Perhaps more than at any time in our history, lawmakers, judges and courts are giving federal, state and local authorities the right to do things that would get me and you arrested, were we to do them.
For example, I would be arrested if caught climbing a stepladder and peeking in the window of my next-door neighbor, even if I claim I was keeping an eye him because I suspected he may have been stealing my newspaper.
By contrast, a California Superior Court judge ruled last week that red-light cameras installed by the City of San Diego were “constitutional” and did not violate privacy rights, even though said cameras routinely filmed the activities of motorists who were not guilty of any crime.
“The Court is not aware of any expectation of privacy when one is driving a motor vehicle on a public street,” wrote Superior Court Judge Ronald Styn, in ruling that tickets issued because of the lights had to be paid.
You caught that, right? No “expectation of privacy. …”
Styn also ruled that the city was “within its constitutional rights” to place the cameras where it did, in some of the busiest (and, oddly, some of the most financially lucrative) intersections in the city. He even supplied the city’s excuse; he ruled the city placed its cameras where it did “out of concern for public safety.”
Again, did you catch that? It’s the old “safety trumps privacy” argument again, and it just won another court battle.
Can anyone tell me – perhaps Judge Styn, for starters – precisely when the Constitution was changed to say that Americans could only be guaranteed the right to privacy if we weren’t in public? When did Congress amend it to say that as long as authorities believed the “public safety” was being enhanced, the public’s other rights could (and should) be waived?
This gets worse.
Believe it or not, Judge Styn even admitted in his ruling that the evidence gathered by the snooping red light cameras may not be any good.
“The evidence obtained from the red light camera system as presently operated appears so untrustworthy and unreliable that it lacks foundation and should not be admitted,” Styn ruled.
That is truly amazing. And yet, the judge still ruled that the plaintiffs had to pay their tickets, even though the method used to issue them may be “untrustworthy” and “unreliable.”
Be careful when you walk into Judge Styn’s courtroom. From the sound of it, you’re just liable to step in something that may be hard to clean off your shoes.
Our constitutional protections – the right to privacy, trial by jury, and the presumption of innocence until proven guilty – were put in place by our founding fathers precisely because they did not want police and government authorities persecuting or harassing innocent people.
But these kinds of abuses have become so routine that judges and courts are even allowed to contradict themselves during rulings and get by with it.
Until those who rule us follow the same rules we the people must follow, these kinds of abuses will continue. It’s up to us to make believers out of our leaders.
