Depending on where you live these days, odds are you're becoming painfully aware of the growing popularity of traffic cameras being used to mark traffic violators and sending out tickets in the mail. I've gotten a handful of them myself. This is where the normal debate begins between the "Don't Tread on Me" crowd and the "Why are you worried if you have nothing to hide?" camp.
Well, for those of you who don't get that squeamish feeling at the thought of state run cameras at every intersection, check this out.
From Disinfo.com: Vehicle Registration Plate Surveillance System
The article does a good job of providing a cursory overview of the procedures being used in the UK for tracking the locations of vehicles as they traverse the countryside, using a combination of pictures of vehicle plates and the passengers of the vehicles to create a data farm on driving patterns in the area. While the state staunchly denies allegations that this data mining will be used to build profiles on law-abiding citizens, they do not deny holding on to these data sets.
And so continues the inexorable march to the bleak future of complete lack of personal privacy. I remember hearing someone talk about the future once, saying that while we all clamor now for our 5 minutes of fame, it won't be very long until we're scrambling for 5 simple minutes of peace and privacy in our entire lives. Really gives you hope for tomorrow, huh?
Thank God we got Joey Diaz out there speaking truth for all us sinners.
Much love.
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