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Comment by SunshineTheCat | Hacker News Reader

I've followed a few cases surrounding traffic cameras that have been ruled unconstitutional on the grounds that individuals have the right to face their accuser.

The question in those cases came down to if the operators of the cam can be considered "accusers."

They widely considered that of course the cam itself didn't count as an accuser, but the question was how "automated" the system was. If there was a human who flagged it, the system was fine, if it was fully automated, they were unconstitutional.

Many states don't share this opinion, but an interesting argument nonetheless.

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Couldn't you say the same of drug testing spectrometers etc? The end operator of the equipment has to appear in court to testify to the proper operation of the machine. [0]

[0] Unless the defendant waives that right and stipulates to the prosecutor's statement about the machine.

This literally occurs; one of the reasons that the drug testing lab is usually somewhat local. The prosecution called the individual who ran the test as a witness, and he had clearly been called for similar things many times before.

They started putting them up in the midwest where I live. The interesting thing is if you get a ticket and just pay it? Nothing. If you get a ticket and you challenge it, the judge will immediately throw it out for the reason you pointed out or just dismiss it before it even gets to court by sending out a form letter saying they nullified the ticket, no reason to pay it.

So in essence, if you know this is what they're doing, you're good. But they're not telling people so the money grift continues unabated and in place.

So if it's established as unconstitutional, couldn't you file a criminal complaint of official oppression against the members of whatever government approved the cameras since they are levying unconstitutional fines?

As an individual and not the government, you can't file a criminal action.

You could file a civil action for violation of constitutional rights, but under Roberts, SCOTUS has basically been ripping out all of the mechanisms that would let you file such suits.

"As an individual and not the government, you can't file a criminal action."

You can file with the police, if they take it. You can also file as a private criminal complaint in many jurisdictions. However, it's up to the DA to approve it most of the time. There can be an appeal process where a judge would make a determination.

But yes, if the whole system is corrupt, then there's not much to do.

> you can't file a criminal action.

Georgia and a handful of other states absolutely allow this.

If they invalidate every contested fine nobody has any standing to make a legal complaint.

They're only invalidating it if you fight it. The people who paid it and later realized it was unconstitutional may have standing.

I don't have much meaningful info to contribute to this, but it is interesting to observe how the rollout of the red light cams happens in different places, and how it eventually turns out.

IIRC there was a point in time roughly around ~2017 when it happened in Redmond WA (i.e., in the town that the Microsoft HQ is in). I might be off by a year or two, but it doesn't really change the overall point.

TLDR: in under 2 years, that whole red light cam initiative got canceled and reverted, because the local stats showed that it just made things more dangerous on the roads (by significantly increasing the rate of rear-ending accidents at traffic lights).

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