Just damn.
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Posted on 10/07/2004 4:41:36 PM PDT by JOAT
Obscure agency working on technology to monitor all vehicles
A little-known federal agency is planning a new monitoring program by which the government would track every car on the road by using onboard transceivers.
The agency, the Intelligent Transportation Systems Joint Program Office, is part of the Department of Transportation. According to an extensive report in the Charlotte, N.C., Creative Loafing, the agency doesn't respond to public inquiries about its activity.
According to the report, cutting-edge tracking technology will be used by government transportation management centers to monitor every aspect of transportation. Under the plan, not only will movement be monitored but it also will be archived in massive databases for future use.
The paper reports a group of car manufacturers, technology companies and government interests have worked toward implementing the project for 13 years.
States the Creative Loafing report:
"The only way for people to evade the national transportation tracking system they're creating will be to travel on foot. Drive your car, and your every movement could be recorded and archived. The federal government will know the exact route you drove to work, how many times you braked along the way, the precise moment you arrived – and that every other Tuesday you opt to ride the bus.
"They'll know you're due for a transmission repair and that you've neglected to fix the ever-widening crack that resulted from a pebble dinging your windshield."
The agency's website says its purpose is to "use advanced technology to improve the efficiency and safety of our nation's surface transportation system."
Critics believe the program will be used to line the pockets of business interests that stand to gain from the sale of needed technology and that the government will use the data collected to tax drivers on their driving habits.
Though the program has ominous privacy implications, Creative Loafing reports none of the privacy-rights organizations it contacted were aware of the government's plans.
The report states that more than $4 billion in federal tax dollars has already been spent to lay the foundation for the system, which will use GPS technology and other methods to monitor Americans' movements.
The plan includes transceivers, or "onboard units," that will transmit data from each car to the system, the first models of which are expected to be unveiled next spring. By 2010, the paper reported, automakers hope to start installing them in cars. The goal is to equip 57 million vehicles by 2015.
Creative Loafing quotes Bill Jones, technical director of the Intelligent Transportation Systems Joint Program Office, from a speech he gave in January.
"The concept," said Jones, "is that vehicle manufacturers will install a communications device on the vehicle starting at some future date, and equipment will be installed on the nation's transportation system to allow all vehicles to communicate with the infrastructure."
"The whole idea here is that we would capture data from a large number of vehicles," Jones said at another meeting of transportation officials in May. "That data could then be used by public jurisdictions for traffic management purposes and also by private industry, such as DaimlerChrysler, for the services that they wish to provide for their customers."
The plan sees the federal government working with auto manufacturers to place the transponders in vehicles at the factory, giving consumers little chance to drive a new car not tethered to transportation computers.
One of the program's visions is for transportation officials to share collected data with law enforcement, meaning a driver potentially could get a speeding ticket based on information stored in a government computer.
Proponents of the system say the safety benefits are enormous. One goal is to virtually eliminate auto accidents by having vehicles "communicate" with each other.
Neil Schuster is president and CEO of the Intelligent Transportation Society of America, a group of government and business people that's the driving force behind the program.
"When I get on an airplane everyone in the system knows where I am," Schuster told Creative Loafing. "They know which tickets I bought. You could probably go back through United Airlines and find out everywhere I traveled in the last year. Do I worry about that? No. We've decided that airline safety is so important that we're going to put a transponder in every airplane and track it. We know the passenger list of every airplane and we're tracking these things so that planes don't crash into each other. Shouldn't we have that same sense of concern and urgency about road travel? The average number of fatalities each year from airplanes is less than 100. The average number of deaths on the highway is 42,000. I think we've got to enter the debate as to whether we're willing to change that in a substantial way and it may be that we have to allow something on our vehicles that makes our car safer. ... I wouldn't mind some of this information being available to make my roads safer so some idiot out there doesn't run into me."
At least one proponent of the plan is actually using the term "Orwellian" to describe it.
At a workshop for industry and government leaders last year, the Charlotte paper reports, John Worthington, president and CEO of TransCore – one of the companies currently under contract to develop the onboard units for cars – described the system as "kind of an Orwellian all-singing, all-dancing collector/aggregator/disseminator of transportation information."
Oh joy.
Paranoid ravings. What exactly is there they can put in your car that would know you've got a crack in your windshield and it's getting bigger?!
The problem with the conspiracy crowd is they always throw in some oddball obviously impossible piece of hyperbole that calls into question the entire article. Almost like they were purposely trying to discredit the conspiracy crowd.
Fear not. You'll get used to it. You always have and you always will.
They shouldn't be allowed to archive the data for more than 1 week, without a crime being committed, and the data has to be locked and inaccessible without a subpoena.
The tracking device should use GPS tracking data to turn itself on and off, so it is only on when operating on public roads.
Better yet, don't install them.
Um, no thank you or do I get a choice.
Just damn.
If you want on the list, FReepmail me. This IS a high-volume PING list...
yeah, and then we're gonna reinstate Prohibition.
*sips beer*
Measure the impedance across the windshield. And I do have a crack in the windshield but It's not getting bigger.
My mother-in-law!
No. Seriously. A little tin foil over the antenna, and like magic, you're Stealth!
Please put me on the Just Damn list...uhh.. make that the Just Damn ping list.
Thank you.
Sure, just like the SSN, THAT hasn't been abused at all. I smell a giant camel turd!
With what? They're gonna stick motion sensors all over my car? And yet they'll be so craftily hidden I won't be able to screw them up with a piece of Wrigley?! Or maybe they'll use lasers to map out my windshield, and while they're at it it'll map my hands and make sure I'm properly at 10 and 2 (never, I drive a stick, 12 and sometimes 6) and do proper hand-over-hand turning (never, I've mastered the flatpalm grip)?! Not happening.
I have a crack too, it happens to be up where the tint strip is so it's never grown.
Maybe, and this is a big maybe, RFIDs and readers in road signs. Here's always the problem with these things: why in God's name would anybody want all this data? What purpose would it serve? The worst thing that could possibly happen with this is they'd use it to generate speeding tickets (a frequent charge), because then nobody would be able to get away with speeding anymore, and nobody would speed anymore, and the police departments of our land would go broke... hmm now that I think about it maybe these things ARE a good idea ;)
Luckily there's certain logistical problems to putting your mother-in-law in all cars. Watch our for cloning though.
That's pretty much where things currently stand. If you have a recent model car, take a look at the owner's manual. There is most likely a statement in there that refers to the data logging capabilities of the on-board computer. I've seen text that goes on a bit further and discusses who might gain access to the computer data (law enforcement and insurance companies top the list). Of course, they must have a good reason to seek such data. For now, at least.
um...so how are they going to get this device on a car that doesn't have one ?
This is why I am preparing to drive a 1954 willys wagon....I can fix it myself and no one knows where I've been.
Maybe old cars will be worth a premium.
Goal: Achieve nationwide deployment of a communications infrastructure on the roadways and in all production vehicles and to enable a number of key safety and operational services that would take advantage of this capability.Approach: This initiative builds on the research and operational tests conducted under the Department's Intelligent Vehicle Initiative. Vehicle manufacturers would install the technology in all new vehicles, beginning at a particular model year, to achieve the safety and mobility benefits while, at the same time, the federal/state/local transportation agencies would facilitate installation of the roadside communications infrastructure. Vehicles would serve as data collectors, transmitting traffic and road condition information from every major road within the transportation network. Access to this information will allow transportation agencies to implement active strategies to relieve congestion. In addition to these direct benefits to the traveling public and the operators of the transportation network, the automotive companies view VII as an opportunity to develop new businesses to serve their customers. To determine the feasibility and an implementation strategy, a three-party consortium has been formed consisting of the seven vehicle manufacturers involved in the IVI, AASHTO and ten State departments of transportation and the USDOT
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