Big Brother is (Possibly) Watching You

Most of us are now used to the idea that we are probably on somebody's video surveillance almost anywhere we turn, and so we have stopped thinking about it. Even criminals sometimes forget that they are on camera and make embarrassing blunders. Those of us who have no criminal goals, however, have generally felt no ill effects from the constant video surveillance and tend to harbor no ill-will against it... not yet, anyway.

With the increasing number of red light and speeding cameras, however, at the GNU Public Dictatorship we believe that it will not be long before most people are irritated with video surveillance. It has long been known that these traffic enforcement cameras are not infallible. There was even an episode of Columbo where the perpetrator used a speeding camera to fake himself an alibi. Recently in Maryland the trend of faking out the traffic cameras has taken another turn. Apparently teenagers as a prank will print out someone's license plate, affix it to their own, and then speed past the cameras to send traffic tickets to someone they don't particularly like. What is perhaps the biggest concern here is that the local police department doesn't admit to knowing that things like this happen.

We, your Board of Dictators, promise that you won't be ticketed by fallible machines once we are in control. We may leave them around to instill fear in the hearts of the weak-minded, but we will not use them to distribute traffic violations. We also promise that our revenue estimates will not be based on quotas of traffic violations and therefore we will not have any incentive beyond cruelty (which, incidentally, is not a driving force in the GPD) to serve up more traffic violations than is absolutely necessary.