Tuesday, November 27, 2007

A Modern Day Hero

A man in Knoxville, TN has been arrested for shooting out red light cameras.

He apparently made some mistakes, but hopefully he'll serve as an inspiration for others. I'm not advocating illegal activity here, really I'm not but, if someone really wanted to know the best way to take out traffic cams and I was to offer my advice, this is what it would be. What I am about to describe is ILLEGAL. Do not attempt to do this. This post is for informational purposes only.
  1. Do NOT make your first target a cam you've been given a ticket from. Maybe your 4th or 5th if you make it that far. As it is, the police are going to comb the list of 'criminals' that have run red lights in that city or county. Preferably you should never target a cam in your city at all. But you can bet that if all the surrounding cities have their cams shot out and your city doesn't, they'll narrow it down a bit. Just don't be obvious.
  2. ONE SHOT - ONE KILL! It doesn't matter if you miss or just 'wound' the thing. Do not EVER take a second shot. There can be no exceptions to this rule.
  3. Take your shot from as far away from the cam as you can while maintaining your accuracy.
  4. Scope out your target at least a week in advance. If this becomes a Federal issue, they're going to have to review a lot of footage from surrounding surveillance cams to look for suspicious behavior. I don't credit the police with an overabundance of brains but there's no reason to make it easy for them.
  5. Do not use a weapon traceable to you and only use that weapon to take out the cams. If you use a variety of weapons you have a greater probability of getting caught.*
  6. Do NOT brag about what you've done. Someone will turn you in. Do what you're doing for ideological reasons; there is no reason to brag about. Get it done and keep your mouth shut.
  7. Know when to stop. The longer you keep doing it, the closer they'll get to catching you.
  8. Watch your background. Don't shoot at a cam that has housing or a building with lots of windows behind it. You're only trying to kill a cam, not a person.
  9. If you can, always have an alibi; preferably a different one for each act. Letting a potential alibi know why they're an alibi makes them an accessory. People like that will turn on you in a heartbeat if it keeps them out of jail if/when the cops get close.
  10. Be very observant of all your surroundings at all times during planning and execution.
Yes, I think that red light cams and the dearth of other surveillance cams invading our privacy are a detriment to our liberty. It's not just the cams either. It's the increasing thirst of bureaucrats for information about our lives in the interest of "security." One day, all of this stored data will be dumped in to some sort of quantum computer and you'll be categorized, ranked and rated for your overall threat level to society, yourself, your children, etc. Whatever the government deems merely inappropriate will be the law of the land because it will become increasingly easy to enforce their will and catch those that are not in compliance. As it is, if the technology existed today to capture all of your thoughts and store it in a database, the government would insist on doing it and say that it's for our own good.

Technology is encroaching on our freedoms daily. The answer is not less technology, it is, as always, less government.


*Some of you might suggest using as many different weapons as possible to disguise the fact that it's just one shooter. As far as I'm concerned it's better that they know they're looking for just one person and that the media knows it too. They would figure it out anyway.

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