hh on Nostr: I have a distinct recollection, despite me being relatively young, of the time when ...

I have a distinct recollection, despite me being relatively young, of the time when the idea of installing traffic radars in Spain appeared. The dissenting voices among politicians were loud, but promptly quelled. "Safety" first.

For a while, angry victims took the machines down, and then the government installed cameras to watch over the radars. Then a few cameras were taken down, so they put the cameras on 10 metre tall poles, and cameras watching the cameras, and all adjacent roads, and people finally gave up.

Soon after, the idea of putting surveillance cameras on the street appeared, and the politician voices against it were a lot less loud this time, and no action by the people was taken once they started to put them everywhere -- because "terrorism", of course.

Now we have cameras at the entrance of my city that read the stickers on your windscreen and determine whether you're allowed in or not, and whether you're up to date with mandatory fees or not. They can know if it was you driving because they're filming your face (so no more saying it was the wife speeding, to save a couple of points on your licence).

We have "traffic" helicopters constantly flying over us, who watch if you're holding your phone in your hand while driving from hundreds of meters above you, while measuring the position and speed of all the vehicles in a 2 square kilometre are at the same time, streaming the data live.

The slippery slope if fucking real, and kudos to these freedom fighters, but I'm not optimistic.