Traffic Cameras: Invasion of Privacy rights? You decide
Is the expanding use of traffic camera installations across the U.S. an invasion of privacy? This is the claim of a growing number of protesters who claim exactly that, while others including local governments and even the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) disagree.
Day by day this becomes a more contested issue affecting Americans in their everyday life. Arizona has had traffic cameras installed on state highways which netted the state $37 Million last year, and yet many of the state’s residents – as well as some law enforcement personnel – are strongly opposed to the system, and pressuring legislators to get rid of them. Legislative efforts have been made in Arizona to ban these cameras, and the State of Mississippi outlawed them a year ago. Other communities meanwhile, like Rochester, NY, are in the process of installing them currently.
The Fourth Amendment in the Bill of Rights is the framework for most of the claims of invasion of privacy.
Quoting from The People’s Guide to the United States Constitution:
Amendment 4.
The right of the people to be secure [safe] in their persons, houses, papers, and effects [personal belongings] against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause [“probable cause” means a valid reason in presuming someone is guilty of some illegal act], supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Earlier, in Great Britain and in the thirteen Colonies, the government could search any person or place it wanted to search without legitimate cause or reason. This amendment, however, only protects a person where the invasion of privacy is “unreasonable.” It is not considered unreasonable for the police to look into a person’s car or house after an arrest or to follow a suspected criminal across private property in order to make an arrest.
Does your Constitution protect you from traffic cameras photographing you driving in your neighborhood and on the highways? Does a state or local government have a right to photograph you in the name of public safety? Does a person surrender their “right to privacy” when driving on a public road?
How does the Fourth Amendment protect you in these circumstances? What’s your view on the use of speed/traffic cameras?
September 14th, 2010 at 6:29 am
I believe that driving is a privalege, if we abuse it by running red lights we should lose it. Cameras are set up to keep you and others safe. If there was a wreck and it was your word agianst the other persons, you would want to see the traffic tape to prove that you were the one in the right. We have traffic lights for a reason! If we refuse to wait our turn, we lose the right to our privacy on the roads.
July 6th, 2011 at 7:48 pm
Savannah is assuming that everyone is guilty of running a red light before we even get into our car. Savannah, don’t forget who the People are and don’t forget we live in a country where the gov’t is trying to take away every bit of liberty that we the people have every right to have. If you believe that your freedom is worth less than your safety then maybe you should go out and defend your liberties like I did. My brothers and sisters are fighting and dying so that you can enjoy the rights that you so carelessly trade in for a few bits of fantasy, oh I ‘m sorry, “safety.” Read a little about the first republic and what happend in the name of safety. Rome turned from a republic into a monarchy so that people could feel safe, and look where that got them. God bless the U.S.A. and long live our republic in all its glory.
July 6th, 2011 at 10:06 pm
Michael,
Thanks for your post!