Maine tells Congress to take a hike on new I.D.

[ndebord]

http://waldo.villagesoup.com/Government/story.cfm?storyID=85846

The Maine Senate and House voted Thursday to approve a joint resolution urging Congress and the President to Repeal the Real ID Act of 2005.

[Judy G. Russell]

http://waldo.villagesoup.com/Government/story.cfm?storyID=85846
The Maine Senate and House voted Thursday to approve a joint resolution urging Congress and the President to Repeal the Real ID Act of 2005.I have the sense that this horse has long since bolted from the barn, Nick. Personal privacy is -- perhaps irreversibly -- the victim of the "war on terror."

[ndebord]

I have the sense that this horse has long since bolted from the barn, Nick. Personal privacy is -- perhaps irreversibly -- the victim of the "war on terror."


Judy,

Perhaps so, but from little acorns....

[Judy G. Russell]

Perhaps so, but from little acorns....Yeah, well, frankly... I don't see us ever getting back the kind of privacy we had before the digital age.

[Lindsey]

Yeah, well, frankly... I don't see us ever getting back the kind of privacy we had before the digital age.
Doesn't mean we have to just give up and strip naked every time the government says to.

--Lindsey

[Judy G. Russell]

Doesn't mean we have to just give up and strip naked every time the government says to.I agree with you there, but I also think we need to pick our battle grounds and give up on things like, oh, red light cameras.

[Lindsey]

I agree with you there, but I also think we need to pick our battle grounds and give up on things like, oh, red light cameras.
Yeah, and the British tax on tea was just a few pennies...

--Lindsey

[Judy G. Russell]

Yeah, and the British tax on tea was just a few pennies...True, but the colonists weren't living in a world where just about everything can be downloaded from the Internet at the click of a mouse. Some privacy has been lost, pure and simple. We aren't going to get it back. And, I think, we may trivialize the fight over the critical elements that we do still have by fighting over things that cannot be changed.

[Lindsey]

And, I think, we may trivialize the fight over the critical elements that we do still have by fighting over things that cannot be changed.
When somebody can define for me just exactly what the critical elements are, and which things have to be conceded to secure them, I might be willing to go along. Until then, I'm not conceding a damned thing.

--Lindsey

[Judy G. Russell]

When somebody can define for me just exactly what the critical elements are, and which things have to be conceded to secure them, I might be willing to go along. Until then, I'm not conceding a damned thing.You don't have to concede anything, but we all have to pick our battles. For example, an awful lot of people get all exercised about red light cameras, yet they're perfectly willing to allow unsupervised wiretaps even of American citizens, because after all we have to stop terrorism. I'd gladly give up on red light cameras if we could get real oversight of wiretaps.

[Lindsey]

I'd gladly give up on red light cameras if we could get real oversight of wiretaps.
I don't know about you, but in my book, that is conceding something. And frankly, I don't like red light cameras any better than I like warrantless wiretaps. I don't want to live in a surveillance society.

Rather than playing "gotcha!" with the red lights, why not pose the question "Why is it that at some intersections running red lights is such a bad problem?" And then employ some creative thinking to reduce the incentive to run the light in some way other than playing Big Brother? Why does the first response to every societal problem have to be to tighten surveillance, make life more restrictive, and find more ways to punish people?

--Lindsey

[Dan in Saint Louis]

why not pose the question "Why is it that at some intersections running red lights is such a bad problem?"
First, pose the question "Was this a red-light-running accident?" Sources have indicated that data collection is lax, and if the accident form says it occured near "the intersection of Maple and Pine" it gets counted as an intersection accident -- even if the front guy DID stop and someone in line behind him did not. And pretty soon "accident at an intersection" becomes "red light problem."

[Lindsey]

Good point. The first requirement is to have good data.

--Lindsey

[Judy G. Russell]

Rather than playing "gotcha!" with the red lights, why not pose the question "Why is it that at some intersections running red lights is such a bad problem?" And then employ some creative thinking to reduce the incentive to run the light in some way other than playing Big Brother? Why does the first response to every societal problem have to be to tighten surveillance, make life more restrictive, and find more ways to punish people?There is nothing whatsoever that even comes close to violating the Constitution about taking a photograph of someone violating the law. Sorry, but this fight just ain't worth fighting in my book.

[Lindsey]

There is nothing whatsoever that even comes close to violating the Constitution about taking a photograph of someone violating the law. Sorry, but this fight just ain't worth fighting in my book.
They're planning on putting cameras at the toll booths here, too. It's not that I'm sympathetic to people who drive through without paying. (But what, really, are you supposed to do if you find you don't have enough change and there's no attendant?). But I don't at all like the idea of having cameras at every turn to catch every mistake you make and fine you for it. It's like living in a glass house. You need to cut people a little bit of slack and give them space to make a mistake now and again.

It's like those awful keyboard sensors that some data entry terminals have that penalize the clerk for every typing error he/she makes. Horrible.

--Lindsey

[ndebord]

They're planning on putting cameras at the toll booths here, too. It's not that I'm sympathetic to people who drive through without paying. (But what, really, are you supposed to do if you find you don't have enough change and there's no attendant?). But I don't at all like the idea of having cameras at every turn to catch every mistake you make and fine you for it. It's like living in a glass house. You need to cut people a little bit of slack and give them space to make a mistake now and again.

It's like those awful keyboard sensors that some data entry terminals have that penalize the clerk for every typing error he/she makes. Horrible.

--Lindsey

Lindsey,

I particularily hate the red light cameras in NYC. My first driving lesson when I got here back in 70 was when I stopped at a yellow / red light and the guy behind me rearended me. Without missing a beat, he sauntered over to my out-of-town licence car and informed me that if I wanted to stick around, I should drive right on through such lights. The point, of course, was that in da City often the only way you can get through an interesection is to drive through a red light, particularly on some turns. And he was right. There is that unwritten rule about how to get through a turn intersection. Blowing through on a straightaway is not so clear-cut, but all of this is accrued judgment on the part of the local drivers, not a camera.

[Judy G. Russell]

But I don't at all like the idea of having cameras at every turn to catch every mistake you make and fine you for it. It's like living in a glass house. You need to cut people a little bit of slack and give them space to make a mistake now and again.That "little bit of slack" costs the NJ Turnpike Authority $3 million a year. That's not "a little bit of slack." That's "a license to steal."

[Lindsey]

That "little bit of slack" costs the NJ Turnpike Authority $3 million a year. That's not "a little bit of slack." That's "a license to steal."
You could probably cut that down quite a bit by investing in some better signage.

Last spring, I had no problem at all crossing the George Washington Bridge from New York into New Jersey. I got to the proper lane, I paid the toll, no problem.

Coming back from New Jersey, I couldn't figure out which goddamn way the signs were trying to tell me to go, and since the thing is about 20 lanes wide, you need to make it very clear WELL IN ADVANCE which way the driver needs to go to pay cash, because the people paying cash are likely the ones who are least familiar with the setup. The GPS was telling me to go one way, the signs seemed to be saying to do just the opposite, and with about a half a second to decide between them, I decided to follow what I thought the signs were saying. I think I must have ended up on the wrong level, because I got shunted over to the far right where the sign ultimately said "Cash payments drive straight through". So I guess I'm not the only one who ends up on the wrong level that has no provision for taking cash.

Again, I had NO PROBLEM figuring out which way to go when I was coming from New York, and that was in the fading daylight. Coming from New Jersey in the full light of morning, it was a confused mess.

My point, though, is that I am getting really tired of having electronic monitors everywhere I turn. Cameras at red lights, cameras at toll booths, cameras flying overhead to monitor your speed on the highways, black boxes installed in your car to record what you are doing when you drive. It's one thing being accountable to other people. It's another thing entirely to be held accountable to a machine. It's dehumanizing, and I have to think that when its ubiquitous, it will not do good things for society.

--Lindsey

[Lindsey]

Blowing through on a straightaway is not so clear-cut, but all of this is accrued judgment on the part of the local drivers, not a camera.
Well, yeah. Same thing with speed on a highway. Are you going to put blinkers on and stick to the strict speed limit when everyone else on the road is going considerably faster? That's more dangerous than speeding up a little and going with the flow.

What am I supposed to do if I get to a toll booth and discover that I don't have the correct change after all? Sit there blocking the gate until morning when a human shows up? And probably causing an accident in the process? C'mon.

I'm not advocating being a scofflaw, but your point about judgement is well taken. The machines leave no room for human judgement.

--Lindsey

[Judy G. Russell]

My point, though, is that I am getting really tired of having electronic monitors everywhere I turn. Cameras at red lights, cameras at toll booths, cameras flying overhead to monitor your speed on the highways, black boxes installed in your car to record what you are doing when you drive. It's one thing being accountable to other people. It's another thing entirely to be held accountable to a machine. It's dehumanizing, and I have to think that when its ubiquitous, it will not do good things for society.Again, I think it's a matter of picking your battles. I don't particularly care about the privacy interests of somebody who's photographed only when he or she runs a red light. Not getting caught breaking the law is not a legitimate expectation of privacy. The same with toll cheats. If the camera flashes only when a vehicle breaks a certain plane without a toll being paid, then tough. It's not that I'm dancing in the streets at the idea; it's just that it doesn't bother me nearly as much as 1000 other things that are being done that I object to.

[ndebord]

Well, yeah. Same thing with speed on a highway. Are you going to put blinkers on and stick to the strict speed limit when everyone else on the road is going considerably faster? That's more dangerous than speeding up a little and going with the flow.

What am I supposed to do if I get to a toll booth and discover that I don't have the correct change after all? Sit there blocking the gate until morning when a human shows up? And probably causing an accident in the process? C'mon.

I'm not advocating being a scofflaw, but your point about judgement is well taken. The machines leave no room for human judgement.

--Lindsey

Lindsey,

Thank God there are still cops in the patrol cars. Got pulled over around noon today on the Boulevard (Kennedy) in Bayonne for doing 45 in a 25 zone. My error was in the extra five. Everybody does 35-40 all the time there. My wallet has a pullout for cards and in it I have my drivers license and my registration in the other side, but the registration is under my VA card. The cop asked if I was in 'Nam and I said yes and he told me to be more careful next time out. This was an undercover car, not a bubbletop and I should have seen it but I was in a hurry and late. <sigh> Can't fight with the radar gun, just play the cop if possible.