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Comment by aliakbarkhan | Hacker News Reader

Couldn't they do like they did with drinking age laws and restrict federal road/other funding to jurisdictions that don't implement police camera programs?

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Sure, but that's not what the petition is asking for. It's asking for federal legislation to require it.

Also, the police are going to fight cameras tooth and nail. Major demographics from both parties are going to be mobilized (unions & crime hawks).

The liquor laws were much more sympathetic and even they took a long time for full federal compliance.

> Sure, but that's not what the petition is asking for. It's asking for federal legislation to require it.

The petitions are not bills that people are submitting to the floor of Congress. To say, "well the petition didn't ask for this specific implementation," seems a bit disingenuous. Federal legislation requiring it to receive specific funding would effectively be "federal legislation requiring it" so I'm unsure why you're splitting hairs.

Mostly because, this particular petition seems like the worst sort of political polly-anna-ism. That is, it shows a lack of political, constitutional and tactical understanding of how the US works. A much more effective solution seems to be local action in this case. If you could get a couple of big city police departments to install cameras the domino effect would be tremendous and local action will be the easier route!

> The petitions are not bills that people are submitting to the floor of Congress.

True. They're not much of anything else, either.

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