Just to be clear, doesn’t the application mentioned in Samian Quazi’s column that ran in The Daily Texan on Wednesday simply make it easier to report illegal parking to law enforcement officials and incentivize doing so? It doesn’t let me call a tow truck, issue a fine, have the car impounded or take any other actions which would substantiate enforcement, right?

“Vigilante: One who takes or advocates the taking of law enforcement into one’s own hands.” Batman is a vigilante. Iron Man is a vigilante. But someone with nothing better to do than take pictures of illegally parked cars who just drank too much self-righteous juice that morning?

He’s no Batman.

Also, not to split hairs, but the Texan really must have phoned it in for orientation this semester if one of its columnists thinks that photographing, well, anything in public space is a “serious infringement of civil liberties.”

I bet some guys who have spent the past decade blindfolded in a 4’x4’ cell at Guantanamo Bay without seeing a lawyer would have a good laugh about the now-precarious state of civil liberties in Austin, which has always had a reputation for draconian politics. Good thing they probably aren’t allowed to read newspapers at Gitmo.

The National Security Agency guys reading this email are probably chuckling, too.

Doug Luippold
UT alumnus