I attended a transportation meeting and learned (probably old news) of how the federal government is considering monitoring our driving mileage using GPS, with a pilot program in Oregon. While it may sound harmless, it could be considered tantamount to a parolee's ankle bracelet and a severe privacy violation. Instead of driving somewhere or even mailing in your mileage data, instead of an ordinary receiver, count on it having a transmitter that will send your position data to a super computer somewhere inside the Department of Human Stupidity, probably contracted out to someone like ChoicePoint. I believe those were the ones who created tens of thousands felons in Florida in time to prevent them from voting for Al Gore in 2000 in an episode we didn't hear of in Florida called "The Disenfranchisement." That's just who we need to maintain our sensitive, personal data.
GPS doesn't measure mileage, it records position and, depending upon the resolution of the data it provides, many interesting things can be deduced from the data. Big brother wouldn't just be watching, he'd tracking you and logging the data and checking it twice. It measures distance over time, and if they wanted to, they could send the state proof you had driven 90 in a 55 zone and you could get a retroactive speeding ticket. I don't drive that fast, but for those who do, watch out! I'm hoping it's just too ambitious a project, that it can't get funded or Congress decides it won't get them reelected and they kill it before it starts.
This data could be merged with the rest of our data that could be used against us and if someone was attending meetings the federal government considered subversive, they could convert the compass coordinates to a street address, run a global search of everybody who was at that address, and harass them. If the "feral" government will raid a meeting of Quakers in Florida, they'll consider anybody subversive. To be honest, now that we have a Department of Human Stupidity, I feel much less safe and secure than I ever have. But then the DHS isn't here to protect us; they're to protect the government and their corporate bedfellows from us. Look how well the Coast Guard protected BP from the press out in the Gulf.
They'll tell us this data will never be used for anything other than mileage determination to pay for road work, but that will be just another big lie like the way we were promised our social security number would never be used as an identifier. What don't they use our SSN for these daze? Call up any agency and the first thing they'll ask is "what's your social?" We were told at the meeting this is just another way the feral government will generate revenue for the transportation department, but there are other ways.
The first is to withdraw our troops from Iraq & Afghanistan, as they are there under false pretenses anyway. Another way would be to convert our highway street lighting to solar and stop paying electric companies for that power. My friend, Carl Hoot had this idea when he contracted with Exxon back in the early 1980s when they were toying with solar. Solar units aren't that expensive, and if you were to examine the "Nighttime Lights of the US" (Southern Canada, Mainland US and Northern Mexico),* you would see many places this could be accomplished. There may be some already, but not on a large enough scale. Where there isn't enough solar energy, wind generated power would probably work, or a combination thereof. The power companies could sell their wiring. It should be worth it to keep the feral government from installing that tattletale in our cars. Even if you have nothing to hide, the government does not need to know everywhere we drive.
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