Privacy Rights of the Road

I read this morning an article on the use of cameras on the highways to catch speeders. Two States are apparently employing them while 13 have banned their use; meanwhile, a relative handful of communities use them, and not without some success. Speeding is apparently down in those places, which makes those particular driving arenas safer.

That's as may be. It certainly makes sense that drivers who are aware that they might be under the glare of a lens would surely be more careful about the laws under any circumstance. What I worry about more is the issue of due process, not only in how it might apply here but in other areas as well.

For starters, I'm not all that sure we have a right to privacy in the purest sense. To be sure, in the United States we actually have the right to the due process of the law more than any inherent right to privacy, such Supreme Court rulings as on abortion (Roe v. Wade is simply bad law by any reasonable constitutional measuring stick) notwithstanding. Yet if privacy is a right up there even with liberty and the pursuit of happiness then at the least it is subject to be violated, as our liberty may be violated, when a question of serious criminal action or intent becomes involved.

With roadside cameras, though, I am concerned that we are seeing a form of entrapment. We would be presuming that everyone on the road will speed. I don't think that very fair.

I know that driving is seen as a privilege rather than a right. In that light, as we would not have the right necessarily to be on the road anyway we may have no say in the matter. Yet I do not agree with that privilege idea: if I am competent to do so then I have the right to drive as much as I have the right to compete fairly in the job and housing markets. I have the right, too, of not getting a speeding ticket unless an officer of the law catches me red handed just as I have no reason to expect that same officer to burst into my house outside of reason to suspect I've been a bad boy. He can't point a camera into my living room just in case I may be concluding a drug deal.

In short, the bottom line is that we need to guard against presumption. If we are in this country innocent until proven guilty according to the due process of the law then we ought not need to fear robotic speed traps. It should only be from actual human beings out there doing their jobs as legitimate government agents playing catch as catch can. Without that, the authorities have to presume that I an not speeding.