Posted on 12/09/2004 7:21:59 PM PST by NormsRevenge
BRADENTON, Fla. - Retired Gen. Tommy Franks has signed on to be the spokesman for a company that uses global positioning system technology in teens' cell phones to let parents know how fast they're driving.
Franks will be the official face of Teen Arrive Alive. The organization aims to get teens to carry a cell phone containing a GPS chip that sends out regular signals letting parents know where they are and how fast they're going.
If a certain predetermined speed limit is passed, an alarm will go off in the cell phone and parents will be notified.
A bumper sticker on the teen's car enables drivers to report reckless behavior. Both the teen and his or her parents are then notified by phone or e-mail that a negative driving report has come in.
"As a parent, I know it is not only my right, but also my responsibility to keep an eye on and protect my children," Franks said. "If I know where my kids are, where they're going, how they're driving and how fast they're traveling, I can counsel them before an accident occurs. I can help protect them."
As commander of U.S. Central Command based at nearby MacDill Air Force, Franks directed the invasion of Iraq (news - web sites).
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On the Net:
http://teenarrivealive.com/
Retired Gen. Tommy Franks is interviewed by the Associated Press in Washington, on Nov. 9, 2004. Franks has signed on to be the spokesman for a company that uses global positioning system technology in teens' cell phones to let parents know how fast they're driving.(AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
There goes any chance of ever being elected President, imo. ;-)
If things keep on this vector, how long before privacy becomes a privilege instead of a right?
I would put my phone on something REALLY fast, just for laughs.
It will happen the same way driving became a privilege instead of a right. Generational laziness.
It's too bad Tommy Franks isn't heading up Homeland Security...
imo
It's time spirit of the Constitution was articulated in the language of today. Privacy is privacy.
Calling all conservative thinkers!
it's all for the chillrun'
then senior citizens, etc.
Years and years spent in serving his country---of vowing to defend the Constitution---and Gen. Franks just flat out chooses to p*ss all over what he's so solemly defended all these years.
How sad.
There's one smoking gun that keeps showing up in all sorts of assaults of privacy and liberty: the insurance industry... this is the juggernaut.
Yeah me too... Like a trash deposal unit.
The program includes is a reward system for a good driving record that offers the teen participants stuff that appeals to their age group.
Its a personal choice. But in our experience: your kid can be the best driver in the state, but once he/she gets inside their friends car, there isn't a dern thing you can do about it.
Most schools have dropped their driver-ed programs....the speed limits in most states are 65 MPH (or higher?) We have 15 year olds out on the roads going 80 MPH with little to no serious driver training.
We paid out of pocket to have our daughter take Drivers ED so that she would have every advantage in becoming a good driver. It didn't help her when she was a passenger in a friends car. (and by Gods grace she survived) Got teens with drivers licenses? Pray....
Couldn't a kid confound this system by turning off the phone or removing the battery?
Sad, but true. Just yesterday, immediately after school, a local high school student lost control of his speeding pickup, which rolled and smashed into a tree. Both he and his passenger were "ejected from the vehicle" (no seat belts worn) -- and the passenger died. The driver was airlifted, and is still in critical condition.
We might as well face the facts: if kids behaved responsibly at sixteen years old, items like this GPS scheme would have no market. Sadly, maturity takes far longer than sixteen years to develop...
They could, but the parents would know the device was turned off, and the kid does have to come home sometime.
Sad story TX..the statistics are awful. I would not protest if the driving age was raised by a year. (especially if they are no longer required to have drivers ed).
Remember: way back when the permit age was set at 15 (in many states), the speed limit was almost half what it is today and most teens drove $200 clunkers (if they even HAD a car). The speed limits go up, but the driving age and requirements don't. Our daughter was spared (and her friend the driver), but it still makes me sick to my stomach when I hear of teens dying by the numbers in mangled cars.
The truly tragic part was that the dead boy's mother teaches at the same school (as does my daughter). On her way home from school, she arrived at the scene of the wreck while her son's body was still lying there. The school is very small; the entire student body is trumatized.
I call that "Living a Mother's Worst Nightmare". Prayers.
But, once this is available, some official nitwit will say you are guilty of 'neglect' if you do not monitor your kids 24/7. Just wait. I don't give it more than a couple of years.
At the rate things are going, privacy won't be a privelege, it will be a crime.
I know you're being sarcastic, but the privacy issue really, seriously concerns me.
If we all sit around and do nothing to secure and defend our civil liberties -- and I use that term in the strict definition, not the hijacked, twisted, colloquial -- then, yes, it could get that ridiculous. Take a moment to envision it. Are you really willing to let it happen?
No, and I have fought the system to defend them.
Thank.
"Ever vigilant."
Thank you.
"Ever vigilant."
If you are doing nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide.
It's for The Children.
We are At War now.
Hold on now. This is voluntary. No ones rights are being violated.
Click it or Ticket!
There are myriad problems with this system...
What if your kid hops on a bus/subway/train or gets in a friend's car and the driver is speeding?
What if someone steals your kid's phone, or he leaves it somewhere and someone picks it up?
What if your kid just isn't stoopid and he just leaves the phone at home, or buys another phone while you aren't looking??
The next step is a gubment required tracking chip placed in all babies at birth. After all, little Timmy can't accidently misplace his arm and get lost. I mean...it's for their OWN safety. With "Tag-a-Teen" your child will be safer from kidnappers and from getting lost! We should just clip those big bands on their ears like we do with cows...
I think this system depends a lot on a kid being an honest, "good" kid...and I'm sorry, but if you need this system then your kid ain't...
Oh, and since WHEN do parents have a right to keep an eye on their hoodlums?? Apparently this guy has never been to California!
Thanks for illustrating my point. When I learned that MADD rewards traffic cops for reaching DUI quotas (and you know, MADD doesn't just get money from distraught parents) I understood that there are probably all sorts of "alliances" that influence the way laws are conceived, interpreted, and enforced even on the street level.
Have you heard the advertisements, around high-traffic holidays, about the "nationwide law enforcement effort to ticket speeders" or similar things. Nationwide? Who organizes this? Who finances the organization? Is it even legal?
Ah, so, nothing can be done or offered, even on a voluntary basis, which might eventually grow into a "rights" violation?
Therefore, we should burn Microsoft and jail Bill Gates for developing and selling the database program Access. I mean, that's the logical conclusion of your theory.
You are comparing Microsoft Access with my example of microchipping babies?
I never said that ALL things that have potential to someday evolve into a device for violating our rights WILL do that. I said that the mindset that such things are harmless is a dangerous one.
Satan infiltrates the minds of our society with statemens like, "It's ok for the government to violate our rights to an extent because they are trying to protect us", so that when the time comes for him to finally violate us in a major way, the door is opened for him.
And the fact that some guy somewhere may at some point use Microsoft Access to keep track of the all the people he murdered, does not mean that the software was designed as a tool for this purpose. But this GPS thing WAS designed as a tool to watch us...they are advertising it as such. And they will slowly impose upon us the mindset that watching us more and more often and more closely is in our best interest. Any time we agree with what we are doing, we are helping them. We must resist the urge to "protect" our children by tagging them like cattle. How bad would you feel if the GPS phone that you bought in order to be a responsible was used by some government agency next week to arrest your child because he went to a youth group meeting or a church rally to praise God?
I realize that nobody is being tracked and arrested for this purpose, but the day will come when Christians have to hide in order stay alive. And if my son is one of those in hiding, and they find him because he has a chip in his arm, then I am the bad guy, for letting it happen.
Even if I did only have him implanted so that the "smart house of the future" would know where he was in the house and be able to notify him of his emails and switch on the lights for him. It starts simple, and as something that we feel might make our lives better. There is no way we can stop it all from happening. And there is no way that we can eliminate all the things that may someday violate our rights, but I think the biggest thing we can do is learn to see the possible consequences of just accepting some of these things as "changes" that will happen because the future is leaning toward more technology.
It starts as a chip on a motherboard that tells Bill Gates if I have a stolen copy of Windows on my computer...but eventually the clothing companies will be able to track their sweaters to make sure we aren't violating their TOS by wearing it into a competitor's store. It's a slippery slope. We are going to slip a bit, but we need to hold on as tight as we can to not hit hard on the bottom.
How is that any less dangerous than a GPS tracking chip installed in a cell phone sold by a private company to voluntary customers, but that technology could allow government to track anyone's location in near real time.
Saying that any technology that could be abused to "violate rights" is dangerous and ought not to be developed or sold, is sheer Luddism.
Access COULD allow the government to store and process information about us...but it does not provide them a means by which to COLLECT said information.
Speaking of this, you might want to... Peer down this road and you may see a point in time when computer privacy becomes socially questionable, even illegal.
So the development of GPS systems is the mark of the beast? Get a grip.
I didn't say it's the mark of the beast. You get a grip.
I didn't say that everyone who uses GPS is going to Hell. I said that the attitude that it's not a big deal in situation like this can be a dangerous one.
Cautioning someone to be careful while crossing the road is not the same as judging them for doing so.
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