If the claim that standard 5 second yellow lights were shortened to 3 seconds for traffic cameras is true, Suffolk county officials should be ashamed. This is simply extortion.
They shouldn't only be ashamed they should be charged personally with manslaughter. It's a big problem that both companies and government institutions always absorb resistibility from individuals and thus prevent proper responsibility for the privileged. The best outcome I could see here is the city ending up having to pay to families of accident victims that were caused by shorter lights. It should be the individuals that made the decision who pay and not the tax payer.
Fyi - light goes to yellow for 3 seconds before going to red in all of EU and people don't die because of it. I'd say 5 seconds in US is unusually long.
I cannot remember seeing 5s yellow light ever (and I drove across almost all the EU). 5s yellow would certainly caught my attention in a "WTF is this" style as 5s is not just long, it's actually enormous and kinda defeats the purpose.