ATS Leaves Building Unlocked, Open

A corporate security breach at American Traffic Solutions was uncovered by CameraFRAUD volunteers Saturday night. The photo radar ticket processing facility, located in the Phoenix-suburb of Ahwatukee, was left unlocked and unattended.

Numerous bundles of network cables were spotted throughout the building, potentially allowing anyone with a laptop to access internal systems containing vital “chain of evidence” data. A dozen trashcans full of unshredded documents were spotted, possibly containing  sensitive data on their “customers:” so-called “violators” who are accused of triggering the automated ticketing machines.

All about the money, as always

Coming soon: “Going out of Business Sale”?

File storage… contents unknown

Side offices for management appear occupied

Motivational posters always help when firing employees

Is ATS hiring children to process tickets?

In addition, a strange childlike drawing was left on one wall, apparently detailing the flow of money involving notices of violation, Hertz rent-a-car (an ATS partner in toll road technology), and local police departments. While the crudely-drawn stick figures don’t mention safety, it’s clear the corporate hieroglyphics were used to emphasize revenue and money.

ATS has a history of leaving important things unlocked. A year ago in March 2009, CameraFRAUD discovered automated ticketing boxes at intersections left unlocked and open. ATS responded by installing cameras to —yes— watch the cameras at certain locations in Mesa.

In case you’re wondering why it looks like they’re leaving the building, ATS is downsizing to a smaller processing center on nearby Southern Avenue. Industry sources report plummeting toll road revenue, as well as a sharp increase in resistance to the company’s products and services. Litigation, class-action lawsuits, and canceled contracts nationwide are just the beginning.

Surveillance-Peddlers Push Bogus Studies

They're watching you... but who's watching them?

Companies on the forefront of invasive and liberty-threatening surveillance systems are on the attack, paying big bucks for studies to “prove” that everyone loves being watched.

American Traffic Solutions, a red light camera and photo radar profiteer, claims a whopping 77 percent of NY voters supposedly support their revenue generating scheme. The “poll” was conducted by Public Opinion Strategies, known for using trick questions and “push polling” to get the results desired by the client:

“As our roots are in political campaign management, our research is focused on producing information that compels decisions – and then results and across both political and public affairs research, as our tag line suggests, we work with our clients “Turning Questions into Answers.

BRS Labs, a developer of technology which “reports unusual or suspicious behaviors based on memories it has acquired through [surveillance camera] observations,” paid Harris Interactive to conclude 96 percent of Americans “feel the federal government… should be able to use video surveillance in an effort to counteract terrorism” and “protect” people in public places.

The survey continues:

“Four out of five adults feel that in extreme cases, such as a terrorist attack, the government should be able to use any available means to protect citizens…”

BRS’ product, “AiSight,” is an advanced snooping tool which compiles and records human activities into patterns. Patterns deemed unusual or unacceptable can be flagged. Independent camera systems can be integrated together, easily allowing a person to be tracked from place to place.

“AiSight takes visual input from a camera, learns what activities and behaviors are typical, and generates real-time alerts when it identifies activities that are not normal… It takes in external visual input (computer vision), while its machine learning engine observes the scene, learns and recognizes behavioral patterns and responds accordingly. Surveillance is 24/7…”

Feeling safer yet?

Redflex Photo Van Caught Violating State Law

City of Tempe Police read a measuring wheel to determine photo radar sign distances on 10/9/2009.

Tempe Police were called mid-Friday after CameraFRAUD activists observed a “photo radar” van breaking the law.

The van, owned and operated by beleaguered Redflex Group, often surveils drivers eastbound on Elliot Road near the Loop 101.

CameraFRAUD activists measured out the spacing of the signs to determine they were not in compliance with the law, which specifies the warning sign closest to the photo radar van be must be placed “approximately 300 feet” away:

At least two signs shall be placed in a location before a photo enforcement system. One sign shall be in a location that is approximately three hundred feet before the photo enforcement system.

Tempe Police confirmed the sign was posted at 743ft, and the van was removed from operational status pending the investigation. In addition, both of the warning signs appeared to be placed deliberately behind trees and shrubs, preventing proper notification to oncoming traffic as required.

Despite the clear violation of the law, no immediate citation was issued by Tempe Police to the Australian company. The fate of any “notices of violation” generated by the van while it operated outside of the law (more than usual) remains unclear, with the expectation that the burden of “guilty until proven innocent” applies even in the event of municipal and vendor error.

“We’re taping you, 24/7.”

That’s the message that Representative Andy Biggs, R-Gilbert, believes that everyone should be privy to.

State lawmakers were “surprised” to learn that the “photo enforcement cameras they authorized last year to catch speeders are actually taking – and keeping – videos of everyone who passes,” according to the East Valley Tribune.

“…they learned that the cameras do more than snap still photos of those clocked driving at least 11 miles over the speed limit. In fact, they actually are recording streaming video around-the-clock.

Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Gilbert, said what’s worse is that Redflex Traffic Systems, the private company hired by the state to set up and operate the cameras, advertises that it has technology that actually can scan in the license plates of every vehicle that passes the cameras. And that, Biggs said, allows creation of a database that can find out where people have been at any given time.”

Of course, this isn’t news to the people who’ve read CameraFRAUD.com over the past 4 1/2 months.

In honor of their rekindled interest in representing the will of the people, we humbly present the following reading list. Feel free to send this list to your state reps (click for lookup/contact info).

Arizona Representative and Senator
Recommended Reading List
CameraFRAUD.com

1/22/09: FRAUDULENT TICKETS TOSSED IN TUCSON

1/19/09: Redflex and Red China: Partners in Oppression

1/08/09: Scottsdale Secretly Tracking License Plates

12/12/08: Show Low To Track Drivers Like Cattle

12/07/08: Delays, Technical Problems Plague Redflex Rollout

12/05/08: DPSRedflex Contract Available Online (The politicians should have read this already!)

9/16/08: Cameras to Track Everyone, Everywhere

9/09/08: Redflex Driver DUI

Show Low To Track Drivers Like Cattle

We told you in September about Redflex’s ambitious plans to become a quasi-government agency as they continue to publicly express interest in playing an active role in “Homeland Security.”

Now, those ambitions are already seeing the light of day in a dangerous, crime-ridden community full of terrorists: Show Low, Arizona.

A document released to the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX), and obtained by CameraFRAUD.com, shows the chilling nature of what happens when technology runs wild without consideration for civil liberties.

(Excerpt Below, or click the image above to see .pdf.)

Redflex Executes New Speed Enforcement Contract with Advanced Neural Network Automatic License Plate Recognition (ALPR) Engine for Real-Time Notification of Vehicles of Interest

Redflex Traffic Systems, Inc, a wholly owned subsidiary of Redflex Holdings Limited, is pleased to announce a new comprehensive photo enforcement contract with the City of Show Low, Arizona

[…]
As the commercial and tourism hub of the White Mountains, Show Low maintains a seasonal population approaching 30,000.
The contract scope includes fixed combination speed and red-light systems with the advanced Automatic License Plate Reader (ALPR) application for up to 10 systems with a term of five years plus two, two-year renewals.

[…]

The Redflex solution provides our law enforcement partners a new bundled crime fighting device that provides real-time license plate cross-checks against various local, regional, state-wide and national databases for identifying vehicles of interest, and that notifies the authorities of identified situations including stolen vehicles, felony suspects and suspects of Amber Alerts.

New DPS Scam Cam Locations Mapped

DPS has released information detailing their newest freeway camera scam locations. The massive roll-out will make it impossible to travel on a freeway without being under the microscope of an in-your-face camera.

The cameras, which have the capability to constantly record information, are also capable of receiving a character recognition upgrade, allowing the system to read the number plates of all passing vehicles.

Redflex recently expressed interest in moving into “homeland security” on a “national and local level.” Crosstown-competitor American Traffic Solutions went as far as to market their technology as being capable of interfacing with a national vehicle tracking database.

No worries: Every camera going up is just one more that will have to come down.

(Map Data-entry Courtesy CameraFRAUD.com. Data source: 12 News)

UK Speed Cameras to Monitor Every Stretch of Road

From TheNewspaper.com:

The UK Commission for Integrated Transport last year proposed a nationwide blanket of speed cameras as a means of fighting global warming. After a series of trials, the Home Office is now set to make this a reality by approving early next year the SPECS3 “distance over time speed measuring device” that will make it impossible to drive on any primary road in Britain without being tracked and subjected to an instant fine for exceeding the posted speed limit.

With Arizona being the first to deploy a network of fixed and mobile cameras throughout the state, don’t be surprised to see the cameras enhanced to measure speed over distance.

Cameras to Track Everyone, Everywhere

“They’re Watching YOU,” that’s what the sign read a month ago in the background of a CameraFRAUD.com interview with ABC 15. Now we’re realizing just how true that statement is about to become (theNewspaper.com).

“Private companies in the US are hoping to use red light cameras and speed cameras as the basis for a nationwide surveillance network similar to one that will be active next year in the UK. Redflex and American Traffic Solutions (ATS) … are quietly shopping new motorist tracking options to prospective state and local government clients…

“We are moving into areas such as homeland security on a national level and on a local level,” Redflex regional director Cherif Elsadek said. “Optical character recognition is our next roll out which will be coming out in a few months — probably about five months or so.”

ATS… in a recent proposal to operate 200 speed cameras for the Arizona state police, …explained that its ticketing cameras could be integrated into a national vehicle tracking database.

Wikipedia defines “mission creep” as “…the expansion of a project or mission beyond its original goals, often after initial successes.”

Traffic cameras, which were initially built and maintained for speed enforcement, can easily be upgraded to monitor red-light violations, tire tread depth, right-turn violations, and just about any application you can think of.

With the open admission from Redflex regarding optical character recognition upgrades, it has become blatently obvious that the foreign-owned company will stop at nothing short of becoming a full-fledged quasi-police/government agency, right in the footsteps of Blackwater.

Even more disturbing is our own state government’s complicity and treasonous actions encouraging the rampant destruction of the basics of a free society: the right of law-abiding citizens to be autonomous and anonymous, to be secure in their papers and posessions, and the right to live free from unnecessary government intervention in their day-to-day lives.

A pre-2008 Arizona license plate is shown (left), with a distinct 6-character system and embossed metal stamping. The new Arizona license plate (right) is compatible with automated character recognition systems.

The new plates are printed, not embossed, to aid with plate character capture, feature a clearer (and slightly more dark) font, while incorporating a dual-strand of holographic material down the middle. (Plate Images courtesy of AZ Plates.com)