“What Happens?” + a CF announcement

What Happens?

What happens when cities (predictably) ignore elections?

What happens when their police departments illegally arrest activists – repeatedly – for daring to speak out against rampant surveillance and inappropriate corporate control over entire municipalities?

What happens when entire state governments are unable or unwilling to listen to the will of the people regarding foreign corporations who base their revenue expectations on mail fraud and phony tickets?

What happens when government considers mere movement a privilege instead of an inherent right?

They get painfully exposed by CameraFRAUD.

Again.

New tools. New Features. New Websites —Coming Soon.

It’s time to redefine activism. It’s time to act.

Join us today

as we begin beta testing

the new CameraFRAUD 2012: Forum

BREAKING: Redflex Cameras in Tempe are Coming Down

Redflex Scamera in Tempe, soon to be scrap metal.

Redflex just found out what happens when you sue your own client (City of Tempe) to squeeze as many dollars as possible out of them.

As of July 19th, Redflex red light, photo radar and mobile scameras will be shut off and begin collecting dust until they’re ripped out. This comes almost exactly one year after the end of the extremely unpopular Redflex freeway photo radar program with Arizona DPS.

[read more]

American Traffic Solutions, Redflex Double-Down On Fraud

A Redflex employee hard at work in the company's North Phoenix processing office. (All tickets are reviewed by multiple "Homers," a derogatory phrase used by corporate managers to refer to the paper processors who usually make little money.)

Ticketing and surveillance giants Redflex and American Traffic Solutions are doubling down on their favorite methods of revenue generation: fraudulent business practices, blatant incompetency, and lawsuits.

Sioux Falls Fail

Beleaguered Redflex is so incompetent that the company mailed out 500 red light camera tickets… to people accused by the machines of speeding:

Michael Evans got the surprise in the mail that no one wants, a ticket for running a red light in Sioux City.

When he looked at the video of his offense he was confused to say the least, because his pickup is clearly on the interstate.

He alerted the police about the mistake, and they sent out a letter of apology to about 500 people who also received the wrong type of ticket, but along with the apology came new tickets for speeding violations.

Town dunce and Sioux City Police’s Cpt. Melvin William was quick to defend the “theft-by-shiny-badge” scheme, presumably at the request of his new private-camera-contractor overlords:

“Because in one spot we didn’t change the wording that the whole thing should be thrown out?  No…There is no error when it comes to the fines that were imposed.  They were the right fines for what had occurred.  There is no error when it comes to the evidence,”

…Except for the whole “accusing 500 people of the wrong crime” thing.

American Traffic Solutions: “Circle Jerk” Lawsuits In Houston

Taking the “American way of justice” further down the shitcan is American Traffic Solutions in Houston. ATS is angry that citizens voted the cameras out, so the company is blatantly engaging in frivolous lawsuits in an effort to block the will of the “voters:”

The ruling was a major victory for the legal strategy of ATS General Counsel George Hittner, who worked with the Houston city attorney to create a lawsuit in which city officials, who want the cameras back, sued ATS, which also wants the cameras back. The case was not filed in state court, which would be the proper venue. Instead, Hittner had the case filed in the federal courthouse where his father happens to serve.

Still voting?

Redflex Mail Fraud In Spokane

“…Spokane County Superior Court Judge Jerome Leveque ruled three tickets issued in Spokane using cameras to detect those running red lights were invalid because the electronic signature on the tickets was generated out of state.”

…Phony signatures. Phony tickets. Phony corporate cops that defend revenue schemes instead of constituents’ life and property.  Phony lawsuits. Laws and due-process ignored.

Happy Phony Forth of July from CameraFRAUD. Because the USA is where your ability to serve as a milking cow to the state and its corporate allies is patriotic job number one. Now get back to work, slave!

BREAKING: Red Light Cameras Voted Out of Los Angeles Intersections by Police Commission

Jay Beeber of Sherman Oaks, CA has been hard at work and it paid off in a big way today when the Los Angeles Police Commission voted to completely dismantle the city’s red light camera program.

Before the vote, Jay and some citizens from various parts of Los Angeles spoke out against the red light scameras. <read more>

 

Redflex Speed Camera Causes Serious Collision; Rendered Inoperable

Does this look like a safe location for a large metal, flashing object? Shoulders are there for a reason.

Arizona saw a few documented accidents caused by freeway speed cameras and scamera vans. Last week a similar accident happened in Sioux City, IA.

<read more>

Criminal Conspiracy: Redflex, ATS, and Anytown USA

"Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master." George Washington

OPINION  – You own a car. One evening, while enjoying your private property, a series of sensors and cameras detect your movement and computationally decide that you are exceeding the speed limit. A for-profit corporation receives high-resolution images of the alleged “violation,” which then forwards the allegations to another series of for-profit corporations.

Municipal corporations have a budget and, lets face it, payroll is a bitch for any corporation. Instead of a co-op where residents are viewed as equal shareholders in their community, they are instead viewed as revenue machines ready for milking. The true shareholders in these muni corporations are the usual suspects: investment banks like Goldman Sachs (which also owns American Traffic Solutions and Geico) and Macquarie which just gobbled up Redflex.

Yes, big banks, the photo firms, and Anytown U.S.A. have a lot of things in common: They care about money, power, and control. 

Lets not forget that a “traffic ticket” in any form goes well beyond the scope of a tax. It is a lawsuit directed at you on behalf of a carefully-vested collective of public and private entities that survive only on their ability to take by force the property of others. This collective includes the very elected officials that are supposed to represent the people and protect their private property: city and town judges, the town prosecutor, police officers etc.

In grade school, this is called stealing. In muni law, it’s considered “revenue enhancement” and your immediate, unquestioning compliance is not requested but demanded. The endgame to this bastardization of law is obvious: corpgov sanctioned theft:

If you’ve got one of the 15,000 traffic camera tickets the city says remain unpaid, you might want to keep an eye on your car. Police will begin seizing or putting boots on vehicles whose owners have unpaid tickets from the five Redflex Traffic Systems cameras around town, the Las Cruces Police Department announced Tuesday. LCPD Police Chief Richard Williams wasn’t available to comment on the new enforcement action, but LCPD spokesman Dan Trujillo pointed out that nothing about the ordinance itself was new.

“Fighting” photo enforcement by trying to change out the politicians who allowed it to happen is like voting for a new board of directors at McDonalds because of a lousy drive-thru cheeseburger. A better solution is to immediately stop patronizing the corporations (City of Scottsdale, City of Mesa, City of Phoenix) and their hired thugs (corrupt police officers, judges, prosecutors).

In Arizona, the advice used to be “careful driving down to Mexico, the corrupt police there will seize your car on a whim.”

In 2011, we can revise the sentiment: “careful driving across town, the corrupt police will seize your car at the command of a private corporation.

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Editor’s Note: Received via email, 5/4/2011.

SCR 1029 Passes Senate, on to the House; Redflex, ATS on brink of being voted out of AZ

The decision in the Arizona Senate went the way most were expecting for SCR 1029 which would put photo ticketing to a state-wide vote.

The final vote count was 18-12. Two R’s, Michele Reagan and Adam Driggs along with one D, Kyrsten Sinema switched from their No vote on SB 1352 to a Yes vote on SCR 1029, which has the same language.

It is not yet known how things will play out in the AZ House, but a decision on that floor is expected next week or the following.

If this vote to bring down the scameras all across Arizona is approved by the House, it will skip over Governor Jan Brewer’s desk and go straight to a citizens vote. The rule is that the Governor has no say on SCRs. However, let’s not get ahead of ourselves

It is of utmost importance to begin contacting AZ House reps today!

They must know, just as the Senate members found out from hundreds of your emails, that the citizens of Arizona want ALL the cameras to come down and deserve to vote on it.

Below is a roster and contact info for each. Please make it a priority to send them your thoughts about photo ticketing, even if it’s just a sentence or two. Give them a story, anecdote or data you’ve seen that shows the cameras cause erratic driving and more collisions. The more personal, the better.

We are getting closer….

Link to AZ House member roster

or use the lists below:

AZ House email list in Word format

AZ House email list in PDF format

or call their office directly..

AZ House phone list (Word)

AZ House phone list (PDF)

Arizona’s Most Toxic Assets: Redflex and ATS

"Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master." George Washington

To: Arizona State Senators and Representatives
From: CameraFRAUD
2/25/2011

Two of the largest automated ticketing vendors on the planet have substantial roots within the State of Arizona. Combined, these corporations employ many Arizonans and generate tens of thousands of dollars in revenue each day.

And there’s never been a better time to finally say goodbye.

Photo ticketing schemes extract enormous amounts of cash from the local economies in which they pretend to serve. Instead of this money staying within our community, Redflex and American Traffic Solutions virtually launder these stolen funds through pseudo-local offices… and back to their respective faceless investment banks.

In one corner, American Traffic Solutions sounds downright patriotic in name. Their surveillance cameras even boast a sticker as being “Made in the USA.” Don’t let the smoke and mirrors fool you though: ATS is a pawn of the massively-corrupt investment firm and former bailout recipient Goldman Sachs.

In the other corner, Redflex is being purchased by Macquarie Ltd and the Carlyle Group, two firms which are equally disinterested in the well-being of Arizonans. These faceless monsters only care about profits, and how every last dime can be extracted from their voiceless victims.

Just like the large, faceless investment banks which helped contribute to our current national recession, ticketing vendors Redflex and ATS also create local booms and busts within local municipalities. Unfortunately, the local elected “leaders” are asleep at the wheel, and aren’t paying attention to this modern game of “Three Cup Shuffle.”

Cities and towns are lured in by the prospect of “free money,” usually to the chipper reminder that such ticketing programs are “violator funded.” Contracts are haphazardly entered into, cameras go up, and the money starts to pour in. But as with any scam, there’s always a catch. Programs which start out profitable usually end up in the red, as is the case with the City of Mesa’s beleaguered relationship with ATS.

Citizens revolt, avoid areas with overzealous enforcement, or simply grow savvy to methods to avoid detection. Unintended consequences include a population that has become savvy to avoiding process service, making a mockery of the supposed “rule of law.” Increases in yellow light timing can and have destroyed these profitable schemes, sometimes incurring the wrath of these money-sucking vampire vendors.

Attempts to cancel contracts administratively are met with threats of lawsuits. Cities actually forced to end their contracts due to citizen’s ballot initiatives have been sued by these vendors, proving that there truly is no honor among thieves once the honey pot runs dry.

When Goldman Sachs dumped $70 million worth of mismanaged assets in 2006-2007, they were called “toxic.” Then Goldman conned its way into receiving $12.9 billion in TARP funds through AIG, while turning around and handing out $14 billion in executive bonuses.

Now, it’s Arizona’s turn to drop two toxic “assets” once and for all: the physical presence of American Traffic Solutions and Redflex within the Grand Canyon State.

Washington state photo ticketing ban bill gets major support

In our estimation, photo ticketing in Arizona is a 70%+ oppose and less than 30% favor issue across the spectrum. Those numbers change, of course, when it comes to Arizona state legislators who were filling their pockets with clean election/photo radar ticket money.

That’s why Arizona is in the mess we’re in with the cameras littering our streets but the state of Washington is a very different story of late.

You may remember that the initiative to ban photo ticketing in the Seattle suburb of Mukilteo passed by 71% in November.

Campaign for Liberty of Washington State coordinators Alex Rion and Nick Sherwood worked to introduce legislation last week which bans red light cameras in that state and have a whopping 1/3 of the House of Representatives as cosponsors.

We contacted Nick Sherwood to ask about just who has put their name on this bill. “The former Speaker Pro Tempore, a democrat, introduced the bill, but we have both Republicans and Democrats who have cosponsored it.”

Rion spoke with many of the cosponsors but the quote of the week came from newly elected house member Cindy Ryu, who refused to put her name on the bill because in her estimation, the state of Washington needs “more money for social programs.” Rion told us “when I asked her why she would want to support a system which pays 1/3 of its revenue to Goldman Sachs (major stakeholder in ATS) she said I’ll do whatever it takes to get the money.”

What a shocker!

Sherwood and Rion’s website is BanCams.com. They can also be found on:

Facebook and Twitter

Top 10 CameraFRAUD Stories from 2010 – Part II

5. Redflex CEO forced to admit that company falsified FCC documents for 11 years

In what amounted to a nuisance lawsuit by American Traffic Solutions (ATS) against Redflex, it was hard to gauge which side was more damaged by the proceedings.

A federal Judge said about ATS’s performance in court, “”At best the plaintiff has an extraordinarily weak case… it is weak at every point.”

Conversely, Redflex’s CEO Karen Finley was forced to admit under oath that it falsified FCC documents saying that their mobile radar equipment was exempt from certification and used those false documents for 11 years. That admission amounts to millions of photo tickets that are now in question.

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4. Redflex Traffic Systems spent 2010 circling the drain

It wasn’t easy being a member of this Aussie operation. Let’s review their lowlights:

*Attacked repeatedly by Australian and US media

*Sued by rival ATS

*Lost millions on Arizona contract failure

*Profits dropped by 92%

It’s no wonder employee morale is reported to be at an all time low and the company is for sale. Will 2011 be the end of Redflex?

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3. Tempe Scamera Lawsuits

In October, a massive RICO lawsuit was brought against the City of Tempe, Redflex and many politicians and law enforcement officials. If successful, the suit filed by Daniel Gutenkauf could bring down the entire photo ticketing fraud ring in Arizona.

Less than two months later, Redflex Traffic Systems, in a desperate move served its own customer, the City of Tempe with a separate lawsuit. They are seeking what the scamera vendor alleges are lost profits from defensive driving school fees charged to motorists who opt out of paying their photo tickets.

There certainly is no honor among thieves.

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2. Every Camera Ban Initiative Wins on Election Day

A lot of cameras came down in 2010 thanks to citizens initiatives

American Traffic Solutions really felt the wrath of the voters on election day in 2010. Their cameras were ousted by citizens initiatives in:

Garfield Hts, OH (Cleveland suburb)

Mukilteo, WA (Seattle suburb)

Anaheim, CA

Baytown, TX and Houston, TX

Congrats go out to all our friends in the fight against scameras from across the US who pushed back on Big Brother and abusive government. November 2nd, 2010 was a day to remember.

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1. Arizona Freeway Scamera System comes to an end

Under immense pressure from the Arizona Citizens Against Photo Radar initiative to ban all forms of photo ticketing in the state, the Redflex contract with AZ DPS was not renewed.

The ban photo radar petition in Arizona was the #1 non-paid citizens initiative in the entire US for 2010. Because the will of the people was spoken so loudly and clearly, a victory against the menacing freeway cameras was won. Thanks to all the hard work of signature gatherers and the volunteers who made this effort possible. We didn’t get everything we wanted, but the message was heard by your elected officials at the state capitol.

Of course the ultimate goal is to ban all forms of photo ticketing in Arizona. That goal moves forward in 2011!

A sincere thank you to everyone who supports our cause. We simply couldn’t do it without you.

The CameraFRAUD Family

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