Jam-Cam Jam
A Non-Issue
So YOU'RE the one who thinks those cameras they're installing along the Interstate are a Trilateral Commission plot to gin up traffic fines and divert them into offshore bank accounts to finance the Multinational Corporate World Takeover.
Boy, you sure threw me a curve, there.
Here I've been happily watching the highway department finally extending its network of traffic cameras into our neck of the woods -- dreaming of the day when I can see exactly where the guardrail dent-repair brigade is blocking off five miles of freeway -- and you jump out of the bushes, yell "Boo!" and tell me Big Brother is trying to climb into my back seat.
Well, I pity him if he does, because it's gonna be a mighty boring drive: Middle lane, cruise control set at exactly 70 mph, maintaining that Safe Following Distance from the car ahead of me -- cell phone safely pocketed away out of reach -- radio set on the classical station.
But maybe he'd rather ride with you.
Yes, I think I recognize you, now: Aren't you the guy in the candy-apple-red, red dualed-out pickup who climbed up my rear bumper, last Friday, flashed your lights, then mouthed obscenities at me as you whipped over into the passing lane to pass me? I guess maybe you wouldn't want that little episode on the record, would you?
You tell me the cameras threaten your Right To Privacy. You whine that they will allow Big Government violate your Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination by "spying" on you as you bob and weave your selfish, reckless way down the road.
Well, I've got news for you. My right to arrive safely at my destination supersedes your right to privacy -- even if we stipulate, purely for the sake of argument, that there is any privacy to BE protected on a busy freeway, of all places.
And you're worried about your Fifth Amendment rights? You're incensed that all those pesky, peeping cameras might catch you weaving in and out of traffic at 90 mph? Or running a day-care van off into the ditch because it wouldn't get out of your way fast enough? And thus "violate your Constitutional rights against self-incrimination?" (Hmmm. Better have a word with that state trooper who craftily -- and I guess to your thinking, unconstitutionally -- stations himself out-of-sight just beyond the next overpass.)
Don't want to incriminate yourself, Sport?
Here's a thought:
Back off that gas pedal.
Look, I'll march at your side in the blazing sun to protest legitimate invasion-of-privacy issues. But this just isn't one of them.
You want to draw your blinds, lock the door, and light up a funny cigarette in the sanctity of your own home, be my guest. It's your living room and your business, as far as I'm concerned.
But if you're puffing away at the wheel and T-bone me at an intersection because you're too buzzed to see that your light is red -- well, the more automatic cameras that catch that action, the better.
"Your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins," my lawyer father always said, to which I would add, "your right to privacy ends where everyone else's right to safety begins."
In all truthfulness, I don't expect those "traffic-jam-cams" to be anything more than just that -- extra eyes to clue me in on freeway backups and allow me to plan my drive accordingly.
But if they should pick up some drunk plowing into a carload of unsuspecting vacationers, I'd sure hate to see that valuable testimony thrown out of court based on some paranoid, Big Brother, "slippery slope" technicality.
Pick a better battle, pal. Pick a better battle.
