Please tell me both Libs and Conservative think THIS is a bad idea..
- From: "Logical Anomaly's Ego" <TomServosAgent@xxxxxxx>
- Date: 6 Dec 2005 15:35:20 -0800
....very, very , very bad....
E-tracking may change the way you drive
ZDNet News ^ | 12-5-2005 | Declan McCullagh
Commentary--Trust federal bureaucrats to take a good idea and transform
it into a frightening proposal to track Americans wherever they drive.
The U.S. Department of Transportation has been handing millions of
dollars to state governments for GPS-tracking pilot projects designed
to track vehicles wherever they go. So far, Washington state and Oregon
have received fat federal checks to figure out how to levy these
"mileage-based road user fees."
Now electronic tracking and taxing may be coming to a DMV near you. The
Office of Transportation Policy Studies, part of the Federal Highway
Administration, is about to announce another round of grants totaling
some $11 million. A spokeswoman on Friday said the office is "shooting
for the end of the year" for the announcement, and more money is
expected for GPS (Global Positioning System) tracking efforts.
In principle, the idea of what bureaucrats like to call "value pricing"
for cars makes sound economic sense.
Airlines and hotels have long charged less for off-peak use. Toll roads
would be more efficient--in particular, less congested--if they could
follow the same model and charge virtually nothing in the middle of the
night but high prices during rush hour.
That price structure would encourage drivers to take public
transportation, use alternate routes, or leave earlier or later in the
day.
The problem, though, is that these "road user fee" systems are being
designed and built in a way that strips drivers of their privacy and
invites constant surveillance by police, the FBI and the Department of
Homeland Security.
Zero privacy protections
Details of the tracking systems vary. But the general idea is that a
small GPS device, which knows its location by receiving satellite
signals, is placed inside the vehicle.
Some GPS trackers constantly communicate their location back to the
state DMV, while others record the location information for later
retrieval. (In the Oregon pilot project, it's beamed out wirelessly
when the driver pulls into a gas station.)
The problem, though, is that no privacy protections exist. No
restrictions prevent police from continually monitoring, without a
court order, the whereabouts of every vehicle on the road.
No rule prohibits that massive database of GPS trails from being
subpoenaed by curious divorce attorneys, or handed to insurance
companies that might raise rates for someone who spent too much time at
a neighborhood bar. No policy bans police from automatically sending
out speeding tickets based on what the GPS data say.
The Fourth Amendment provides no protection. The U.S. Supreme Court
said in two cases, U.S. v. Knotts and U.S. v. Karo, that Americans have
no reasonable expectation of privacy when they're driving on a public
street.
The PR offensive
Even more shocking are additional ideas that bureaucrats are hatching.
A report prepared by a Transportation Department-funded program in
Washington state says the GPS bugs must be made "tamper proof" and the
vehicle should be disabled if the bugs are disconnected.
"This can be achieved by building in connections to the vehicle
ignition circuit so that failure to receive a moving GPS signal after
some default period of vehicle operation indicates attempts to defeat
the GPS antenna," the report says.
It doesn't mention the worrisome scenario of someone driving a vehicle
with a broken GPS bug--and an engine that suddenly quits half an hour
later. But it does outline a public relations strategy (with "press
releases and/or editorials" at a "very early stage") to persuade the
American public that this kind of contraption would be, contrary to
common sense, in their best interest.
One study prepared for the Transportation Department predicts a PR
success. "Less than 7 percent of the respondents expressed concerns
about recording their vehicle's movements," it says.
That whiff of victory, coupled with a windfall of new GPS-enabled tax
dollars, has emboldened DMV bureaucrats. A proposal from the Oregon
DMV, also funded by the Transportation Department, says that such a
tracking system should be mandatory for all "newly purchased vehicles
and newly registered vehicles."
The sad reality is that there are ways to perform "value pricing" for
roads while preserving anonymity. You could pay cash for prepaid travel
cards, like store gift cards, that would be debited when read by
roadside sensors. Computer scientists have long known how to create
electronic wallets--using a technique called blind signatures--that can
be debited without privacy concerns.
The Transportation Department could require privacy-protective features
when handing out grants for pilot projects that may eventually become
mandatory. It's now even more important because a new U.S. law ups the
size of the grants; the U.K. is planning GPS tracking and per-mile fees
ranging between 3 cents and $2.
We'll see. But given the privacy hostility that the Transportation
Department and state DMVs have demonstrated so far, don't be too
optimistic.
.
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