Posted on 10/22/2009 1:20:47 PM PDT by JoeSeales
Audio From Glenn Beck's Radio Program (Aired LIVE 10.22.09)- Did you know OnStar has the ability to shut off your engine, deflate your tires and listen to what you are saying inside your car?? It's true. They never used to use this technology, though it has been available- but now that the government is running GM, apparently they have decided to go ahead with it..Did we miss that press release? At the very least, it should concern you..with this kind of technology in the wrong hands..
Part 1-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDoDwEPKYMA
Part 2-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhXEzJHWF1c
(Excerpt) Read more at youtube.com ...
GM's ON Star doesn't seem very pressing in the big scheme of things.
That's what they want you to think.
Now where did I put that tinfoil hat?
Chase ends when OnStar halts stolen SUV
By Tom Krisher
Police One articles:
OnStar leads Texas deputies to murder suspect
New GM system should curb police chases
GM and OnStar create technology to help save lives
DETROIT — When two Visalia, Calif., police officers swung their cruisers behind a sport utility vehicle that had been carjacked at gunpoint early Sunday, they prepared for a dangerous high-speed chase.
The 2009 Chevrolet Tahoe roared away with officers in pursuit, but shortly after the suspect made a right turn, operators at General Motors Co.’s OnStar service sent a command that electronically disabled the gas pedal and the SUV gradually came to a halt.
The flustered thief got out and ran, but was quickly nabbed after he climbed several fences and fell into a backyard swimming pool, police said.
It was the first time since OnStar began offering the service in the 2009 model year that it was used to end a chase that could otherwise have had dire consequences.
“He wouldn’t have pulled over if OnStar hadn’t have shut the vehicle down,” said Visalia Police Sgt. Steve Phillips. “Generally pursuits end in a collision.”
The whole thing began when Jose Ruiz, 33, of nearby Lindsay, Calif., was sitting in his Tahoe in a lighted parking lot about 3 a.m. Sunday while his cousin was talking on a cell phone in the passenger seat. Out of the corner of his eye, Ruiz saw a man walking toward him.
“He already had a gun out,” Ruiz said Monday.
The man pointed a sawed-off shotgun at Ruiz and ordered both men to get out of the Tahoe and empty their pockets. Ruiz’s cousin at first refused, but Ruiz told him to obey, knowing that OnStar could find the stolen truck with a global positioning system.
“I was afraid he was going to shoot my cousin. My cousin was arguing with him,” Ruiz recalled.
The cousin relented and the man sped off in the truck. Ruiz then sprinted for a nearby pay telephone to call police, but ran into a sheriff’s deputy on her break who notified Visalia police.
Officers quickly contacted OnStar and got Ruiz’s permission to find the vehicle. Police spotted it a few miles away, but as officers made a U-turn to pursue it, the Tahoe sped off at a high speed, Phillips said.
The suspect made a turn, and police dispatchers told the pursuing officers that OnStar was about to disable the Tahoe. It then rolled to a halt, and the robber was quickly captured.
The 21-year-old suspect was jailed and faces preliminary charges of robbery, carjacking, possession of stolen property and resisting arrest.
OnStar President Walt Dorfstatter said it took only 16 minutes from the time OnStar was notified for the vehicle to be stopped.
Visalia Police Chief Colleen Mestas said the new technology kept officers, other motorists and even the suspect out of a dangerous chase.
“Considering the violent crime that this suspect was wanted for, I was just amazed,” she said.
Police chases often end in death, many times for the people in the pursued vehicles, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Last year, 334 people were killed nationwide in crashes that stemmed from police pursuits, including five police officers, 235 people in the chased vehicles and 77 who were in cars or trucks not involved in the chases.
Ruiz said police returned his Tahoe, cell phone and wallet to him that night. The only thing they didn’t get back was some cash taken from his cousin.
The stolen vehicle slowdown feature isn’t offered on all GM vehicles yet, but the company hopes to expand it to the entire lineup as models are updated. For 2010, the feature is on 18 of the 30 models equipped with OnStar, a communication service that also can give directions or call for help if a car is in a crash. Dorfstatter said it will take several years for all GM models to get the feature.
Mestas, whose city is about 50 miles southeast of Fresno, hopes that both technology like OnStar and more police aircraft can minimize the dangers of chases.
“It would be nice to have a day in law enforcement that you didn’t have to actively pursue suspects at high speeds,” she said.
How old was your vehicle? There was a short period of dual analog/digital systems which could be switched over or “upgraded” as you said. To get out of a situation of truly analog-only boxes would require swapping out the box.
As if I didn't know....
A yanked On Star fuse or cut antenna cable would foil attempts to stop a stolen or crime vehicle by telematics.
All cell phones, too:
FBI taps cell phone mic as eavesdropping
“Nextel cell phones owned by two alleged mobsters, John Ardito and his attorney Peter Peluso, were used by the FBI to listen in on nearby conversations.”
http://news.cnet.com/2100-1029_3-6140191.html
Oh for crying out loud. I have OnStar and I love it. I like the hands free calling and the GPS system. I get an email each month with a run down on the systems in my vehicle. I love it. Should it be stolen they can disable it. I locked myself out of it one time. It took a few seconds for her to
open the vehicle for me. Telling me my tire pressure is not bothersome to me.
Wrong. The enemy we need to worry about most is the Marxist in the Whitehose and his drooling Maoist lovers that surround him.
No country in the World has the ability to knock out the US without mutually assured destruction. Nobody wins that one..
But Obama can knock us out in 3 sleights of hand.
Government healthscare.
Cap and Trade
Signing the International global warming Treaty in Copenhagen that give up our Sovereignty as a Nation.
If you love your freedom and liberty you better cherish the waning moments. Our rogue government is about to strip you of your liberty that no foreign country is capable of achieving.
The issues you are concerned about are distractions. They will not ruin our country, steal our freedom, or bankrupt us. Obama will!
“OnStar is literally a cell phone tied into your car’s computer. So I guess anything controlled by your car’s computer could be controlled via the cell phone.
This does seem like a bit of over parinoia. The listening in on conversations is the only thing I would worry about. Still, given how often the gov likes to use wiretaps, I could see the FBI using it to bug someone’s care.
Organized crime should proabably be more worried about it.
Why would Organized Crime be concerned about this adminstraton? Just curious...
my car has dummy lights that tell me if my tires are low or flat.
Just the same, find out where the On Star fuse is (there might be a different name for it). If you should find yourself at odds with the gummit due to its failure to follow the Constitution, it will be useful to know how to yank that fuse.
My first car was a 1977 Toyota Corona with 300,000 miles. The car was the most indestructable machine in the history of mankind. I’m convinced it’s still out there on the road somewhere.
That would bee 2003. Our ENVOY had the older analog and GM sent us a letter offering to disble it. my 06 pickup has the newer digital model. It can be disabled by pulling a couple of fuses I’ve been told.
Better get the horse and buggy out as other major cars mfgs are going with some type of Tele service for their vehicles. Toyato will intoduce a version this year if it already hasn’t and Ford has SYNC while Chrysler dropped their version to be supplied by On Star.
Not yet but everything has a starting point.
If you are an “olcop” surely they have told you about this (mis)feature.
Nuclear proliferation in Islamic dictatorships, fraudulent elections and the destruction of Israel are all destruction, you say?
And you'd would argue that an option on a $40K SUV is important? Huh-huh. Good luck with that.
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