Rigpig wrote:
Nooooooooooooooo
Infringement of civil liberties pah! Jailing a burgler is an infrigement of their civil liberties if we take this much abused concept to its Nth degree. I'm sick and tired of this pathetic offering as reason not to do what is asked of us.
What about our civil responsibilities? When we stop giving those a damned good ignoring, we can start whinging about civil bloody liberties.
First, there is no comparison to be made (either legally or morally) between someone who exceeds a speed limit (at a time when it is safe to do so or unintentionally as most of us do) and a burglar, so the comparison should not be made. Also a burglar has more legal rights than has a motorist accused of speeding – try taking your speeding ticket to court and see how unfair the road traffic legislation really is, designed for the purpose of fast tracking fine revenue payments and not to ensuring justice.
Second, you cannot assume that speed camera based technology will remain purely a ‘camera on a stick’ and will escalate, in fact the government are already discussing satellite tracking systems and have some vehicle ANPR tracking already in use, all under the guise of road safety of course. This technology is flawed as is all technology, but perceived as infallible in order to simplify the judicial system.
Third, as is becoming increasingly apparent the government will use this technology for reasons other than originally espoused (i.e. road safety) simply because they can use technology as a 'smoke screen' to justice that will and does already infringe our civil liberties.
Fourth, if people disregard their ‘civil liberties’ and don’t draw the line in the sand somewhere then they will be paving the way for everyone being tracked, monitored and prosecuted just in case their actions should have some criminal outcome. This is the case today, where a driver who exceeds a posted speed limit is automatically branded a ‘dangerous driver’ or even a possible ‘child killer’ by some, held to account by the law even though they have decades of safe driving behind them and are in reality no risk to anyone.
As for civil responsibilities – I agree we should all exercise this, I also believe most of us are responsible and conscientious, but ‘civil responsibility’ has to work all ways, authorities right up to government need also to be held to account for their bad policies and decisions (such as their speed camera policy which cost lives amongst many others) not just the public - as I write this a PC has just been acquitted for travelling 159 mph – it is these double standards that need to be addressed first, ‘civil responsibilities’ are not a one-way street – in the meantime our civil liberties are under threat now more so than ever before because of the use of speed cameras along with other tracking technologies and need protecting.
Andy