#32 | albatross — “… he’d call the police for a beatdown (where someone might end up dead or crippled), but not for a normal fight.”

The self-fulfilling prophecy. NEVER CALL THE PIGS!

A couple years back, there was a discussion on Ta-Nahisi’s blog about when people would call the police. The answers common there closer to your answers than my default ones–basically, people were willing to call the police in real emergencies, but not for anyhting less–the line I remember specifically was someone saying he’d call the police for a beatdown (where someone might end up dead or crippled), but not for a normal fight.

For instance, consider the (unfortunately unlikely) possibility of drug law reform in the U.S. Assume that some company has a contract to supply a police department with as much field drug testing equipment as it needs, along with lab services for other drug tests. Right now, that might be a pretty steady business, but, if the Controlled Substances Act (and corresponding state laws) were repealed, that company would lose revenue. Should the company be able to sue the police departments no longer using drug tests because that department is no longer enforcing a nonexistent law?

Which brings us to the point at issue. Under your constitution as well as mine, each individual person has certain rights that no sovereign may infringe. My constitution guarantees, among other things, my life, liberty, and the security of my person against any wishes my fellow citizens of even my Sovereign might have; yours guarantees you against the uncompensated taking of your property or the withholding of equal protection of the law. And when it comes to traffic laws, if a change in the traffic laws or the enforcement thereof would reduce the safety of a specific group, and let us name them here: pedestrians in particular, then I think they do have a viable case for redress under your fourteenth amendment.

Some points for thought;

The company’s contract is/was with the City. The change in the Law was made at the State level. It would seem to me that if the company’s suit is to be based on the Takings theory, then the company must sue the State government.

As I suggested in a previous post, there is at least some question as to whether the cameras actions do, in fact, enforce red light restrictions (in your excellent phrase), or if they merely tend to ticket anybody making use of right-turn-on-red, in accordance with those restrictions or no. If the latter is more the case, could it not be argued that the cameras protect some people (pedestrians, etc) at the expense of violating the right of drivers to make a legal turn?

Lastly, the government may emphatically NOT treat the motoring laws as it sees fit. It is constrained (or should be, anyway) to treat them as it is instructed to do by the Sovereign People, and be-damned to all experts, and those who would impose regulation against the will of the populace ‘for their own good’. If the ‘experts’ cannot persuade the people, then the ‘experts’ can go climb a tree.

I also see this as a matter of public safety, which brings in equal protection issues. Under most conditions, a government can treat many laws relating to motoring, particularly parking bylaws, as it sees fit. Red lights and red light enforcement, however, directly affect the safety of pedestrians and other road users, and I question the right of even a majority of road users to vote against enforcement of laws that bear on the safety of everyone.

The power over criminal law is a fundamental sovereign power of the state, and the power to declare that something is not a crime is fundamental to that power. To say that a legislature loses its power to legislate simply because third parties have entered into contracts that assume they won’t legislate is absurd. The camera people can sue Knoxville for breach, but the law (or really lack of a law) is fully constitutional.*

They should by the way lose the suit against Knoxville. Any contract to engage in unlawful activity (and ticketing people for right on red is unlawful based on the statute), is invalid. Even if the activity became unlawful after the contract was signed.

I’ve been following the whole Camera Enforcement trend in a somewhat lackadaisical fashion, and I think what you may be missing is that (unless I’ve missed something, which is possible) red light cameras are bad at dealing with right-turn-on-red; tending to issue tickets for people who stop a little back (back of the line, for example) and then inch forward to see if turning is safe.

There have been a lot of cases where tickets were being issued which, when challenged, could not stand up in court. In some States there are regulations about how speed limits are set, and speed limits set below that standard do not have the force of law. In other cases, the State has set standards for the timing of yellow lights, and lights that were set too short turned up where cameras were put in place.

As I see it, here we have a shift from what the public was prepared to tolerate as law, if the enforcement was hit and miss, and what they will tolerate if the law is enforced at all times. If the city had put the cameras up on their own, there would be no problem; the law has changed. Because the whole camera enforcement system in the U.S. (at least) is based on contracts with businesses, the issue is more complicated. Which is what I meant when I said that tax farming is always nothing but trouble.

It is interesting to note that in the vast majority of cases, if the question of enforcement by camera is put before the public it gets voted down. So what often happens is that public servants contract with a camera company, and then the sovereign People issue orders to change matters, the company loses money where they expected to make money. The People have an undoubted right to tell their servants where to head in. On this issue I am not so much a Libertarian as a Sovereignist; the People give the orders in this society …. or should. So on this issue I must come down on the side of the State. The contract should be void, letting the company out of further expense, because conditions have changed, but they are not owed money for a service that is now illegal.

In other words, if the link headline had read “Company sues after the government undermines good-faith investment”, it would have described the story as well as the headline Mr. Balko actually posted. So why, when a government solicits a partner in enforcing what many if not most of us consider an essential safety rule that saves lives, does Mr. Balko apply a headline that makes the company lok slightly shifty? Why, in the same post, does Mr. Balko headline a case where a man caught a fish using a method he could have known (if he had researched the matter) he had no license to do as a case of brazen government confiscation?

This gets to the heart of a basic issue with libertarianism. I get that libertarians want less government interference. And in many cases, I agree. But it seems to me that in many cases, the libertarian impulse lacks a standard by which to say the government may do this and may not do that. Such standards exist; I have no problem explaining why I oppose locking up people for having pot, but have no problem with locking up people for impaired driving. But it seems to me that in some cases, such as this one, situations escape the standard.

I don’t give a good goddamn how well intentioned the regulations in question may be. The State is NOT supposed to play ‘gotcha!’ with people trying to obey the law. The man should get his fish back and the swine that took it should get his legs broken.

http://www.canada.com/news/British+burglar+mocks+dumb+thick+victim+apology+letter/5761541/story.html

Granted, this is the UK, but I’ve seen the same in other places.

Must have. Teamsters link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/16/opinion/firewall-law-could-infringe-on-free-speech.html

AFL-CIO link:

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/11/at-web-censorship-hearing-congress-guns-for-pro-pirate-google.ars

And come on, complaining about fishing regulations? Are you directly advocating resource depletion?

The second sentence doesn’t necessarily follow the first. But I was more amused that the government sold the fish and will keep the proceeds.