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Police Objecting to Tickets From Red-Light Cameras
caffiend666 writes "According to a Dallas Morning News article, any 'Dallas police officer in a marked squad car who is captured on the city's cameras running a red light will have to pay the $75 fine if the incident doesn't comply with state law ... Many police officers are angry about the proposed policy. The prevailing belief among officers has been that they can run red lights as they see fit.' Is this a case for or against governments relying on un-biased automated systems? Or, should anyone be able to control who is recorded on camera and who is held accountable?"
This brings up a very simple fact in the US Constitution. It says plainly "No warrant shall issue without probable cause." Now this may not seem simple to people but it really is. It means that nobody shall be arrested (Yes traffic offenses too!) without probable cause. Probable cause is the obvious to all reality that someone has been or is most likely going to be injured at any moment as a result of the behavior of the party being arrested. There is absolutely no way on this earth that this determination can be made by a traffic camera. How on earth does a camera at an intersection know if the Police officer is doing his job properly and safely or not? How on earth can it judge if the risk he has taken in running the red light is one which is not relative to the situation? It cannot. Thus all warrants by traffic cameras are by definition void because they did not have probable cause. Merely speeding or passing a red light is not probable cause. That requires a determination of valid purpose etc.
This all applies to citizens as well!
Never Politically Correct ~ I prefer the facts If you don't like what I say, get a life, or comment yourself.
No, you're about as wrong as it's possible to be (and that's pretty wrong). If there's no double standard, than (to use an example that's 110% guaranteed to hit home with /.ers) the RIAA can raid homes. Right? I mean, we wouldn't allow law enforcement to break burglary laws, just because they have a "warrant", right? So, we either have to take away the right of the police to make arrests on private property, or allow record labels to hire security personnel to do the same to suspected file sharers.
ResidntGeek
How we know is more important than what we know.
I think the police would make the exact same argument. They're trained to know when it is safe to run red lights and when it is not.. so why shouldn't they be allowed to run them?
How we know is more important than what we know.
Many individuals feel the need to express their dislike of traffic cameras and photo/laser radar, as one can see from reading the responses to this article. But I have to ask the question, and I ask this as simply as I can.
If you are not running red light or speeding, then you wont be getting tickets, so why does it matter if the cameras are put in locations that generate the most revenue? Or the police setting up in areas that you wont notice them until you 'get flashed'?
The only reason to complain about the above items is if you are getting caught. And if you are getting caught, then you are breaking the law, and deserve the tickets you received.