will be reading lips if not recording the audio of conversations. An arrest or two of some bad people will probably be attributed to the efficiency of the cameras, and who can argue against arresting bad guys?

By then, there will probably have been more cameras installed and then we won't be able to go anywhere or do anything without being watched.

The initial cameras are proposed to be installed at 3 of the busiest intersections in Hattiesburg--hence the most lucrative for the city and/or Traffipax. The reason that those intersections are supposedly so dangerous is simply because they're so busy; one has to go through one of those intersections to get almost anywhere of significance in the city.

Here's Traffipax's arrangement with the city of Lufkin, TX:

"If each person had to pay a fine that ran lights during the "warning" month of October, the city could have raised a total $121,950 due to the red light cameras. Since the money raised is divided between Traffipax, Lufkin and the state, that's a possibility of $36,585 for the city if citizens keep running the lights at the same rate they did during the warning period."


That may or may not be the exact arrangement that Hattiesburg ends up with, but we can be sure that Traffipax (a U.S. subsidiary of a German corporation) is going to make a lot of money off of us. And it will be money we give them voluntarily by giving them permission to spy on us.

I for one, am uncomfortable with the whole arrangement, mostly because we are being asked to sacrifice our freedom to do the impossible: make everyone safe at all times. The cameras aren't going to do that because it can't be done. The cameras are only going to inure us to the increasing surveillance society and make money for a German corporation. Oh, and turn more of us into law-breakers with more and more fines to pay.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Reading the story a little more closely, it does look like Traffipax will be sharing in the ticket revenue:


"Bierma would not reveal the cost of the system but said the city would not have to put up any money to start the program.

'The program pays for itself through the revenue of the citations,' she said. 'Regardless of what happens, the city would never owe more money than the program brings in.'"

We'll never "owe more money than the program brings in?" What does that mean exactly? Does Bierma mean to say that if, for instance, as Ms. Delgado wishes, no red lights are run because of the monitoring, that we'll owe nothing to Traffipax?

In other words, what if the cameras are the excellent deterrent that Delgado and Bierma make them out to be and therefore don't "bring in" any money at all because the cameras successfully deterred every violation? According to Bierma, that must mean that the city would then owe nothing for the cameras.

On the other hand, we know all too well that corporations like Traffipax don't do things that won't make them money. And they know that red lights can easily be disobeyed by accident and in fact are rarely disobeyed willfully (no study to back this up, just my opinion). They know that due to human error or miscalculation, they will make money (and get to surveil us in the process), allowing Bierma to make a statement like the above.

But the human error factor really defeats the argument of having the cameras in the first place, since we all know that red lights are going to be "disobeyed" whether cameras are present or not.

I'd be interested to know what, if anything, city council members may or may not be getting out of this unnecessary arrangement. Have they been on any Traffipax-sponsored trips or received any "gifts" of any kind from a "friend" who has connections to Traffipax? Just wondering--don't mean to cast aspersions or make insinuations. And note that I am not making statements, I am asking questions.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

According to the Insurance Institute For Highway Safety, Columbus, MS and Tupelo, MS use red light cameras.


The IIHS reported that studies in California and Virginia show that red-light cameras reduced red light violations by 40%. However, the IIHS also admits that different studies have shown that red-light cameras can increase rear-end collisions.


The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) also says that red-light cameras reduce violations. However, in Los Angeles County, for example, the results from 3 different intersections varied wildly:
92 percent, 78 percent, and 34 percent. The article containing this info gives no explanation for the variance. It also strikes me as unlikely that red-light running could ever be reduced by almost 100% for an extended period of time.


The FHWA study found that in San Francisco, violations were down by 40% in the first 6 months of the program. While that is positive, no mention is made of other possible contributing factors to the decrease in violations, such as publicity surrounding the presence of the cameras. Also, no mention is made of whether or not these positive results continued beyond the 6-month period, presumably once the publicizing of the cameras had died down or stopped altogether.

In fact, an IIHS publication mentions a few important factors that likely play a much bigger part in reducing red-light violations than the cameras do. First, the setup: In Philadelphia, cameras were installed at what happened to be a couple of the most crash-prone intersections in the country (no indication if the crashes were necessarily caused by red-light running or by being poorly designed intersections with say, poor visibility or something similar). The red-light violations went down significantly--approaching 100% decreases, in fact.

However, the article also notes two other factors that came into play in reducing violations: extended yellow lights and "conspicuous signs [that] warn motorists as they approach camera-equipped intersections." The article then ignores the effect of the signs, plays up the cameras, and acknowledges the helpfulness of lengthened yellow lights but downplays their effectiveness.

One wonders whether or not similar results could be achieved with less privacy-invading tactics. For example, if red-light running is such a big problem, the fine for red-light running could be made more punitive, i.e., substantially increased. Or, dummy cameras could be used so that drivers think they're being watched when in fact the mounted cameras are not recording anything. Or, if municipalities wanted to really get serious about stopping red-light violations, they could install barriers that rise out of the intersection when red lights are on, then recess back into the street when the light turns green. That way, it would be impossible for cars to move at all until the red light ends.

None of the articles I consulted mention how much money Traffipax and other similar companies have contributed to the IIHS or how many former or current camera-enforcement company personnel work for or in concert with the FHWA.

We can see then, that the argument that cameras in and of themselves necessarily reduce red-light violations is very weak and that similar results could likely be obtained through other means which lack the privacy-and-civil-liberties-violating potential of cameras.

And here's another article that raises similar points...

USELESS AIRPORT SECURITY AND FBI BIOMETRICS DATABASES...

A couple of stories I've noticed the past couple of days that are related...

First, a story about a study which shows that airline security is more about control than safety:

Airport security lines can annoy passengers, but there is no evidence that they make flying any safer, U.S. researchers reported on Thursday.
A team at the Harvard School of Public Health could not find any studies showing whether the time-consuming process of X-raying carry-on luggage prevents hijackings or attacks.
They also found no evidence to suggest that making passengers take off their shoes and confiscating small items prevented any incidents.

Since there's no evidence that such "security" measures increase safety, then I'm sure such practices will be discontinued, right? Fat chance of that. It's like Alex Jones often says--the point was never to keep us "safe," the point is to inure us to being searched, to get us used to being subjected to pointless, petty invasions of our privay and submitting to authority for no good reason.

This is how a police state is created--slowly, gradually, almost imperceptibly, until the police feel they no longer need the subtlety. And the police state feels no need to justify itself, as the article points out:

"The U.S. Transportation Security Administration told research teams requesting information their need for quick new security measures trumped the usefulness of evaluating them, Eleni Linos, Elizabeth Linos, and Graham Colditz reported in the British Medical Journal."

Basically, the police state says, our "security measures" are effective because we say so. Even if they obviously aren't effective.

So we'll just scan everyone's face!

And that leads us right into the FBI's gigantic new biometric database!

"The FBI is embarking on a $1 billion effort to build the world's largest computer database of peoples' physical characteristics, a project that would give the government unprecedented abilities to identify individuals in the United States and abroad."

My, how safe we'll be when we can all be tracked to the four corners of the earth!

Think that such a system would only be used on "terrorists?" Think again:

"But the FBI is planning a "rap-back" service, under which employers could ask the FBI to keep employees' fingerprints in the database, subject to state privacy laws, so that if that employees are ever arrested or charged with a crime, the employers would be notified."

Why might one be arrested? For participating in an antiwar demonstration, maybe? Why should one's employer be notified of that? Why should the government be telling employers such things? Would an employer be notified if one were charged with the crime of speeding or running a stop sign? What is the employer supposed to do with such information, anyway? Penalize an employee? What the hell is going on here?

Think the FBI won't abuse this database? Anybody remember the national security letter debacle? Let's refresh our memory:

"An internal FBI audit has found that the bureau potentially violated the law or agency rules more than 1,000 times while collecting data about domestic phone calls, e-mails and financial transactions in recent years, far more than was documented in a Justice Department report in March that ignited bipartisan congressional criticism."

Speaking of abuse of power--J. Edgar Hoover's mass arrest proposal!

Speaking of the FBI and abuse of power, how's about this from ol' Queen Hoover:

A newly declassified document shows that J. Edgar Hoover, the longtime director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, had a plan to suspend habeas corpus and imprison some 12,000 Americans he suspected of disloyalty.

Though this Hoover letter is from 1950, it sounds awfully familiar:

"For a long period of time the FBI has been accumulating the names, identities and activities of individuals found to be potentially dangerous to the internal security through investigation. These names have been compiled in an index which index has been kept up to date. The names in this index are the ones that have been furnished to the Department of Justice and will be attached to the master warrant referred to above. This master warrant will, therefore, serve as legal authority for the FBI to cause the apprehension and detention of the individuals maintained in this index."

No-Fly List, anyone? Hoover only had 12,000 "potentially dangerous" people on his list? What, was he soft on terror or something? The no-fly list has at least 20,000 people on it.

FREE SPEECH OUTLAWED IN MS CODE 97-45-17?

The more I think about it, the more I have to ask whether or not the law under which Yuri Wainwright was charged is an attempt to outlaw "free speech."

Why would I say this? Consider the following:

1. The term "injury" isn't defined in the chapter in which this anti-free-speech law in contained.
2. Any "message" posted in "any medium of communication" is subject to this law.
3. The "injury" claim can come from "any person," not just the person who may or may not be mentioned in the "message."

The only mitigating factor, the only part left up to a jury, is whether or not the "message" is "for the purpose of causing injury to any person." Intent, I would think, is fairly difficult to prove. But not impossible--all it would take is a slick lawyer making a case to a dumbed-down jury.

What is "injury?"

Since "injury" isn't defined in the code, how is that word defined in say, the dictionary? Dictionary.com lists a legal definition of injury as:

4. Law. any wrong or violation of the rights, property, reputation, etc., of another for which legal action to recover damages may be made.

So according to this definition, a person's reputation can in fact suffer "injury." At what point does injury to a reputation become illegal? It would be helpful if this law would tell us, but it does not. We know that Yuri Wainwright was not satisfied with the quality of his education. If he posted a message that said "I think the University of Southern Mississippi's architecture department is useless," could that be construed as causing "injury" to the reputation of the university and/or one of its academic departments? Of course it could--and probably should.

But is it illegal--or more precisely, should it be illegal to express one's opinion about the architecture department? I should think that this goes to the very essence of the First Amendment. For example, if I say that "George W. Bush is a moron and is unfit to be president," could I, under MS Code 97-45-17, be charged by not just Bush, but any and/or all of his supporters who feel that I have injured Bush's reputation as well as the reputations of his supporters? I'd argue that yes, under the vague language of this law, I could be prosecuted for saying that.

Should I be able to be prosecuted for saying that? I'd like to think that the First Amendment and related judicial precedents would render the very question inane, but 97-45-17 seems to render the likelihood of my prosecution for such a statement a very open question indeed.

Was Wainwright in fact arrested for something that's been "hiding in plain sight" on his MySpace page? In his "About Me" section, he says the following:

"Yuri switched his alliterative identity of a pothead philosopher to an alcoholic architect. As soon as he graduates from a rinky dink excuse for a school(with good teachers, amazingly), he will promtly move to a different place where the scenery doesnt quite match the morass of its inhabitants."

The University of Southern Mississippi is not mentioned by name on Wainwright's page. But someone with an axe to grind against Wainwright could conceivably argue that he caused injury to the university's reputation among people who knew he was USM student, including the faculty member who supposedly turned him in.

Is that far-fetched? Well, consider the fact that, according to the Hattiesburg American, Wainwright "has been placed on interim suspension by Southern Miss." For that status to apply to Wainwright, all that must happen is that
"the president of the university or a designated administrator determines that the presence of a student would reasonably constitute clear and present danger to the university community or property" (Section 11 of USM Student Handbook). Would someone bad-mouthing the university "reasonably constitute" a "clear and present danger" to the university? Probably not. Unless Wainwright saw something involving a professor that he wasn't supposed to see and let it be known that he was going to go public or something. Or something similar--who knows?

But I'm getting away from my point. It strikes me that 97-45-17 of the MS Code is unconstitutional and should be struck down. Maybe Wainwright's case will help that happen--if they ever get off their ass and try him.

EVERYONE IN THE UNITED STATES SHOULD CARE ABOUT YURI WAINWRIGHT'S CASE...

New story about the lack of information in the Yuri Wainwright case today...

Here's what I wrote about it at the Hattiesburg American forum...

Stonewalling=Lack of guilt?

Wainwright has been rotting in jail for over four months. It is long past time for "the law" to bring a case against him or let him go. I've said it before and I'll say it again--there is no way that this case can be as complicated as Weathers and Hopkins have made it out to be. Either Wainwright made a threat on the Internet or he didn't.

The stonewalling of Weathers and Hopkins makes it pretty clear that Wainwright did NOT make a threat on the Internet. After all, if Wainwright had written something that was clearly a threat, no one would've had any qualms about publicizing what it was that he wrote that was so bad.

How do we know this? By comparing Wainwright's situation to that of Tosin Oduwole, a student at Southern Illinois University.

Wainwright vs. Oduwole: Contrast & Compare

The police supposedly found a note in Oduwole's abandoned car that said:

"if this account doesn't reach $50,000 in the next 7 days then a murderous rampage similar to the VT shooting will occur at another highly populated university. THIS IS NOT A JOKE!"

Not only that, Oduwole had recently placed online orders for semiautomatic weapons. Oduwole also had a loaded gun in his dorm room.

Note that what Oduwole supposedly wrote appeared in the very first stories about his arrest. That's because in America, when someone is hauled off to jail for engaging in a constitutionally-protected activity--in this case, exercising the freedom of speech--the public has a right to know how that constitutionally-protected activity crossed a line if in fact a line has been crossed.

Why This Concerns Every American

Everyone in America should be concerned about Wainwright's incarceration and the authorities' apparent lack of justification for it. I don't care if Bob Hopkins is a smart, likable guy as I've repeatedly been told. He owes the university, nay, the Hattiesburg community, nay--the people of the United States some concrete reason for putting Yuri Wainwright behind bars on $1 million bond.

If they can put Wainwright in jail for over four months with no apparent end in sight to his incarceration, what's to stop them from putting any one of us in jail merely on their say-so? Apparently all that has to be done to take a citizen's freedom is to make a vague accusation under a (probably intentionally) vague statute (in Wainwright's case, it's "Posting of Messages through Electronic Media for Purpose of Causing Injury to Any Person," which is from MS Code 97-45-17).

Is that the impression John Mark Weathers and Bob Hopkins intend to leave for the citizens of this city, state, and country? I sincerely hope not--but what other conclusion are we to draw?

What, exactly, is "injury?"

Read the statute--it went into effect in July of 2003. It's likely that it hasn't even been tested in court yet. The standard it uses--that a "message" must "have the purpose" of "causing injury to any person"--is so vague that it could apply to anything. In fact, if Bob Hopkins or John Mark Weathers were to read this post, they might try to argue that this "message" has the purpose of "causing injury" to them, or their reputations, or their feelings, or whatever.

After all, what, pray tell, is meant by "injury?" How can it be proved whether or not a message "has the purpose" of "causing injury?" As far as I can tell by just using Google, MS is the only state with a statute like this. That doesn't mean other states don't have similar laws, I just can't find them easily/quickly.

Not only on the Internet

But also take note, the statute in question here is not limited to only the Internet. It says if you purposely create a "message" that has the purpose of causing "injury" (physical? social? mental? all of the above? any of the above?) to "ANY person," you could be charged under this act if you use "ANY means of communication."