[roxolotl]

There’s a lot of local US candidates running this year on pushing back on the federal government. Realistically there’s not a ton that can be done at the level of a mayor or even state senator. However removing local passive surveillance is something that can make a genuine impact. I’d love to see people running on banning red light/license plate cameras and other passive surveillance tools. If the data is never collected it can’t be abused.

[throwaway5752]

Realistically there’s not a ton that can be done at the level of a mayor or even state senator

I wish people wouldn't say that, it's not the case.

First, pushback requires equivalent effort. If 10,000 towns are uncooperative because 10,000 mayors resist this, the amount of political power to overcome this is incredibly large. The mayors can delay or cancel projects with uncooperative or malicious vendors. They can slow down approvals. This administration and the powers that want this espionage power understand this, which is why they target downstream races, school boards, and sheriff positions.

Second, a state senator is much, much more powerful than you give them credit. There are usually much fewer of them than members of the US House or Senate, so they individually more voting power. They can substantially influence state politics, and it is magnified with majorities and committees.

Third, resources are pooled and parties coordinate, so starving them of influence, which is root of all their funding, is key to voting undemocratic parties out of office.

Don't believe what you read about politics online. It is made for modern, shallow consumption. Little races matter.

You can make a large difference by participating directly, too. You don't even have to make a scene about it in your platform. Just run, be boring, win, and talk with your votes.

[dangus]

One major example is how Chicago Public Schools has a non-cooperation policy and a policy to refuse warrantless access to school property for ICE agents.

The school district also refuses to consider immigration status as a prerequisite to enrollment in the school system.

This is a huge deal since any state or local school district could decide to do the exact opposite.

This makes nearly every minor inaccessible to immigration enforcement officers during business hours.

[throwaway5752]

Absolutely. Run for the HOA board, run for the school board, run for the town council. Write a letter. Show up to a town hall meeting. Everything makes a difference and people here are more than sufficiently qualified.

We have lots of software developers being laid off. An elected position serves as resume filler, too. You'd be shocked what a difference you can make when you try a little.

[rightbyte]

Ye I more or less got scared with how fast you gain real influence as a local politician by just showing up to some party meetings. I thought there would be a longer vetting period but it is like "oh you breath and don't cite opposing party lines too often we will nominate you for this and this and ...".

[dangus]

It’s also kind of a beautiful thing. Our government is actually run by those who care enough to sign up to do it. There are nonpartisa and partisan resources out there that encourage people to just run for something.

On the negative side, I think there’s a lot that is bad about participating in government often being thankless and financially impractical to anyone that isn’t already funded by donors and backers.

[rightbyte]

Ye it is kinda beautiful just not how I imagined. I thought there would be barriers for randoms like me. But that does not seem to be a problem where I live at all.

I was unwarrantedly cynical about the political system, locally. YMMV.

[Forgeties79]

to add to this, if local governments refuse to install the hardware that the federal government wants to tap into, then there’s nothing for them to tap into.

It’s a lot harder for the federal government to go around placing all these tools around the country than it is for them to simply vacuum up what is already there.

If anybody wants to see the power of controlling local government and its upstream impact, look no further than mom’s for liberty and their assault on school boards nationwide.

[engineer_22]

This might seem cynical, but it appears to me the uniparty has already decided it wants a total surveillance state.

Having achieved total coverage of the observable domestic cyber realm, the next objective is a physical layer.

Anyone arguing against it is a terrorist sympathizer or has criminal intent. This is for the safety of the homeland, after all.

[dangus]

This is also why car dependent infrastructure is a bad thing for Americans’ freedom.

You have more civil rights as a pedestrian than you do in a licensed motor vehicle.

[ww520]

Facial and gait recognition tech make the pedestrian vs car point moot.

[dangus]

Sure, but being identified is only part of the issue. It’s also about the quantity of rights you have in a vehicle versus outside of one.

[cucumber3732842]

>It’s also about the quantity of rights you have in a vehicle versus outside of one.

And who's fault is that?

The government could decide tomorrow that driving confers implied consent for them to quarter soldiers in your home and a huge chunk of people would defend it because those people just don't like cars and want to see the users screwed at every turn in order to make other things comparatively less worse. Of course they won't tell you that because they know they're in the wrong so they'll use the pretext that driving is a privilege not a right, public safety etc. etc.

Look at the discussion about ebikes. At first iw as all "look how cool and great and free of downsides these are". Now the discussion is all "those darned kids and poors are dangerous" and "nobody needs to go more than 20mph". Give it 10yr and you'll be forced to by insurance for them too.

Vehicles are regulated how they are and you have less rights to the extent you do specifically because people 50-70yr ago wrung their hands about them until laws were passed, just like we're doing to ebikes now.

[dgellow]

Facial recognition has been used in train stations, unfortunately

[engineer_22]

Pedestrians are limited to a ~20 mile radius.

Travelling further, without a car, then requires use of public transportation and by using public transportation depending where you are you have implied consent to being searched "for safety".

Acknowledging civil asset forfeiture is a problem in some jurisdictions, private automobiles still provide a greater expectation of privacy than public modes of transport.

[dangus]

First I would question why anyone has to drive 20 miles to reach basic needs like grocery stores and employers. Isn’t that already a failure of urban and suburban planning?

Existing on public transit is not an automatic agreement to be searched as you describe.

Here’s an attorney website that describes your general rights:

https://azharillc.com/blog/youre-riding-the-l-train-can-cops...

There are many more things that are illegal for you to be doing as a driver of a car versus existing in public on public transportation. Many of these things can trigger searching your possessions being legal compared to being a person on public transit.

You’re also required to present your drivers license and fully identify yourself if you are stopped for minor traffic infractions like a tail light being out.

As a pedestrian, in most states you do not have to present ID to an officer on the street.

For example, it’s generally not probable cause to search on public transit if an officer smells alcohol, while in a vehicle it’s basically an automatic search of your whole car. You would also have the issue of what a court or jury thinks of the reasonableness of the search based on the context. If you’re quietly minding your own business on the train and you smell like alcohol is a judge or jury going to think the search was reasonable? Now compare that to a driver in a vehicle smelling like alcohol.

Furthermore, the whole concept of a DUI checkpoint where every person is stopped and questioned is at the very least impractical and often illegal for pedestrians.

Thank you for your service as the incorrect carbrain of the day.

[tocs3]

First I would question why anyone has to drive 20 miles to reach basic needs like grocery stores and employers. Isn’t that already a failure of urban and suburban planning?

I live in central TX and until recently it has been fairly rural. It is now very suburban and it is very common to have to drive 20 miles or so for groceries. There are also lots of traffic lights. For most there is almost no practical way to get to any consumer business on foot and no public transport. Twenty years ago it was "living in the country" and travailing for anything was just part of the deal to live here. It is about the same but with the added joys of traffic, less privacy, and higher taxes.

[dangus]

This unintentionally makes my point perfectly.

Your area was rural very recently. Obviously in rural areas people are driving, but the fact that your area developed recently means they had the luxury of hindsight and a clean slate. The fact that you can’t walk or bike to stuff was an active choice, not an unforeseen inevitability.

They could have chosen to build out developments where even people in single family homes could reach some or all of their daily destinations without vehicles.

The fact that it recently urbanized means they have even less of an excuse than other parts of the country that built car-focused infrastructure for the first time as a mid-century project that was never done before.

Your town is like the millennial who now should know better not to post funny drunk pictures on Facebook or any other social media, but back in 2008 nobody knew what social media would become.

I.e., I fully understand and accept that undoing a bunch of 1950s-1970s infrastructure and property lines is impractical. When highways were first built through towns we didn’t know the impact back then. But we do know that now and your local planners ignored those lessons when they more recently developed your area.

Your municipality doesn’t really have an excuse. They already had the knowledge available of the negative impacts of car-centric development. They already have the case studies of the Netherlands building out car-focused suburbs in the 70s and then reversing and correcting that pattern. They just didn’t have the imagination to go look, they just figured it’s fine to build exactly like everyone else and toss up yet another big box store parking lot.

They could have done things like making sure split up farm parcels developed into neighborhoods follow a consistent grid, implement traffic calming and other measures that make walking and biking attractive, avoiding stroads by separating the use cases of streets and roads and designing accordingly, and zoning new development to make sure storefronts put parking lots in the back instead of in front where they lengthen walking distances.

There are a number of Google Maps examples of suburbs where people live less than a half a mile from grocery stores but the legal walking distance without cutting through private property or winding through non-grid subdevelopments takes multiple uncomfortable miles that include crossing multi-lane high-speed limit roads.

[tocs3]

Your municipality

Not going to disagree with your post. A little foresight would have been nice. Most of the development though is in the county outside any municipality and the counties do not have much authority for zoning or really anything like that.

[CamperBob2]

I live in central TX and until recently it has been fairly rural. It is now very suburban and it is very common to have to drive 20 miles or so for groceries.

That makes no sense. How far did you have to drive for groceries before your area became "very suburban?" If you have to drive 20 miles for groceries, then you're not in the suburbs, you're still very rural.

In any case, if you don't like it in the suburbs, move. I'm sure there's at least one other family in the city who'd love to swap places with you. At least they would if they weren't required, likely unnecessarily, to commute to work every weekday.

[tocs3]

The houses came first. The infrastructure is starting to catch up. The closest stores were still about twenty miles (nearest town).

In any case, if you don't like it in the suburbs, move.

Sure, but I am being asked to make (and pay for) changes that I did not ask for (and am not fond of). I know it is all just part of "the way things are" and I am not expecting anything to change back.

[ungreased0675]

This seems so obvious to me, but maybe it’s not… sometimes I want to go somewhere that’s far away. Last weekend I went to a restaurant that was 90 minutes and two states away. Should I not be allowed to do that? If I want organic oranges, and my local grocery store doesn’t have any, should I just make do?

Most people don’t live in NYC. Transit and urban planning solutions appropriate for there is supremely unhelpful for most other places.

[amanaplanacanal]

Allowed to? Absolutely! Required to? Terrible urban design.

[array_key_first]

Realistically you're much more likely to be searched in a motor vehicle than on the subway. I've had my car searched - it's very easy for the police to do.

[engineer_22]

>it's very easy for the police to do.

doubly so your backpack, purse, or pockets

[vrganj]

(E)-Bikes.

[dgellow]

Depends on the state, no? I see that you have to register in some states: https://www.velotricbike.com/blogs/story-landing/electric-bi...

And I would assume you get a small license plate? Similar to e-scooters

[engineer_22]

e-bike is invisible to camera?

[xnx]

> I’d love to see people running on banning red light/license plate cameras

Not me. We've become way too soft on vehicle crime which is often tied to other crimes. I'd love to see a lot more automated enforcement: speeding, red light running, shoulder riding, missing or fake tags, noise violations, car emissions, etc.

[c22]

How do you perform automated enforcement of missing or fake tags?

[xnx]

2 options come to mind, neither perfect:

1) My city already has ALPR vans for finding parking ticket scofflaws. Expand use of those finds to find cars with expired, fake, or missing plates. Boot or tow the cars.

2) Use toolbooths to identify cars with expired, fake, or missing plates. Patrol cars at the ready to pull them over.

[sitzkrieg]

that’s great but these plate readers have nothing to do with that.