Anh. The "testimony" is the recording. A lawyer cross-examining the computer would simply be met by the computer continuing to replay the recording over and over. Obviously verbiage from the 18th century isn't going to be able to deal with the concept of a modern digital computer, and needs to be updated as such. Computers are here to stay; old crufty ideas about semantics are rather more ephemeral.
Well, in particular my argument is that there isn't a legal issue with the computer being an accuser. Just that the accused doing the confronting might not get what they want out of it. I mean, what's the definition of 'confront' in this context?
"Confront" means that you can actually take it to court and evidence is examined deeper than "this machine generated this alert and the machine must be right".
I get nervous that so many cases in our legal system get pled out, because sure - if the person is actually guilty and owns up to it that saves the cost of a trial. But it also means that an awful lot of tactics just never get put in front of a judge or a public court. This is one of the prime examples.
I've lived in one state that decided cameras couldn't be witnesses, and I've lived in another state that has had scandals related to cameras being tampered with in order to increase ticketing revenue, etc. And in my current state it's fairly common knowledge that if you get a camera-related fine in the mail you just have to contest it because they will never let it get to court - they're just harvesting the low-hanging fruit. All of these policies suggest to me that your particular opinion of this law is far from the settled consensus. The combination of those things makes me very skeptical of how critical an eye has been over the whole system to verify it's working well. It doesn't seem anyone is willing to go under oath on behalf of the system that's fining people. It'll send out fines, people will from time to time find out the fines are wrong, but I just don't hear much about how much rigor is being spent actually proving anything on the other side.
