bruto
Penultimate Amazing
OK, in that context it's different, and though I don't have a big problem with things like video coverage of stop lights, where accidents and right of way disputes are frequent, I agree that there's a level of surveillance that's excessive and oppressive, though I'd add that this is in part because it is so likely to intrude into other freedoms. The ability of authorities to use and misuse surveillance data for purposes other than simple traffic control has cropped up already, and threatens to do so more. It strays into other, more abstract social issues, of how government and the governed relate, how much the government presumes us to be default miscreants, and conversely how much we should trust government to behave well, and how much we should trust automation to behave accurately. All sorts of juicy ramifications including cost effectiveness, equity, and individual responsibility.
One such issue is the perennially contentious one, which crops up in other areas, of who should pay for what. Plenty of people, (wrongly in this case, I think) protest at being severally responsible for benefits they don't enjoy equally, such as education, policing and snowplowing, and other services that government at various levels deems sufficiently basic to a society's needs that we should all share equally in their cost. On the other hand, there are such services where the benefit and cost are not so clear, and that includes whether, for example, all drivers, including those who have managed to function for many years without endangering the public good, should share in the cost of setting up and running and administering a system that treats all drivers like naughty children or dogs needing a leash (see how easy it is, though, to spin the language when it's your own ox that's gored!).
This is also an area where geographical issues can intrude. While it's relatively easy to set up some kind of automated surveillance of urban intersections and ring-road speed traps and such, out here in the rural hinterlands, an effective electronic control would involve prohibitive expense for nearly no benefit. One could envision some system, such as requiring all cars to carry a computerized device that tracks their use and movement, which could then be read by law enforcement, with retroactive penalties for data collected. And that, of course, means not only that past actions with no consequence could be penalized with no argument, but that the data could be used for other purposes, such as determining whether a car driven by a pregnant woman was driven to a place where abortion might be performed, etc. And to be truly effective, it would have to carry penalties for tampering. When we weigh the theoretical benefit of better traffic control against the invasion of our lives, I think government loses this one.
That said, I think the specific Franklin quotation not particularly apt in this context.
Edit to add, sorry if this post is contrary to the Mod box above. I think it reasonable to have said the above in response to a previous post, but will consider the issue closed, except to mention that I think one of my problems with electric cars at the moment is not the idea of their being electric, or range anxiety, but the fact that so many seem to be dependent on a level of electronic connectivity that makes a level of government surveillance more possible, but also trends toward the subscription economy that I dislike.
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