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by JumpCrisscross 547 days ago
> public decides to use it in a way that they didn't think of, and they respond by clutching their pearls, panicking and shutting it down, instead of just going with it

Because it prompts a serious question: why are taxpayers paying for this?
3 comments
autoexec 546 days ago
While you'll always find some people who don't think taxes should pay for anything ever in this case I think there's clear value in the DoT monitoring traffic volumes so the cameras already exist. It's not as if there's some huge cost for those camera feeds to be put online where the public can easily access them. The footage that those cameras capture already belongs to the taxpayers. They are a public record (although short lived since it doesn't look like the government is saving the footage). The taxpayers should have easy access to their own records and they should have the freedom to make use of those records.
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JumpCrisscross 546 days ago
> not as if there's some huge cost for those camera feeds to be put online

But there is a cost. If it’s not used by 90% of voters, and its trivially use is made known to 60% of them, you have the votes to reällocate those funds.

> footage that those cameras capture already belongs to the taxpayers. They are a public record (although short lived since it doesn't look like the government is saving the footage). The taxpayers should have easy access to their own records and they should have the freedom to make use of those records

They are a public record because we make them public. And taxpayers fund plenty of non-public information collection. That you wouldn’t vote for something doesn’t make it electoral impossible (nor even not good politics).

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pests 547 days ago
You just quoted that the public is using it - isn't that why we pay for it?
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JumpCrisscross 547 days ago
> the public is using it - isn't that why we pay for it?

For entertainment. I'm not saying it's a good reason. But I could absolutely see "why are we paying millions of dollars to fund someone's Tik Tok" play well in an election.

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spaceribs 547 days ago
Why are taxpayers paying to enjoy the thing they paid for?
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