Do you remember when the Doris Kravitzes on the block were all one had to deal with in regards to snooping? The good old days....
Automotive black boxes could be mandatory by 2015.
Modern automobile data recording devices record up to 20 seconds of information before any crash. The data recorded can include whether the passengers of the car were wearing seat belts, the car speed at any point in that 20 seconds, the acceleration of the car in that 20 seconds, the percent of the engine throttle and gas pedal, when the brakes were activated, when the anti-lock braking device was activated and more. This information would be used for insurance claims, mileage for carbon taxes according to usage, the possibilities are endless. ~ as you will read below, taken beyond Orwellian levels.
Modern automobile data recording devices record up to 20 seconds of information before any crash. The data recorded can include whether the passengers of the car were wearing seat belts, the car speed at any point in that 20 seconds, the acceleration of the car in that 20 seconds, the percent of the engine throttle and gas pedal, when the brakes were activated, when the anti-lock braking device was activated and more. This information would be used for insurance claims, mileage for carbon taxes according to usage, the possibilities are endless. ~ as you will read below, taken beyond Orwellian levels.
SENATE PASSES BILL
REQUIRING BLACK BOXES IN ALL NEW CARS
The U.S. Senate has passed a bill
requiring all new cars manufactured in the United States be fitted with black
box data recorders. Senate Bill 1813 [PDF] was passed
by the Senate and is just waiting for approval from the U.S. House of
Representatives, InfoWars reports.
Section 31406 of the "Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st
Century Act" (MAP-21) bill calls for "Mandatory Event Data
Recorders" to be installed in new vehicles, starting in the year 2015.
The bill states that within 180 days of the enactment of the
bill, the Secretary must revise part 563 of title 49 (Code of Federal
Regulations) "to require, beginning with model year 2015, that new
passenger motor vehicles sold in the United States be equipped with an event data
recorder that meets the requirements under that part."
The bill then goes on to describe the "limitations" on
information retrieval. Basically, while there will be a "Big Brother"
style recording device in all new vehicles, the data recorded on the device
will be the property of the owner of the vehicle.
"Any data in an event data recorder required under part 563
of title 49, Code of Federal Regulations, regardless of when the passenger
motor vehicle in which it is installed was manufactured, is the property of the
owner, or in the case of a leased vehicle, the lessee of the passenger motor
vehicle in which the data recorder is installed," the bill states.
According to the text of the bill, the data on the recording
device may not be retrieved by anyone other than the owner or the
lessee…unless, of course, the government asks for it.
The data may be retrieved by someone other than the owner/lessee
if it is requested, and backed, by a court authorization, or if there is a
medical emergency. It may also be retrieved if the owner/lessee consents, or if
it's relevant in an investigation or inspection conducted by the Secretary of
Transportation.
InfoWars criticizes the bill for its privacy implications, and points
out that there are "innumerable examples of both government and industry
illegally using supposedly privacy-protected information to spy on
individuals."
VentureBeat, on the
other hand, notes that this privacy concern is largely irrelevant ~ Event Data
Recorders (EDRs) have been voluntarily installed in cars for several years. In
fact, VentureBeat reports, at least 64 percent of cars in
surveyed in 2005 had an EDR installed, including 100 percent of
cars made by General Motors, Ford, Isuzu, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Subaru, and
Suzuki.
Still, I understand InfoWars' concerns. After all, there have
been instances in which the government has used GPS to illegally track suspect's vehicles, and
mandatory EDRs would just make this even easier. Also, what's to stop a court
from requiring data from these black boxes be
presented to insurance companies?
"The ultimate Big Brother scenario would be a system
whereby every driver had to get de facto permission from the state to drive
each time they get behind the wheel, once it had been determined from an iris
scan that they were good citizens who have paid all their taxes and not
misbehaved," InfoWars says, noting that Bill 1813 also contains a
controversial clause that would allow the IRS to revoke passports of citizens accused of
owing more than $50,000 in back taxes.
This provision is designed to keep tax-owing citizens from
leaving the country, but could such logic lead to the government stripping
citizens of driving rights as well?
(Images of Auto "black box" courtesy of
freedomsphoenix.com and image of car accident courtesy of Funnyphotosto.com)
COUPE SNOOP:
CONGRESS WANTS ALL CARS
TO BE EQUIPPED WITH RECORDING DEVICES
RT
The federal government is about to become the country’s worst
backseat driver. Congress wants to put tracking devices in the car of every
American, and that’s not even the scariest provision in a new bill being passed
around Washington.
The US Senate has already signed off on a new legislation that,
if cleared by the rest of Congress, will see to it that the government gets its
eyes and ears inside every automobile in the country.
Senate Bill 1813 calls for the installation
of mandatory recorders and communication devices in Americans’ cars that could
connect the whereabouts and actions of the country’s drivers with whomever the
government wants to grant access to.
It doesn’t stop there, though ~ another provision in the
proposed bill will give the government the power to revoke passports from
Americans behind on their taxes, essentially making it impossible for the
indebted to escape the country.
It’s being touted around the capital as the Moving Ahead for
Progress in the 21st Century Act, or MAP-21, and Congress is considering it
under the explanation that the bill will “reauthorize
Federal-aid highway and highway safety construction programs.”
In the abstract drafted on Capitol Hill, however, the act is
described as having provisions necessary “for
other purposes.” And while no lawmakers explicitly explain the
benefits of some questionable content within MAP-21, what the government could
get away with if the bill is passed is something eerily Orwellian.
If you’re not scared yet, then here is another eye opener: the
US Senate has already approved the bill by an overwhelming vote of 74-22,
leaving only the House of Representatives to vote in favor before
government-sanctioned blackboxes become as common as carburetors and calibrated
friction brakes.
At this rate, it won’t be long before every Beetle and Buick in
the country is being tracked by Big Brother.
Section 53006 of MAP-21 calls for a “vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure
communications systems” deployed in the country’s cars in the near
future. A copy of the bill is available online, but it isn’t until the bottom
of the text that things start to get creepy.
That section calls on several congressional committees ~
including the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation of the Senate
and the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure of the House of
Representatives ~ to hear in three years’ time arguments in favor of the
deployment of the communications system in question.
At that point, a designated person will be asked to recommend an
“implementation path for dedicated short-range communications technology and applications,” which includes “guidance on the relationship of the proposed deployment of dedicated short-range communications to the National ITS Architecture and ITS Standards.”
Sending short-wave signals to other automobiles and data hubs is
one thing, but the act is also asking for mandatory event data recorders in
every car. That’s the actual name, in fact, of what Congress says they want
every car to have in the very near future.
“Not later than 180 days after the date of enactment of this Act, the Secretary shall revise part 563 of title 49, Code of Federal Regulations, to require, beginning with model year 2015, that new passenger motor vehicles sold in the United States be equipped with an event data recorder that meets the requirements under that part,” explains the act.
The section goes on to establish that the ownership of data collected
by those devices will be the sole property of the owner of the automobile, but
other provisions clearly authorize a challenge to this. A court may be granted
access to that information “in
furtherance of a legal proceeding,” and elsewhere in the bill it
says that “the information is
retrieved pursuant to an investigation or inspection authorized under section
1131(a) or 30166 of title 49, United States Code.”
Two years after those devices are made mandatory, Congress will
also hear a report that will explain
“the recommendations on what, if any, additional data the event data recorder should be modified to record.”
Those without drivers’ licenses won’t be spared from civil
liberty infringement if MAP-21 makes it out of the White House with Obama’s
approval ~ another section says that Congress can confiscate the passports of
Americans delinquent in paying their taxes.
Although the US was built from the ground up by refugees
escaping persecution, persons plagued by hardships in the near future won’t be
afforded that same ability to escape Uncle Sam’s strengthening stranglehold.
Under Section 40304, the US State Department is allowed the
powers to revoke passports from anyone determined by the Internal Revenue
Service (IRS) of having “a
delinquent tax debt in an amount in excess of $50,000.” Fifty-grand
might seem like a big number for 99-percenters, but it isn’t all that
outrageous or uncommon.
After all, the Washington Post reported in 2010 that out of the
18,000 employees on Capitol Hill, 638 of them were behind on their taxes.
What’s more, though, is that of those working within the House of
Representatives, the average delinquent was indebted to the country to the tune
of $15,498.
“If you’re on the federal payroll and you’re not
paying your taxes, you should be fired,” Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah)
exclaimed at the time. Two years down the road, though, Senate Majority Leader
Harry Reid (D-Nevada) is requesting that a citizen’s ability to travel abroad
be brought to an end for being behind on their taxes.
Reid was the author of Section 40304 and is presumably outside
of the 4 percent of congressional staffers that owed the feds in 2010, but
opponents of the act are saying that stripping passports from poor Americans
isn’t a provision that is necessary for MAP-21.
“It takes away your right to enter or exit the country based upon a non-judicial IRS determination that you owe taxes,” constitutional attorney Angel Reyes tells Fox Business. “It’s a scary thought that our congressional representatives want to give the IRS the power to detain US citizens over taxes, which could very well be in dispute.”“There are so many people that fall into that situation, and I think that’s too invasive. Especially coming out of a bad economy there are a lot of people behind on a lot of things,” adds financial adviser Clark Hodges to Fox.
There are other damning provisions in MAP-21, including a “Stop
Taxhaven Abuse” section that says the government can kick any foreign
jurisdiction out of the US financial system if it wants to.
For American residents up to date on their income taxes and not
invested abroad, however, the real dangers lie within the very real possibility
that the government will soon be able to track every single automobile on the
nation’s roads.
Earlier this year, the US Supreme Court ruled that law
enforcement requires a warrant if they want to install GPS tracking devices on
the cars of suspected criminals, but with that decision quickly collecting
opposition, a loophole might have just been brought to light by forcing
consumers to purchase cars with tracking systems already installed.
Before the Supreme Court shot down the feds’ plea to allow
unwarranted monitoring of automobiles in January, Justice Stephen Breyer said
that a decision to not do so would be dangerous for everyone in the country.
“If you win this case then there is nothing to prevent the police or the government from monitoring 24 hours a day the public movement of every citizen of the United States. ~ so if you win, you suddenly produce what sounds like ’1984′,” explained Breyer.
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