Free Republic

Legislation was recently introduced that would prohibit communities from using automated traffic enforcement devices as the basis for issuing traffic tickets. House Bill 5921 was introduced Nov. 6 by Rep. Mike Shirkey, R-Clarklake, in response to Senate Bill 1063, which – if enacted – would permit traffic tickets to be issued on the basis of photographs taken by unmanned cameras. “This (House Bill 5921) was a bill we had been looking at doing, similar to the newer driver protections they are passing in states like South Dakota and New Jersey,” Rep. Shirkey said. “They’re going 180 degrees out there, from...

Rialto, Calif., has seen a major decline in complaints of police violence since putting body cameras on it police. The technology has also helped resolve situations like the one in Ferguson, Mo.

Drivers in Chicago have gotten wise to speed cameras, budget figures show, and now the city needs to come up with $50 million in revenue. Chicagoans are costing the city tens of millions of dollars -– through good behavior. Mayor Rahm Emanuel underestimated the intelligence of Chicago drivers, and the city paid for it big time. On a smooth, wide, well-travelled stretch of Irving Park Road, running between two cemeteries — no homes, no stores, no parking — the city of Chicago is trying to balance its budget. Each flash means a photo; each photo, a violation. Each violation: a...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Meet Nixie, a wearable camera concept that flies off your wrist and turns into a remote-controlled quadcopter. It's the bizarre-yet-appealing wearable camera drone nobody asked for... and now I kind of want it. Intel is holding a competition to encourage new wearable technology ideas, and the Nixie is one of the finalists. So far, it's still in development, so the flying wristlet camera is rough around the edges. Team captain Christoph Kohstall eventually wants you to be able to send the the Nixie flying with a gesture. It would recognize where you're standing, snap a picture, then return to the...

Rumors are rampant about male public safety employees in Ceres placing hidden cameras aimed at women, and the city isn't saying much about it. The stories about cameras placed under a woman's desk and in changing areas at the Ceres Police Department came to the attention of the Stanislaus chapter of the NAACP. President Frank Johnson says they got so many calls they thought it was a prank, and he says if it's not true, they'll apologize - but if it is true, the organization will take action against it. The city attorney would only say action is being taken...

As long as players don't get caught knocking out women on camera for the world to see, they're cleared to play football in the NFL Ray Rice has become “Peck’s Bad Boy” for a deteriorating National Football League. When the first video of him dragging his unconscious fianc√©e out of an elevator appeared in July, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell slapped Rice’s wrist with a two-game suspension. Goodell went on to revise the league’s disciplinary policy regarding domestic violence to include a minimum six-game suspension or more for the first infraction and up to a lifetime ban for the second, with...

ANAHEIM – The Anaheim Police Department could be the first agency in the county to require officers to wear video cameras while on patrol, after the City Council unanimously approved the the $1.15 million purchase of 250 of the devices Tuesday. The first officers are expected to be outfitted with the body-mounted cameras in November, with all of them wearing the devices by April. It’s part of the department’s effort to increase transparency and mend a fragile relationship with the public after several high-profile shootings.

WFTV in Orlando, Florida reported Friday about a callous, violent robbery of an elderly white woman by three young black men that left the woman hospitalized with a serious brain injury and a broken clavicle. The Publix surveillance videos released to the media show rare, clear before, during and after video of the victim, the perps and the robbery. There will be no protests, no candlelight vigils, no statement by President Barack Obama, no Justice Department investigation, no visits by Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson. The race ‘healers’ won’t descend on Ocoee like they are doing in Ferguson this week...

Sanity appears to have prevailed in Manassas, Virginia, where authorities had planned to chemically induce an erection in a 17-year-old boy accused of making child pornography of himself by sending explicit photos to his 15-year-old girlfriend. The aunt says she's glad police are dropping the plan, but she won't be satisfied until they drop what she says are overblown felony charges of manufacture and possession of child pornography.

We now know when and where Minneapolis Police officers will soon be testing body cameras on the streets. The Minneapolis Police Department has confirmed that dozens of officers will test the body cameras in three precincts in late September or early October. The tests will be done in precincts that generally have higher police activity. MPD says the body cams will be used for testing purposes only in the First Precinct downtown, the Fourth Precinct in North Minneapolis and the Fifth Precinct in southwest Minneapolis. The city council set aside $400,000 to buy the cameras for the 2014 budget. Mayor...

Click on small front-page photo to left that's titled "You're being watched."

The new law makes South Dakota the sixteenth state to stamp out red light cameras and speed cameras by statute or state court ruling ... the cameras violate due process, don’t make intersections safer and generate revenue more for the red light vendor than the community. ... Brekford, based in Maryland, reported last week that it is losing money. .. Redflex Traffic Systems in Phoenix has even bigger headaches. The firm has been the subject of a federal bribery investigation in Chicago for the past year.

There are few medical procedures feared more than a colonoscopy. But what if there was another way to screen patients for colon cancer that's much less intrusive? Now there is: The PillCam, an ingestible camera that takes high-speed photographs as it works its way through the digestive system and helps doctors spot polyps and other early signs of colon cancer was just cleared by the Food and Drug Administration. The device is designed for patients who have had trouble with the cringe-inducing colonoscopy procedure, which involves probing the large intestine with a tiny camera embedded in a four-foot long, flexible...

A man who sued police in Colorado Springs, Colo., for violating his Second Amendment rights has reportedly won more than $23,000 from the city, as local officers apparently did not know it was legal to “open carry” firearms at public parks. The saga of James Sorensen began in July 2012 at a homosexual-pride festival, just one day after the shooting at a movie theater in Aurora, Colo., that left 12 people dead and 70 others injured. He was openly sporting a handgun on his hip, which prompted police to take him into custody. Sorensen’s arrest was caught on camera by...

For the past couple of weeks, I have been dragging myself along, super-tired from jet lag from the Eastern Seaboard time zone change (that Maine trip), losing hours of precious sleep due to plane delays and plane diversions, and then forcing myself to rise early (3 a.m. early) each day of the work week to sync my hours with the rest of my departmentÂ’s team currently located in London (you do the math). A fuzzy brain makes writing an article on a single subject quite a challenging prospect. So, Traveler Editor-in-Chief Kurt Repanshek suggested a Q&A article. I liked that...

Chicago's first speed cameras at just four locations issued warnings to more than 233,000 speeders in 45 days, violations that would have totaled $13.8 million in tickets, according to data released by the city today. Mayor Rahm Emanuel has touted his speed camera program as a way to improve traffic safety for children near the city's parks and schools, but the early warning violations from Chicago's first speed cameras are the latest indicator that the fledgling program could be a financial windfall for the city. Emanuel has projected $15 million in speed camera revenue for the remainder of 2013, with...

"CNN reports that Jared James Abrahams, a 19-year-old computer science student, has been arrested for allegedly hijacking the webcams of young women — among them reigning Miss Teen USA Cassidy Wolf — taking nude images, then blackmailing his victims to send him more explicit material or else be exposed. Abrahams admitted he had 30 to 40 'slave computers' — or other people's electronic devices he controlled — and has had as many as 150 total. His arrest came six months after a teenager identified in court documents as C.W. alerted authorities. She has since publicly identified herself as Cassidy Wolf,...

Now Fatwa against photography! India's leading Islamic seminary Darul Uloom Deoband has issued a fatwa branding photography ‘unlawful and a sin’. Mufti Abdul Qasim Nomani, Mohtamim (Vice-Chancellor) of the institution, has said Islam does not permit videotaping of marriages or taking of pictures to save as mementos. "Photography is un-Islamic. Muslims are not allowed to get their photos clicked unless it is for an identity card or for making a passport," he was quoted as telling the Press Trust of India over phone. Saudi Arabia allows photographers inside Makkah and live telecast of namaz and Hajj on TV across the...

San Francisco's fire chief has explicitly banned firefighters from using helmet-mounted video cameras, after images from a battalion chief's Asiana Airlines crash recording became public and led to questions about first responders' actions leading up to a fire rig running over a survivor. Chief Joanne Hayes-White said she issued the order after discovering that Battalion Chief Mark Johnson's helmet camera filmed the aftermath of the July 6 crash at San Francisco International Airport. Still images from the footage were published in The Chronicle. ... Critics, including some within the department, questioned the chief's order and its timing - coming as...

The idea of fitting electronics into a film SLR in order to capture digital photos with it is not new. The thing is, most of the ideas we’ve shared ranged from April Fools jokes to promising concepts that never seem to advance beyond that. The DigiPod is the first product we’ve seen actually become a reality. It’s a digital cartridge that fits inside your old film SLR, and if it makes it to market, it could be quite groundbreaking.