Red light cameras abuse process as well as common sense.

Dear Governor Crist:

It has been reported as recently as today that you are looking favorably on legislation that will burden drivers in Florida with infamous red light camera schemes. I write to urge you to veto such bills.

These programs are back door revenue measures. And voters statewide are not fooled by the safety lip service brewed by American Traffic Solutions, Affiliated Computer Services, CMA Consulting, Gatso, Lasercraft, Redflex and other corporate lobbies with a vested interest in splitting fees from these schemes.

At least five of these banded together to create supposedly not-for-profit associations that disguise the self-interested nature of their lobbying activity. Melissa Wandal, the widow of this legislation’s namesake, is no grassroots activist. She is backed by the corporate interests that stand to gain from this bill. The informed voters of Florida do not doubt this. Business and recreational visitors to our state also see this measure for exactly what it is—one more back door tax to encourage them to go elsewhere. The AAA has also explained in its letter to you how the measure falls short both in terms of safety and drivers’ rights.

When a red light camera notice is issued in Aventura the return address is PO Box 59995 in Phoenix, AZ. Cities are taking from citizens and visitors like sheriffs in Nottingham. And they unabashedly employ processors from another state to do it. While that is merely ironic, a more disturbing consequence is that Floridians are forced to exercise their right to due process in these matters by mailing a private vendor in a distant state before any appeal is heard.

In 2008 statewide, we mourned 76 souls due to ignoring traffic signals. These account for no more than 3% of all Florida traffic fatalities. DUI, distracted driving, speeding, driving left of center, and failure to yield are the ongoing traffic killers in our state. The law before you does not even earmark Florida’s portion of the revenue to addressing these more pressing safety concerns.

Please take this opportunity to protect Florida’s residents and visitors from this scheme. Stand up to corporate interests in favor of the citizens you were elected to lead.

Do not sign this bill.

Lower Merion School District in Pennsylvania installed webcam spying software on laptops provided to students.

A family suing the Lower Merion School district for spying on students and their families at home using webcams on the district’s notebook computers will not pursue a class action damages according to Associated Press and Philadelphia Inquirer. Lawyer, Mark Haltzman, says Blake Robbins will seek class action status only for purposes of obtaining an injunction that to correct and prevent the school district’s abuses.

While it’s disgusting that the school district’s program to invade the privacy of students even got beyond the brainstorming stage, the school administrators that implemented this obnoxious scheme, would end up be insulated from paying the price by tax payers. So, it’s understandable that even parents and community members who are shocked at the school’s misconduct do oppose class action damages.

Mr. Haltzman stated, “we now realize that each person was damaged so uniquely that it wouldn’t be appropriate to seek damages as a class-action.” Strategically this may make it easier for the district and the student’s family to settle. At the same time, it may not work out that this saves the district financial consequences. Without a class action award or settlement each individual victim of the school’s privacy invasions may pursue an individual suit. That could be more costly in the long run.

The real solution was for the school district to consider the impact of every policy and action on the rights of citizens. As government run schools are are pervasive in the private lives of children and families they should be held to a privacy standard at least as high as the police–probably much higher.

Pope Benedict XVI. Photo by Rvin88.

“In his most thorough admission of the church’s guilt in the clerical sex abuse scandal, Pope Benedict XVI said Tuesday the greatest persecution of the institution ‘is born from the sins within the church,’ and not from a campaign by outsiders,” according to this AP article carried by the Chicago Tribune. He went on to admit, “the church needs to profoundly relearn penitence, accept purification, learn forgiveness but also justice.”

Delivered with all the anemic ambiguity of a church politician the statement still signifies some openness to restitution. While this lip service is a necessary step the concrete measure, removing child molesters and those who protected them from their offices, still hasn’t been accomplished.

“The bankruptcy trustee for defunct law firm Rothstein Rosenfeldt Adler contends the government has once again overstepped its bounds by trying to control additional assets that belonged to convicted fraudster Scott Rothstein. On Monday, the U.S. Attorney’s Office filed a motion seeking a protective order be entered to preserve new assets, including four Rothstein Rosenfeldt Adler bank accounts at TD Bank containing almost $120,000 and ‘all property, other than ‘funds’ voluntarily turned over to the government since news broke in late October that Rothstein was running a settlement scheme out of his law firm. But trustee Herbert Stettin argued that the government could not lay claim to assets that don’t belong to Rothstein and were not included for forfeiture in the original information, calling the motion ‘particularly egregious,’” according to Daily Business Review.

WTO Appellate Body Member Ricardo Ramirez and Arbitrator Judd Kessler. Mr. Ramirez will provide a Latin American perspective on the WTO dispute settlement mechanism with emphasis on the Appellate Body.  The discussion will include recent cases pertinent to WTO members in the Americas.  Mr. Kessler will comment on investment arbitration in the Americas and his experience as an ICSID Arbitrator.

When: Tuesday, April 6, 2010
12:00pm – 12:30pm (lunch provided)
12:30pm – 2:00pm (presentation)

Where: Doubletree Hotel, State Room
1515 Rhode Island Avenue, NW
Washington, DC

Registration is $45.
IABA members, ASIL Members, DC Bar members, and government employees may register at the special rate of $35
and students with ID may register for $30.

To register, email iaba@iaba.org, or call 202-466-5944.