Cameras sold for stolen vehicle recovery are now generating $1,251 mailed fines for phone use, raising serious legal and privacy concerns.

A woman drives with both hands on the wheel. Her phone sits face-down on her lap. No officer pulls her over. No lights flash. Weeks later, a $1,251 ticket arrives in the mail. The evidence: a single frame from a Camera surveillance app. The charge: phone use while driving.

Automated camera companies market their devices as automated license plate readers — tools for catching stolen cars, flagging warrants, and aiding serious investigations.

Sold as a Crime Tool. Used as a Fine Machine.

    • jdr@lemmy.mlEnglish
      2·
      4 hours ago

      Are you sure? He definitely said and wrote things to the contrary, including the Declaration of Independence.

      I never doubted, for instance, the existence of the Deity; that He made the world, and governed it by His providence; that the most acceptable service of God was the doing good to man; that our souls are immortal; and that all crime will be punished, and virtue rewarded, either here or hereafter.

      I have no dog in this race, being neither American nor religious, but it seems like an important historical detail.

      • Formfiller@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        3 hours ago

        Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof

        • jdr@lemmy.mlEnglish
          2·
          1 hour ago

          I think we can agree he was a critic of organized religion, and that it’s pretty enlightened to not have the state impose religion on anyone.

          That said I still think he (at least for a large chunk of his life) believed in the existence of a god, the god of Abraham/Christianity in particular.