Kudos to my friends at the Oak Ridge Chapter of the East Tennessee Liberty Alliance who are fighting tooth and nail against the Oak Ridge city council's efforts to install red light cameras at several intersections.  Red light cameras (RLC) are a revenue generator pure and simple.  The argument that RLCs improve safety is a canard.  Studies have shown that intersections where RLCs are installed see an increase in the overall frequency and seriousness of accidents at these intersections.

In addition, RLCs are an affront to one of the foundations of American jurisprudence, the principle of innocent until proven guilty.  RLCs target the car and not the driver.  Thus, the owner of the car receives a ticket even if he was not driving when the offense took place.

Finally and most importantly, RLCs are yet another layer unwarranted surveillance.  According to the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), the United States is now an endemic surveillance society, a distinction we share with nations like China. 

While the term "police state" conjures images of machine gun wielding soldiers on ever street corner, in reality, a police state is simply a society in which the State exercises oppressive control over its people.  The State accomplishes this by keeping the people under constant surveillance, usually through a secret police force.  In the 21st century, however, technology removes this human limitation and gives the State the ability to keep tabs on us in much more subtle ways.  Whether this technology is employed to watch political dissidents as it is in China, or simply to fleece the people like RLCs here in America, isn't the issue.  In either case, the power of the State grows while individual liberty suffers.