Slashdot Mirror
Manhattan 1984
Etherwalk writes "The New York Times is reporting on developments in the quest to charge driving fees for all vehicles headed below 86th Street in Manhattan. Notably absent from any part of the discussion is that a record is made of every car or truck that enters, together with the vehicle ownership information and the date and time of travel — either as part of EZ-Pass or in license-plate photos taken for subsequent billing."
I've been hoping for a story to bring out the paranoid crowd. They are my favorites.
I'd have to think that for the most part, this would end up tracking cabs.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
Thing is, I discussed this with my US cousin a few months back, and told him how in the Netherlands, we had all sorts of systems in place already to monitor traffic for billing and speeding registration purposes, using cameras that read license plates. He was sure that, for privacy reasons alone, such systems would never fly in the States.
Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
1. Tall buildings crashing to the ground.
2. No cars in Manhattan.
3. Grass growing on Wall Street.
4. Profit!
Er, hang on...
Jesus. Ok, it's all right to have a little bit of suspicion with regards to motives here, but "Manhattan 1984"? That's a bit much, isn't it?
Also, how does this qualify as having to do with Our Rights Online?
To prevent this day from getting worse, I'll just read ERROR as GOOD TH
So, is this "because of the children"? Or "because 9/11 changed everything"?
--
"Those who would give up a little freedom to get a little security shall get a free McDonald's Happy Meal voucher"
We've had a similar system running in London for a while now here in the UK.
Now you too can look forward to people using fake license plates to avoid charges, or people who have been nowhere near the area being charged and/or fined because the number plate recognition software read a letter or number wrong.
We've had this in Central London for ages. It's called, slightly euphemistically, the Congestion Charge. All vehicles entering a zone in Central London have their registration plates recorded by cameras. It's no big deal.
wow... thats certainly quite a statement you made. I had to read it a couple times to actually understand what you were saying.
As for the missing comments, it is currently 1:30AM on US west coast, 4:30AM on US east coast, somewhere between 9:30AM and 11:30AM for most of Europe. I would expect comments from Japan as it is 5:30 PM there now, however this topic does not directly concern the citizens there (and I doubt slashdot comes in a Japanese version, but I could be wrong)
Technically this is already feasible by ensuring that every single vehicle is equipped with a GPS receiver and a transponder that transmits its identity and its itinerary (in time and space} to collection stations.
As long as there is no congestion, and there are sufficient funds to keep all roads in good condition, the question doesn't appear. It becomes very different however when congestion starts blocking the grid, and when it's hard to find enough money for maintenance (of bridges for example}.
Under current conditions however, there is a strong incentive to toll. And yes ... there are privacy aspects.
Where electronically transmitted itineraries could be encrypted to prevent eavesdropping, someone has to do the billing ... and that someone can only do that if they can link the vehicle with a driver. And hence they will also be able to link vehicle, diver, and itinerary.
It's not quite there yet, but the signs are that it's only a matter of time. Unless someone can come up with a fool-proof alternative way of putting up the money *and* ensuring an acceptable level of service. In other words: don't count on it not happening.
After all ... what's privacy in the face of financial incentives?
But rest assured ... there probably will be a capped-fee paying option for those who really don't want their movements tracked and who can afford to pay the national maximum road price per mile where- and whenever they drive. Those subscribes don't need to submit their itineraries ... their subscriber ID will do.
The only snag is that the maximum road price will be about 20$ per mile. If your car does 50 mph, that would be 1000$ per hour maximum. So anyone willing (and able} to pay 365 x 24 x 1000$ per year would be allowed un-metered driving any time and any place. Anybody else will have to submit their itineraries and pay a road-use charge.
Oh yes ... and don't bore us with complaints that you already pay gasoline tax. What you *pay* in unimportant. What counts is the difference between what's needed for upkeep and congestion management and what's currently available.
20 story parking garage on 87th street. Right next to the subway station.
If it keeps the paranoid from driving their cars around Manhattan, that's a bonus reduction in traffic. I'm all for it. In fact, publish the data if you can't satisfactorily explain why you need to take your car in. Make it hurt to not take public transport.
Or possibly both.
This appears to be a product of the thinking that the "market can regulate anything". Everywhere there is congestion, plans seeking to regulate it through differential charging are springing up all over the place. The revenues typically more than cover the cost of implementation in their first year. My opinion is that these schemes just take yet more money from the average Joe who works, because he typically doesn't have any choice as to where and when he drives when commuting to work - traffic pressure on its own is more than sufficient incentive to stop driving in rush hour if it's at all possible.
Of course, you do get the highly desirable (for the intelligence community) side-effect of being able to track all vehicles present in such a schema.
Those worried for the privacy of New Yorkers should spare a thought for those of us in Europe, as our governments are presently colluding on a system that will mandate the fitting of a GPS tracker with a cellular modem to each and every motor vehicle that will log all movement. We already have number plate cameras on most major motorways (ostensibly to check to see if untaxed vehicles are moving), and a congestion charging scheme in London that has been so successful in terms of revenue that other metropolitan areas are queuing up to see who can be next.
http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/roads/roadpricing/
The Information Commissioner has repeatedly asked for details of how this info is used. It has also emerged that outside congestion charge hours the cameras are kept online and are STILL recording.
It is no coincidence that the Information Commissioner has been rendered fairly toothless politically. Westminster can't afford anyone asking the right questions - it could make people realise that the UK is now close to being a full fledged police state (it's never been a democracy).
Worse, that hasn't reduced crime one bit - you need a feeling of insecurity to stop people from asking questions..
1984 - it's a manual..
For areas of central London (UK) we already have a system in place called congestion charging. Basically whenever you enter/exit one of the zones, cameras hooked up with number plate recognition record you.
The system works reasonably well, but it doesn't really stop people driving in the "congestion" zones and most people really dislike the system, for example, if you don't realize you've driven through a congestion charging zone you end up with a bill in the post for more than it would normally cost (you get discounts for paying same-day or prior to entering the zone).
Now - the mayor is proposing to charge different rates based on what type of car you have - small effecient compacts would pay nothing or next to nothing, while massive SUVs or anything with a 3+ liter engine would pay upto £25 GBP per day ($50 USD).
The most likely outcome of this? Poorer people will use public transport, while for the richer bigger fines will just affirm their social status, or make them consider getting smaller cars.
Oh - and I'm not mentioning the use of the system to track criminals, bail jumpers or "potential terrorists", because it's happening frequently and is just another way that the government is abusing the powers they gave themselfs by-proxy.
Sorry. I'll pay attention to this later. Right now I'm facing a forclosure notice because my mortgage is unsustainable, my nine maxed-out credit cards are glowing radioactively and there are two very large men from a debt-collection company banging on my front door. Sorry, the front door of this house which the bank owns.
The good news is that without food I'll lose a shitload of blubber and should be able to find a barrel which'll fit just in time for my worn out clothes to disintegrate.
Manhattan is full of niggers
Clearly you meant "the working class", and you're correct. Manhattan is full of working class individuals who clearly have an interest past that of which is providing the employment. If you meant otherwise, then your conflation of racial division with division in class and/or earning potential is the point of discussion, at which point any rational individual would have to disagree with your assessment.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
I find that most people who reject number plate tracking, CCTV cameras, automatic logging and vehicle license MOT test (legal UK vehicle check to ensure it is road worthy) and the like generally have something to hide.
i sion#Crime_registration
Whilst I agree there must be safeguards, it seems that every day there are crimes solved, prevented or swiftly responded to by this kind of technology.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed-circuit_telev
from the FA above:
"Claims that they reduce or deter crime have not been clearly borne out by independent studies[2], though the government claims that when properly used they do result in deterrence, rather than displacement. One clear effect that has been noted is a reduction of car crime when used in car parks. Cameras have also been installed in taxis to deter violence against drivers, and also in mobile police surveillance vans. In some cases CCTV cameras have become a target of attacks themselves. Middlesbrough council have recently installed "Talking CCTV" cameras in their busy town-centre. It is a system pioneered in Wiltshire which allows CCTV operators to communicate directly with the offenders they spot. This idea is first known to have appeared in George Orwell's famous novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.
The use of CCTV in the United States is less common, though increasing, and generally meets stronger opposition. In 1998 3,000 CCTV systems were found in New York City. There are 2,200 CCTV systems in Chicago.
The most measurable effect of CCTV is not on crime prevention, but on detection and prosecution. Several notable murder cases have been solved with the use of CCTV evidence, notably the Jamie Bulger case, and catching David Copeland, the Soho nail bomber. The use of CCTV to track the movements of missing children is now routine.
After the bombings of London on 7 July 2005, CCTV footage was used to identify the bombers. The media was surprised that few tube trains actually had CCTV cameras, and there were some calls for this to be increased.
On July 22, 2005, Jean Charles de Menezes was shot dead by police at Stockwell tube station. CCTV footage has debunked some police claims. Because of the follow-up bombing attempts the previous day, some of the tapes had been supposedly removed from CCTV cameras for study, and they were not functional. The use of DVR technology may solve this problem."
In the UK the police are building up a large DNA database from everybody charged with a criminal offence (now nearly 5m entries) this solves crimes regularly. See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3232744.stm as an example.
Bottom line, I have no problem with this technology if safeguards are in place and it makes the streets a safer place to walk.
As a British subject, it's nice to see our American allies catching up in the war on citizens^H^H^H^H^H^H terror.
George Orwell is one of the greatest British heroes to ever live, and now his ideas are spreading around the world. This must surely be England's finest hour.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
I hate to play devil's advocate here, but this could be a much better system than a toll booth system. Either way it seems they are looking to make the traffic congested area a toll zone. Toll booths create a stop and go traffic nightmare. Creating a system that is automated (and like most things automated NOT perfect) would at least be a solid solution to not only DETER atleast some traffic, but also not hinder traffic flow. Now of course people will be screaming about how such a system will be used.
Obviously one major problematic scenario is law enforcement going wild with such a resource. You would hope there would be a secure system to prevent abuse, but it creates the infinite problem of who will watch the watchers, who will watch the watchers watching the watchers, etc. As long as the system does not needlessly collect data (such as a blanket camera system that tracks ALL movements within the zone) I dont think most people would mind. You have to remember that even at tollbooths your car is caught on camera (security cameras). True, security cameras dont have the retention this system would require (for billing purposes it would be atleast a month depending on monthly/quartly/yearly pricing) but again, imposes limitations on the use of such data could aid in ensuring the privacy of drivers.
Sorry to go anti-1984 here, but this system is far less frightening than say a CCTV blanket system like that already purposed for many downtown locations around the US, and already in wide spread use in England. While the article was scant on the operational details of the system, it felt like it was going to be used solely to track motorists entering an area and just for billing purposes (as much as we can trust that!).
What remains on that list is the portion that doesn't care about any of that, they will stop at nothing to do whatever crime they intend to commit. Sorry to say, but no matter what you do, crime will always happen. (an example of this is crime during Soviet Russia, if the police even thought you might be responsible for a crime you were either killed or sent go a gulag, yet it still occurred)
I doubt that in any major city since the 1800's have people actually been seriously afraid of having their homes stripped bare, burned down, or riddled with bullet holes (there are exceptions however, gang warfare and race warfare, neither of which would be impacted by this system in the slightest)
After a earlier trial in Stockholm, Sweden the system is back online. The automatic license plate reading system is developed by IBM and only scans license plates when you drive into the toll zone or leaving it. It created a 20% decrease in traffic during the earlier trial and the average speed increased. The air pollution levels was reduced. The bus system, trains and subway noticed an increase in passengers but travel times was reduced still.
The information is kept until payment has been made, when it's removed from the system. With only 2 weeks to pay not much information can be recovered from the database.
With all the alarming reports about climate change and greenhouse gases it's probably a good idea to implement road tolls all over the world. In Stockholm environment friendly cars don't have to pay the road tolls. What is defined as a environment friendly car is subject to change every year as development goes forward.
This consolidates power in the hands of government. Right now, the UK government can be offensive, inappropriate, incompetent, all the traditional sins of government, but they do stop short of being outright openly evil. Alas, government is not a static reliable thing. Many of the functions of government are being gleefully handed over to corporations, either by market-worshipping dingbats who genuinely believe that the market can regulate itself, or by corrupt arseholes who just want the stock options.
Now, imagine the same systems in the hands of a major corporation. Now imagine that the corporation has very few legal restrictions on what it does. Now imagine you have pissed them off.
If that didn't scare you, you have a serious lack of imagination.
I grew up and live close to Beaumont, TX. Closest toll road is in Houston (80+ miles away) that I know of, we have a free ferry even to Galveston. It was a whole different world when I lived in Maryland and was going to NJ, NY, and other states in that area. I don't remember any toll roads in Austin either. It is quite strange going from this environment to a place like NJ where you can't pump your own gas and on the way there you got planes flying over the road to give out tickets in PA.
s/©//g
Texas has "upgraded" some of their toll booths with a similar technology. For about a month after they first started using it, I can remember the reports of people from out of state being fined, and likewise for what should be a relatively simple system.
Unfortunately, the complexity came from something that was "outside" (figuratively speaking) the system.
That being said, what's so newsworthy about this? The fact that it's in New York?
It's when the government starts setting up cameras everywhere to monitor people that you need to be concerned. First it starts with tolls, then red lights, then every street corner, then it starts with measuring the velocity of a moving automobile, then RFID chips, and THEN an Orwellian society might come into play.
That being said, the tin foil hat goes on tonight.
Oh yeah, in that last bastion of freedom: the UK. If it was restricted to just London I could live with that as who in their right mind would want to go there anyway but this broken thinking is spreading to other cities. If that wasn't enough we now have ANPR (automatic number plate recognition) on all the motorways, some a-roads and I've seen it at pertol stations as well. Welcome to the police state. Have a nice stay.
I used to have a better sig but it broke.
There are equivalent sites in many languages that run SlashCode and post Geek news (like Barrapunto).
why anyone would want to drive in Manhattan (aside from commercial delivery or taxi) is beyond me...
stupid cagers!
A simple scale for measuring the brownyness of a person is the Cosby Brownyness Scale.
An albino has the rating 1 millicosby (mC)
A suntanned Caucasian 100mC
A dark person 1 Cosby (C)
very dark people can have a rating of 5 Cosbys (C)
The rating can be modified for persons of Asian descent by applying the Karrot Factor. The average Asian would have a rating of 250mC, Karrot Factor 5(250mC/KF5)
Is how there is not any outrage, but there is acceptability, for the corupt nature of the whole situation. Gas taxes are supposed to pay for roads (maint & repair). That would go to figure, you use public roads, you should pay for them. But now here's a situation where the Federal Govt is giving NY 300+ million to charge people more money to use _PUBLIC_ roads. I guess "Public" no longer means paid for by the people's taxes, but means, paid for by the people's taxes, and rented out to the folks who can afford it.
Rerouting congestion does not solve the problem. NIMBY all over again. Those cars have to go somewhere. And as for the folks who think that public transportation is good enough, that could be viewed as another freedom taken away. Folks drive for many reasons, one being a sense of going where they want, when they want.
There are no loopholes. It's either legal or it's not.
than what they're doing in with the Narrows bridge in Washington state? I think they're taking pictures of license plates and fining people who skip the toll.
http://www.phantomplate.com/print.html
Do people really think that this changes their privacy? Lots of folks have mentioned the congestion charging here in London, but even before it was introduced I got a letter from the police to say that their cameras had seen my car in an area where a murder had been committed, and had I seen anything? If they want to track folks in Manhattan I bet they already have the technology in place.
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
I grew up in NYC. Used to be so much more interesting. Now it's just money. The seedy parts of the city had character. People did not have much money (artists, etc) and it was fun visiting various poor and bohemian areas. Now it's just money, money and more money.
What have the rich produced besides corruption? Pathetic.
Simply boycott NYC and let the rich clean the dishes in the restaurants they frequent assuming everyone would boycott NYC. Let's start a F*KC NYC (pruposely misspelled) campaign as opposed to LOVE NY. OIE VEY.
The most common method at the moment is probably cloning car plates. Pick a similar car to yours which already goes into the zone, and duplicate its plates. Assuming your target car has a yearly pass, noone will ever notice.
I would expect that duplicate plates would be a poor strategy. It should not be hard for a computerized system to notice the same plate has been seen at two different location and alert the police.
Another common technique to use if you don't want to actually break the law is to register your car to a company using a PO Box number. Once registered, drop the PO Box. In the UK all fines go to the registered address, which will then be no longer functional.
Why on earth would the government (or the collections agency that was contracted) not look at the ownership history of the P.O. Box? Also, wouldn't you lose the paperwork to re-register the vehicle as well.
As a New Yorker who walks to work everyday.
TAKE THE TRAIN!!!!!
Save you money, save you time, you might make a friend and from all the bent out of shape face on pavement bike riders i've seen, you might save a life!!!
Besides a lot of trains you can drink on, read the paper or just watch some bumb masterbate.
Maybe that's why motorbicycles (that's what the law calls 'em) are excluded from the London Congestion Charge in the first place. That and the fact that they take up less space on the road.
If your comment title says 'Re: Foo', I'm not likely to read it.
Oh wait, the mayor of London is "Red" Ken Livingstone.
There are ways to do this while keeping privacy in mind and largely intact.
To take where I live as an example. I can pick a manually operated lane and pay via coin toss or handing cash to a human being. These lanes do not record anything unless you try to blast through without paying.
I am not 100% positive such an anonymous alternative is required by law, but I'm fairly certain of it.
If opting for a transponder to avoid having to stop, there are strict limits as to how long identifiable information may be stored. The main concern is of course to register the amount of passes so your transponder is deducted properly. The specific booth or time is not required to fulfill that need. However, since you are entitled to complain, normally the specifics are stored for a short period of time for reference (you have full access to this information by contacting the company or logging into their site). You can opt out of that as well, but that obviously means you have less to point at if you do wish to complain.
Now, I do not live in the US. I trust the oversight system in place where I live to handle this properly. They not only have the power to shut down projects not respecting privacy, they can do the same to government surveillance experiments. And they have done so several times in recent history. I'd not put the same faith in the current US administration.
Why, yes, I agree.
Mind you, so is all America. And if it's not niggers, it's shits and assholes, all cheating everybody to make more $$s.
Raw greed is what made America powerful. That's what let us kill off the natives and the bison and not think twice about it. But it never made us great. Now we are finding out the hard way that you need a balance. The Europeans, particularly the Scandinavians, have got one - if we don't follow their lead, we're fucked.
I go through 6 toll plazas a day. 90% of the time, I have to drop to about 65mph to do so. (10% of the time, something stupid is going on.)
Don't get me wrong. I hate paying tolls. I think roads should be free to use. The privacy problems with having an EZ Tag scare the crap out of me, though not enough to make me give it up.
However, criticism that toll booths create a stop and go traffic nightmare are overblown and unfair. Old toll installations that rely on human tolltakers have these problems; none of the newer systems I've seen installed in the last decade suffer from such difficulties.
I think the reason these systems are a little more acceptable in Europe is that there are strong privacy laws in place. Yes, there is a lot of data being collected, which could *potentially* be used malicously, but privacy laws prevent this from happening (for the most part). Every organisation who collects this data has to be open about what they're collecting, and what they're using it for. Any deviation from this can result in severe penalties.
In the end, collecting and analysing data is an extremely valuable and useful thing. It benefits not just the companies who collect it, but potentially society as a whole. For example, the London C-charge records data on vehicles for pretty much the same reason as what's being proposed in Manhattan. The positive impact is a huge reduction in congestion and pollution in central London. These types of benefits have to be weighed against the potential for mis-use.
Unfortunately, in the US, people don't have the same level of legal privacy protection as the rest of the developed world (not just Europe). Perhaps that's the real problem here.
Actually, I'm fairly certain he was referring to colored folks. Apparently, he doesn't care for 'em.
Toronto has had a system like this in place for years, on its only toll road, Highway 407. If you don't have an 'EZ Pass' transponder in your car, then a camera snaps your license plate.
How else would they bill you?
Well, I guess they could open toll booths and slow traffic to a creep, but I think this is a good progression. Besides, they aren't tracking You, they're just tracking customers. Which is you. Yes. You.
why that would be terrorists of course. nameless, faceless, & it takes almost forever to find/kill them. keeps everybody busy while the planet/population goes in the cosmic toilet. a real georgewellian fairytail nightmare.
this is what you wanted?
better days ahead?
as in payper liesense hypenosys stock markup FraUD felons & their hired goons are on their way out? what a revolutionary concept.
from previous post: many demand corepirate nazi execrable stop abusing US
we the peepoles?
how is it allowed? just like corn passing through a bird's butt eye gas.
all they (the felonious nazi execrable) want is... everything. at what cost to US?
for many of US, the only way out is up.
don't forget, for each of the creators' innocents harmed (in any way) there is a debt that must/will be repaid by you/US as the perpetrators/minions of unprecedented evile will not be available after the big flash occurs.
'vote' with (what's left in) yOUR wallet. help bring an end to unprecedented evile's manifestation through yOUR owned felonious corepirate nazi life0cidal glowbull warmongering execrable.
some of US should consider ourselves very fortunate to be among those scheduled to survive after the big flash/implementation of the creators' wwwildly popular planet/population rescue initiative/mandate.
it's right in the manual, 'world without end', etc....
as we all ?know?, change is inevitable, & denying/ignoring gravity, logic, morality, etc..., is only possible, on a temporary basis.
concern about the course of events that will occur should the corepirate nazi life0cidal execrable fail to be intervened upon is in order.
'do not be dismayed' (also from the manual). however, it's ok/recommended, to not attempt to live under/accept, fauxking nazi felon greed/fear/ego based pr ?firm? scriptdead mindphuking hypenosys.
consult with/trust in yOUR creators. providing more than enough of everything for everyone (without any distracting/spiritdead personal gain motives), whilst badtolling unprecedented evile, using an unlimited supply of newclear power, since/until forever. see you there?
If the current public transport systems are overtaxed, then improve them. Lay on more, improve the quality. I'd say that's a success story in the making. Please don't follow the idiots in power over here in the UK who decided the solution to trains being too popular was to raise ticket prices so less people would travel by train (or presumably squeeze more out of a captive audience).
I guess there is always the issue of car manufacturers and oil producers having influence in your government and being really unhappy that you're not buying their products. Probably that's unpatriotic and makes you a terrorist or something these days....
This was already shot down in the NY state senate weeks ago. Gotta love the Times.
Sure it's a stretch, but just because it isn't part of _our_ public 'online' experience, doesn't mean that it isn't (or won't be) accessible to _someone_ online (in some sense), by which I mean stored and network-accessible. Sadly, I'll probably never get to see my own complete credit/financial, telephone, ATM, public transit, driving, air travel, medical, and employment histories at-a-glance (or yours), although someone might.
Maybe a second layer of tinfoil wouldn't hurt.
^^
And yes, it seems ridiculous to charge you for road use after you pay for a license. But no, it isn't really.
Look at it this way ... some stretches of road are in higher demand than can be accommodated. Hence congestion. With congestion everybody pays ... in lost time {time is money}, reduced accessibility, increased fuel cost, unavailability of parking places etc. Congestion is generally seen as undesirable. But how to avoid it on roads that are in high demand?
The basic idea is to treat road use as any other scarce good: auction it. You could, in theory, do this by allocating say X time-limited slots and auctioning them. This would rank all potential users of that particular road by how much that road-use is worth to them, and only the X highest bidders would get a slot. Not sympathetic, but economically sound. If you can't afford a resource (road use} then it's economically inefficient to let you have it. Singapore for example does something like that. Annual vehicle licenses are limited, and are usually worth more than the cars people drive.
Now auctioning time-limited slots has a practical downside: you never know if you're going to be able to get to your destination, and it costs a lot of money to stage the auction, and then police the use of roads. So people try the next-best thing: road tolling. It's easier and less costly to police than straight time-slots, and it's easier on the users. Done properly it gets rid of those potential users to whom that scarce good (road use} is worth least ... and it allows others, whose need is apparently more urgent, to have it. Not nice, but effective.
And yes ... if you held a referendum you probably wouldn't be able to get support for road pricing. But then voters are famously inconsistent and short-sighted, and sometimes downright stupid. That's why we have a system of representation instead of direct voting on all major issues. It allows unpopular but necessary measures to go through. Of course it allows plenty of stupid money-wasting schemes to go through as well ... but there you go.
Computer Eye, formerly Computerworld (1983); backcover with synopsis.
Just a reminder.
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
I'm sorry, but how else could this possibly work? Set up a bunch of tollbooths at 86th street, with "cash" and "EZ pass" lanes? This would be a logistical and traffic NIGHTMARE, and would totally ruin my neighborhood (I live on 83rd).
If you didn't know that this was part of the plan, you're hopelessly naive.
This wasn't in Manhattan, but I did live in central NY up until last year. I had an EZPass for the thruway for years, but before I had one, I actually received a ticket from the thruway system. It was on Valentine's day, they insisted I ran through the EZPass lane without paying. (I had previously never had an EZPass). I know for a fact that was false, because my wife and I had an optometrist's appointment, we were going to go out for dinner afterwards. Well, they had dialated our pupils so we just drove home... nowhere near the thruway.
... I think someone had stolen them from the recycle bin and ran through the ezpass lane.
Anyhow, to make a long story short, my means of contacting friends who had friends who worked for the thruway, I eventually got in touch with a real person. By this time several weeks had gone by and they escalated the small fine into preparing to take away my license. My friend-with-a-friend suggested that I ask for the picture of my car, as they take pictures, as you go through the lane. Sure enough, either my car type didn't match, or they didn't have the picture. It was dropped and I never heard another thing again.
I honestly think a few weeks prior I had thrown out some old license plates (those in NY know you're supposed to recycle them, but also you're supposed to deface/damage them)
Just an example of how some crazy surveillance crap saved me from a fine or getting my license revoked.
FLR
- (a} earmarking of funds
- {b} insufficient differentiation
{a} As regards earmarking of funds: the temptation is enormous to use gasoline taxes for other things besides road maintenance. Think of e.g. Defense, Homeland Security, Education. Those departments have huge, and varying, needs. How about persuading your average politician, say VP Cheney, that he can't spend gasoline tax income on the military or DHS or whatever? I'd love to hear back from you after you've tried ...
{b} A tax on gasoline won't help reduce congestion. Any tax that even comes close to keeping people away from much-in-demand roads during the rush hour, would be totally un-affordable to anyone driving on a country road in the late evening.
We aren't talking about graphiti and squeegee guys?
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
OK, first of all, Manhattan is an ISLAND. And a number of major entrances/exists to the island already are taking license plate photos. Specifically, all the tolled bridges and tunnels. This isn't comprehensive--I'm not sure the East River bridges to Manhattan take photos (since they don't have tolls), and some of the bridges to the Bronx are similar. But all three tunnels, the GW, and the Triboro are already recording everyone who goes through, even if you pay cash.
Second, if you accept the idea of congestion pricing (and maybe that's an "if"), then there's no other option here--you want tollbooths at 86th and broadway, amsterdam, columbus, cpw, etc.?
Third, this records whether you crossed a given boundary. I don't even know if it records how long you stayed (why would they record exits?) But even if they did, this isn't tracking where you went in Manhattan, just that you entered. And as I noted in point 1, much of this is already tracked.
If you want to get upset about something, for god's sake make it something worthwhile. Specifically, get upset about the plan to imitate London's "ring of steel" with cameras all over the city tracking pedestrians, cars, etc., so they can trace the movement of "terrorists." You want a privacy concern, that's the one to worry about. But congestion pricing as 1984? Please.
If you have ever been to Manhattan, then you would know that there are large areas of it where cars and trucks just do not belong. Parts of it -should- be blocked off to general traffic, and only allow those vehicles which directly support the community. When parking your car costs much more than a night's hotel bill, you know that cars are simply out of place there. Treat the place more like a park, less like a parking lot.
Simple. If you are living West of Greenwich (up to the International Date Line) you are Western. Anyone who lives East of this is a dangerous foreigner - just look at Essex people!
Obviously, you have to be British to be civilised, so the limits to the West stop at Cornwall. Equally obviously, no one should live South of the river, or North of Watford, so the ideal place in the world to live is somewhere in the Home Counties, probably the Chilterns.
Lets settle for Harrow?
I would love it if someone said that to me.
If someone did say that to me - a man, in this example - then I could ask him what his wife's favourite sexual position is, or which co-worker he would turn gay for, or which one person he would kill if he could get away with it.
I don't really care what his answers would be, but that's not why I'd want to ask. I would want that person to decide for himself whether he would tell me or not. If he doesn't feel comfortable telling me, or feels offended that I'd ask, he won't answer, even if he can. That's exactly the point.
If you've got nothing to hide, you really do have nothing to fear. This is true, for as far as it goes, and I'm sure the people who say it believe it. The catch is simple: everyone has something to hide, and not everyone realises it.
Attack its weak point for massive damage!
Notable absent from the FP is that grammar, together with editing - either in form or content.
So much for Freedom of Movement... "Public" travel my eye... /Get a brain morans
I find myself wondering why there isn't a "WTF?" moderator tag...
http://xkcd.com/313/
AFAIK (I'm from upstate but go down to the city regularly), the subway runs 24/7 and the lines go just about everywhere. And if where you want to go isn't next to a subway stop, you could always walk (exercise! yay!), or take a cab if need be.
I fail to see how public transportation, if well-funded (which the MTA isn't, sadly,) curtails personal freedom. In fact, I think it *enhances* it, because then I don't have to worry about getting in an accident and wrecking my car, I don't have to waste a ton of gas idling at stop lights (which means I have more money in my pocket, which is excellent because everything in the city costs more,) and tiredness/drunkenness are of no consequence.
Plus, you can't read the paper in a car. Well, you *shouldn't*, but people do. Yet another reason not to drive in the city.
*parses*
Well met!
One commenter noted that these are "public" roads, not toll roads. I'm not sure I understand how he draws the distinction. I pay taxes to help maintain both public and toll roads. As a New Yorker, I have no problems with private cars being charged to drive on roads. I've been taking the subway for over a decade and haven't driven for over 15 years. Yet I still have to pay for my "public" train system. Why should drivers be any different?
One of the major points of congestion pricing is to limit the number of cars in lower Manhattan. If you choose not to drive because of a loss of privacy, I think that would be considered a "win."
If you want to squawk about the use of computerized records being used to track people, check out the subway system. Far more people use the subway than use the roads, and through the use of the Metrocard my movements can be tracked throughout the city. That is a far larger invasion of privacy in New York City than any proposed congestion pricing models.
--Sam
That it was a story about life in 1984 NYC? I love that stuff... Boom boxes, walkmen, 3 channels of analog TV (well, maybe a few more in New York), mainframe computers. Those were the days!
"Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."
I'm not really surprised at the amount of outcry over this from people who don't actually live in Manhattan whose principles have no practical problems to contend with.
I probably have more reason than some to oppose this law as I own a motor vehicle and live in Manhattan - though mine is a motorcycle and (in London anyway) they are exempt from congestion pricing. Obviously, I hope they get a similar exemption here, but more to the point:
The New York State legislature recently shot this down. It's in the news because Bloomberg managed to wring some money from the Feds on the condition that the legislature approves it next year by the end of March. It is not a sure thing that this will occur. I consider myself a political pragmatist, and I can't really argue that this isn't a practical solution -- anyone who has ever hopped on a bus or tried to take a cab during rush hour knows that you may as well walk (assuming you can even get a cab then). A previous poster was correct in saying that the only people who can speed in Manhattan are cyclists (bicyclists, not bikers like me...at least not if we want to live). I talked to one bike messenger who can get from Penn Station to Union Square in 2 minutes.
If the idea is that all of us who take public transit (and that's not just the subways) will have a faster/easier time of it, that's a good thing. There are provisions in this bill that funnel a lot of money to the public transit system, which, despite having an awful track record of spending money, would benefit from the $100 million or so it would get -- and that's just the Federal share.
Also, to compare & contrast: unless you are a daily commuter, it costs $4 to take the subway somewhere ($2 each way). The congestion pricing is currently $8 for the day. That's a lot more (duh) but it's not so bad that I wouldn't ever drive through Manhattan -- I'd just make a point not to do it regularly. For anyone who has ever sat in the Lincoln Tunnel, that is perhaps not such a bad thing. Anybody whose destination is Manhattan will bleed $8 out their pores just spending an afternoon here.
As for me -- I'm moving to Brooklyn.
The Dallas-area North Texas Tollway Authority is planning to replace toll-takers with all-electronic tollbooths. This means cheating husbands won't be able to avoid the electronic paper trail by paying cash.
Well, at least most highways around here aren't toll roads. Yet.
> as I am increasingly getting the feeling that we as Muslims just aren't welcome
Gee, I wonder why...
Political correctness has its limits.
Whether you like it or not, Islam is now firmly connected with terrorism: blowing up buildings, waging holy war, kidnapping, intimidating, and killing people in the name of Allah, talking about worldwide Islamic revolution, and the like.
That is not to say that all Muslims are terrorists, but it is a fact that most terrorists are Muslims. I am sure you and your uncle are not terrorists, but as long as you are Muslim you are connected to the violent religion of hate and thus are automatically under suspicion.
If you send meat that is ultimately distributed by Hizbollah (or Islamic Jihad, or Hizb-Ut-Tahrir, or Jamia Islamiya, or whatever) it is not as harmless as it sounds. This meat helps those organizations to gain popularity and support and recruit fighters from poor people. This is exactly how Hamas came to power. Everything is connected in this world.
Just like being in London then.
(Disclaimer: although I'm British, I live about 200km. from London; and also about as far from the sea is it's possible to get in a country this size.)
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
If everyone is so worried about their privacy, then take the subway and pay for your card with cash.
Getting more people to take the subway is the main reason for the congestion plan in the first place.
It is not just a question of "use" but of the amount of damage a vehicle does to the road.
Studded tires are a good example - on a local interstate (eastern Washington state), the ruts from the studded tires are deep enough in the road surface that it seriously changes the way the car handles.
But more interestingly, I heard (some time ago) that damage goes up with the number of miles traveled, the square of the speed and the fourth power (!) of the weight. Which, if true, (I've not been able to verify this) would mean that a truck weighing 10 times my car (low for most loaded trucks), driving the same speed as me and the same distance, should be spending $10,000 (10^4) on highway maintenance for every $1 I spend. Let's be simple and suppose that I put $100 into road maintenance per year - then that truck should be putting $1,000,000 per year into the same fund. Better estimates (trucks driving 50 hours a week, many are rather heavier, most travel mostly at higher speeds than I do around town) put that ratio up into the hundreds of thousands and the estimated cost rather higher. The chances though that anyone is going to remove this (rather serious) invisible subsidy are, well, less than infinitesimal.
You already need to pay a toll to get into Manhattan, across every bridge and tunnel, maybe with the exception of one or two local bridges way up north. So, 'they' already know you are on the island; this just would help narrow down whether you were below 86th. And not very well-they probably won't record when you left. Given that prime Manhattan parking space is as expensive per square foot as prime manhattan real estate, and most traffic in Manhattan is cabs, I doubt this will have the impact they want. It seems to me the biggest impact will be for people who regularly make the trip across 86th street, which might cut down traffic on the George Washington Bridge, and might reduce traffic above 86th, and might get people to take a cab to 86th street and then transit the rest of the way home. It will bring in revenue, which is really what this is about.
Remind me why I should give up something to get what I've already got.
(IANAL)
Like many other information gathering systems, my concern is not for the primary legitimate uses. The fact that this data will in all probability be archived as an abstract summary/conclusion instead of the actual evidence means there will be no way to dispute mistakes. Much like when a police officer 'accidently' destroys notes so that his word becomes the primary evidence rather than the recorded observations made at the time. The consequence will be that anyone wishing to dispute a possible mistake will simply be confronted with "the system says your vehicle was there".
At that point, you better have footage from a television news team and a handwritten note from the Pope that he was riding shotgun with you on the other side of town. Anything less, and its your word against the government's expert witness. When this happens YEARS after the supposed incident(s) how are you going to come up with an armorclad alibi?
Store the *recordings themselves* or don't retain the data after it has been used for its DESIGNED purpose.
I mean, come on people. I have an EZ-Pass for the Thruway in NY. Every time I go through a toll booth, it gets noted (date, time, plaza #, vehicle). Actually, every plaza that I've seen has a camera system in it for license plate recognition. What the hell is the difference here? Also, anyone here use a credit card? How about a store discount card? Hmm? You can't tell me that the store doesn't store that data in a big database somewhere. I think people are getting a bit paranoid here.
The point of this system is to provide a disincentive for unnecessary driving into Manhattan. If that means stripping Escalade-driving cagers of their privacy, so be it! I'm generally concerned about surveillance, but not that of bridge and tunnel barbarians. Since NYC has a good mass transit system, unnecessary can pretty much be defined as driving anything other than a delivery truck, bus, construction vehicle, etc. Suburban drivers need to start taking the train or move. I don't have much sympathy for owners of McMansions living in Sprawlville, NJ. Ride a train, bus, or bicycle, and stop giving all of us asthma!
Can I wrap my car in tinfoil?
"Those who believe in telekinetics, raise my hand" - Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
You can complain all you want about the privacy issues, but The Framers could never envision
a world where traffic snarled a major city. The trade off here is your privacy(marginally) for the
right to do something that you shouldn't be doing in the first place, namely driving in a city.
I am going to generalize and say that more than half of the people that drive into downtown areas like
Chicago, or Manhattan, or London, or Paris do so because they are vain and want people to know that they have
cars. Or they are to uppity to use public transportation. The simple fact that our world is too bloody crowded
with worthless automobiles driven by people who don't need them. I recently saw a guy argue with a delivery
truck driver over a minor scratch on the bumper of his Mercedes. Here is some news, if you park on a city street,
expect your car to bumped, dinged and scratched. Don't spend several times more than an average person's annual
salary on a motorcar and then complain about the minor fraction of your weekly income that it'll cost to get it
repainted because you are shallow, vain, SOB.
Congestion charges and their assocciated privacy issues ought to make people think twice about whether or not they
actually need to drive somewhere. Maybe if more people would be worried about whether or not they actually needed
to drive somewhere rather than if their driving habits are being monitored, we'd all be better off.
And by the way, you don't have any reasonable right to privacy in a public place. Most American guarantees of privacy
center on whether the government may arbitrarily delve into your private doings. Using a PUBLIC motorway is not PRIVATE
act. A private act is scratching your nose on your couch, not getting into a publicly registered vehicle, using a public
motorway and driving amongst the general public.
So get together a group of people (or an online social network) and arrange to swap EZ-Passes. Do it periodically, so that no one has any one pass for too long, and make sure that everyone pays whatever fees they've accumulated on the pass they have before they swap it.
Don't keep track of who had the pass in the past; just keep track of where they are now, and if the cops ask, you can reasonably say that you have no idea who was using that pass 6 months ago.
- The Amazina Llama
Because placing an extra sales tax at parking garages below 86th and/or bumping up the tunnel and bridge tolls, and then using the revenue to subsidize public transportation would be too easy.
Certainly adding ez-pass booths won't cause more congestion.
I hope Canadians will get billed for their use of these streets since New York has so graciously assisted them by handing over the DMV database of NY residents so they can be billed if they happen to drive on the automatic tolled 407 highway in Toronto. The most galling aspect of this is that residents of some Canadian provinces with stronger privacy laws can freely drive on the highway without being billed.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
I would hope that they are taking into account that to get from Long Island to New Jersey you pretty much have to travel through midtown/downtown Manhattan to do so (otherwise the only other options are the GWB and Verrazano Bridge, which are way too far out of the way). Unfortunately the highways that were supposed to connect the Manhattan Bridge to the Holland Tunnel, and the Queens-Midtown Tunnel to the Lincoln Tunnel, were never built. So, that forces traffic on Canal and 34th Streets, respectively. Would there be exemptions for those streets? It's not fair to have to pay an extra $8 if all you are going to do is take a 10-15 minute jaunt going from end to end, not intending on parking anywhere.
A sentence you'll never see on an Internet discussion board: "You know what? You're right."
personally i think they should turn a random town in new jersey into a parking lot, and force people to take trains into the city. cars ruin midtown. i hate cars. all streets should become pedestrian thoroughfairs. make times square a permanent street fair. turn the taxi fleet into a bunch of pedicabs, scooters, and small european style microcars. make all truck deliveries during a certain hour of the night
and then i turn to slashdot, and i find a bunch of spin that frankly doesn't get the situation at all. a lot of the discussion here is about accepting a loss of freedom
loss of freedom?! you mean GAIN of freedom. the oppressive fascist presence here being CARS, not the government!
hello, i live here, i think i understand better than the average slashbot about what is going on with this plan. i don't see it as mourning a loss of freedom. i see it as celebrating a loss of CARS
let's put it this way: in the fight against what you perceive as an intrusive government and loss of privacy, try to understand what people on the ground are actually thinking about the situation, and pick the right fight. don't misinterpret the situation and come charging in horns ablaring about this issue or that issue that frankly, no one is actually concerned with and doesn't even apply
or rather, for the sake of argument, let's take the absurd position that the slashbots here are correct about this being an intrusive government issue and not a clogged traffic issue. ok, well then, now you understand that those who live in midtown manhattan welcome the devilish scheme of emperor palpatine to take away their freedoms under the guise of a bait and switch maneuver that the issue is something else entirely. fine: now try to understand what emperor palpatine is baiting us with, and use that issue as a starting point for your own words. the point being, it doesn't pay to march into a situation with the discussion already all figured out in your head without any input or attempt to persuade the people who are actually the targets of the plan in question
know your audience, speak to their concerns. or don't bother speraking at all. because they're not going to listen to you if you don't try to understand where they are coming from
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
There are a couple of issues with this proposal. The most basic one would be: how would it work?
All bridge & tunnel commuters would be exempt, because they already paid their toll to get in. How do you track that? How can they tell you crossed a toll bridge instead of the free bridge (there's on on the east side on 121st or so)? Is the mayor assuming that congestion isn't caused by the bridge and tunnel crowd?
Is NYC going to put a barrier across 86th street? How does that affect fire and emergency vehicles? How are the barriers going to go away during the day?
What if you have to drive across the 86th street line every day, for multiple deliveries? Is there a multiple-entry fee?
If you get below 86th before the cutoff time, then leave, can you go back in?
It's an interesting proposal, but I've never seen any data on the components of "congestion." If everybody is below 86th street when fee time starts, the fee won't do much to prevent congestion.
People should not be allowed to reference 1984 (or say "Orwellian") unless they've actually read the thing. It describes a totalitarian state that makes Stalin look like a libertarian. It's not just about a government that spies on its people (though only the upper classes). It's about people willfully changing their own memories of the past and a ruling party that claims to control reality. All of this is set in a world of permanent war and grinding poverty for almost all of humanity.
People are right to be concerned about the government spying on them. But most of the intrusions that people are up in arms about is a long way from "1984" territory. Being added to a database every time you drive into Manhattan does raise privacy concerns, but it's many orders of magnitude away from the nightmare Orwell described.
Warning: it's illegal to follow the above Gutenberg Australia link if you live in the U.S. or some other country that has effectively made copyrights permanent. That's a bad thing, but it's not "Orwellian" either.
If they really want to do this, all they need to do is start making new plates with embedded RFID. They would not need to do anything with the RFID for a while... just distribute the new plates to existing drivers and make sure that all new drivers also get the new plates. The plates should be visually different from the old ones so that it is easy to tell the difference and let people know that past a certain date (maybe 5 years or so in the future) people who are still driving with the old plates will face fines. In a few years nearly everyone would have the new plates. They can then start using the RFID tags in the plates as they see fit.
Of course, this won't do anything to track the plates of people driving who are from out-of-state, but they can still track the raw numbers by measuring the number of cars that pass through major areas and comparing that to the number of cars with RFID plates. My money would be on that number being an insignificant minority in most areas except near state borders, due to the locality principle.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
The problem is that they keep track of the car--even if you don't have EZ-Pass, which makes a record, you have a license plate which is photographed, and then you're billed based on the license plate. So there are feasible alternatives to EZ-Pass, but the privacy concern exists either way.
Public Transit is almost certain to come under surveillance, though. There's a much better argument for recorded surveillance there, at least for a time: the mass transit system is a terribly appealing terrorist target, I should think.
And the system mentioned in the article notes your license plate if you don't have EZ-PAss.
In your specific case, as you describe it, congestion charging would indeed achieve nothing for you, except make your life more expensive because the next-best mode alternative is likely to be even worse. And yes ... public transport is notorious for requiring additional travel for access to and egress from the public transport network. And yes ... I know that the British train system suffers from decades of under-investment. And no ... of course you can't be blamed for the poor service level of public transport you describe. The only remaining question is: what would the impact of that congestion charging scheme that you describe be on Birmingham as a whole plus, say, people withing 10 miles of it? In other words ... would the welfare decrease for you and others like you be offset by a welfare increase for others? Chances are that either economic studies of congestion charging and its effects would show a net economic benefit, or that the importance of relieving congestion in the center of Birmingham is rated very highly.
Unfortunately it's darned near impossible to come up with any policies that affect lots of people that aren't plain unreasonable in at least some of the cases. And market-based approaches and overall economic perspectives only consider overall monetary (or monetizable) effects and contain no consideration whatsoever for individual hardship or reasonableness.
Orthodox economic thought would say "You choose this consumption bundle, consisting of residential location, choice of workplace, travel mode etc., which was optimal for you. This apparently includes a residential location away from the big city with a poor accessability. Now external factors (read congestion charging) are changing the cost of that consumption bundle so it's no longer optimal. It's your responsability to re-optimize your consumption bundle, taking transaction cost into account.".
Freely translated as: "If you don't like the price increase of your commute, change home or workplace or both. If those costs outweigh the cost increase of your commute, suck it up.".
This line of thought doesn't contain a lot of empathy, I admit. But it's pure market-oriented thought nonetheless. The underlying idea is that if places like Birmingham can't offer a decent level of accessability for specific commuters, then those people should just move elsewhere. And it's true ... from the perspective of a whole region or even a country, ... but not exactly fair to the individuals involved.
Unless someone has a reason to remember you, they will forget that they saw you walking or driving in public in about 3 seconds. Contrast that to having your exact location, method of transport, and time of travel stored in a permanent, searchable database.
Yep, they can track you: don't drive into Manhattan. It's that simple. That's the whole point of the proposed law, to keep people from driving into Manhattan.
You can walk in, bike in, skate in, helicopter in, take the bus or train (you paid for that MetroCard with cash, right?) and you won't be tracked. There isn't going to be a border checkpoint or anything like when you fly into one of our airports.
But if you choose to use a car, you forfeit this particular slice of your right to privacy.
I'm a paranoid guy, but I'm all for this. Get out and walk like the rest of us if you don't like it.
You can't take the sky from me...
The bookstores track me.
Fools like you don't realize that each baby step takes society in the same direction.
You can't take the sky from me...
Are we reasonable people?
I, like wombat, live in Manhattan. And I too, am more than a little worried about real outcome(s) of implementing a 'congestion pricing' system in NYC with respect to privacy and our rights to be 'secure in our homes'.
Understand that, in PRACTICE, the fourth amendment and the expectation of privacy are legally tested using the assumption of reasonableness - meaning that the private space is defined based on prevailing understanding (read 'common sense') of what is / is not private space.
For example, can one reasonably assume that while at a Mets game (public space) one will not be seen, and that one's uncovered face will not be photographed by other fans, sports photographers, news crews? No, it is not reasonable to assume this, and the Major League Baseball can broadcast your face on TV or on the JumboTron without permission. However, aiming a camera up your skirt and broadcasting your ass for all to see would is NOT permissible precisely 'cause it's private space and would fail test of reasonableness.
Context informs reasonableness (and yes, my example does NOT directly address authority of the government). The thing to remember is that reasonableness is a subjective standard. If the state (or by proxy corporations!) move the boundaries of what constitutes a reasonable understanding of privacy (congestion pricing = we told you we'd be watching you!) then these boundaries become legal when no one objects. And this test also applies to all automated record keeping (cell phone locaation, RFID!) and remote sensing technologies (thermal imaging systems!).
I know that I don't want my movements / associations recorded at will by the government. I assume that most you share a similar and reasonable position. Am I wrong?
Google up on 'expectation of privacy', 'reasonable person test' and 'plain view doctrine' for more. Hell, perhaps then read / re-read the fourth amendment.
Mr. Green.
I'm sure most people who bitch at the notion of having their cars tracked while being in NYC will probably carry a cell phone. Thus, they can already be traced with greater accuracy than their cars as these will have their license plates scanned only every now and then.
where's all that Karma?
The vast majority of people are idiots. The problem is they're too stupid to realize it.
The vast majority of people who think that the vast majority of people are idiots, are idiots. Mostly the ones who think they're being smart by including their own self in that majority of idiots ;-)
You just got troll'd!
You said, "find it kinda disconcerting that I could one day be confronted by police with an exhaustive list of my movements for the last 10 years."
But that's just the thing; you're disconcerted, and nothing more. It is uncomfortable, feeling like you're constantly watched, under scrutiny and that everything you do can be held against you. But that only underscores what the real problem is; that even though we are putting in place systems to watch (and, perhaps in an ideal world 'secure') the public and public spaces, we are not putting into place anything to oversee those systems. No one is watching the watchers.
In fact, we're fed the line, "You can't know what we're doing because it compromises (national) security." The real uncomfortable truth, though, is that in a democratic society which is becoming ever-more populated, we are not only going to have to accept that the technology which can be used to track individuals will be used to do so, but that if we want that to not be a problem, we must rise to the challenge of putting into place a check and a balance for that new power being utilized by our government.
I think, though, it's a mistake to try and escape to a non-'Western Axis' country. I think it was Mohamed who said (and I'm paraphrasing, because I don't speak Arabic), "One should act, and if one cannot act, one should speak, and if one cannot speak, only then should one simply think. But thinking is the weakest form doing right." He was talking about the necessity to speak and, more importantly, do the things that are required to bring around a just society. Simply thinking, 'This is wrong' or 'I am made uncomfortable by this' is not enough; one has to speak to that and to act upon that. I think that removing yourself from the arena is therefore the worst thing that can happen; Americans are underexposed to Islamic culture as it is. Separation isn't the answer, integration is. When we are living side by side with Muslims it is going to be a lot harder to vote for someone who is eager to "threaten to bomb Mecca and Medina" in the 'war on terror'.
The solution is really to balance the power equation. You can run - for now, anyway - or you can demand your right as a human and moreover as a citizen; your right to know who is accessing that information, and how they're using it, and what other information they're accessing - or not accessing.
[Ego]out
First of all, lets go over some terrorism we've been exposed to in the last thirty years that aren't Muslim; The IRA, Timothy McVeigh, Christians who shoot abortion doctors, Japanese who gas subways - and lets not get into what sort of fear-mongering, heavy-handed threats and bombing that the current Administration has engaged in which could easily classify as 'terrorism'.
I mean, clearly you're flame-baiting - else why are you anonymous? But it's a bald-faced lie that Islam is any more terrorist than any other demographic. Propagating that lie is as immoral as any act as I can think of. I mean, really, think for yourself - stop listening to the propaganda that is being fed to you.
And before you respond; Islam is not at all about violence, or about hate. In fact, if you knew anything at all about it's origins, you'd probably recognize the perversion that it's being put through to serve the ends of people who don't have religious enlightenment in mind at all, but their own lamentable ends.
[Ego]out
Bangladesh has 100M people, of which 85M are Muslim. It is a secular parliamentary democracy. That sounds like a 'reasonable degree of freedom' to me. In short; your view of the Muslim world is a bit biased.
[Ego]out
You're making an entirely fallacious connection by saying that the religion is the primary source of their societies. That is a lot like saying the entirety of the United States culture was a result Protestantism. We have more freedoms due to our form of government - which explicitly separated out the Church. We have more wealth for reasons that have nothing to do with religion - and little to do with our outstanding moral character. We have gone all over the world taking what we want to make ourselves richer; it is a great surprise anyone still likes us, given the travesties of poverty we've inflicted. Islamic morality is actually quite appealing, if you look at it - but it has little to do with the 'fundamentalist' values we see spoken about on TV. It is certainly more appealing than a society who can't get their voting straight, who let convicted criminals of national-scope crimes get away without a sentence, who pollute their environment and the environments of others with nary a care. I don't think you can point to Western morality as our saving grace.
[Ego]out
No, but no one has blown anything up in the name of Sartre or Plato, either. Plenty of things have been blown up for 'God', though, in many forms - because God is a thought, an abstraction, an entity without material form. And thus the ultimate in things that can be corrupted to serve any purpose. Buddha was real, and preached a practical philosophy.
[Ego]out
You don't think the class warfare going on in the US isn't oppressive? Where rich kids are allowed - aided, even - in going to wealthy schools, while poor kids are relegated to dumps and an educational future that is next to useless? You think that the corporate execs of Enron were looking to help the common man, their employees, have a permissive future by embezzling their money and leaving them without recourse? Perhaps you think things like the Patriot Act give us more options?
There are many types of freedom; I am free, right now, to walk anywhere. But I have to pay for a car - I'm limited financially. I am limited by my education, by my age, by my skin color, by any number of things, and these little limitations can add up to oppression. Would I be less free elsewhere? Sure, but lets not lie to ourselves and pretend that we, in America, are as free as we could possibly be.
But, you know, some of my ancestors were probably slave owners. Some of them probably slaughtered some demographic at some point. Some of them were probably Vikings or Romans or somesuch. I definitely don't fight for the glory of Pax Romana - and would fight against it, if it were even feasible. It's not unnatural for people to change what they want. It's also not unnatural to say, 'My ancestors died for this cause, but I choose to live for the fruits of that cause'. One of the fruits of freedom is that you don't have to kill to enforce your viewpoint, you have to educate. And perhaps, for the French, they deem that the highest virtue is accommodation, rather than oppression of a choice that people are making.
There is nothing wrong with promoting Islam. There is everything wrong with promoting oppressive regimes. But what person in this world can say they aren't doing that? The U.S. - and all it's taxpayers - gave Saddam the money and the arms to fight Iran, and oppress his people. We are doing the same with the Saudis, the Egyptians, the Israelis, the Pakistanis - even while our own government takes our rights away. Long story short; Let he who is without fault throw the first stone.
[Ego]out
Don't they already track people entering Manhattan through any of the bridges or tunnels because they are all terrorist targets? They already know you're in there.
We are the 198 proof..
Ahem. Excuse me, but why O why is the parent post a "troll", moderators? I think it makes perfect sense to levy the road taxes on the people who are using them.
Trust not a man who's rich in flax / His morals may be sadly lax
Now i might be held accountable for my actions!
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
"If you were willing to accept EZPass, are you willing to accept this system?"
Yes, IF I were willing to accept EZPass I'd accept this sytem. But I **DO NOT** accept EZPass, because the records for it are stored for lengthier periods of time than they should be. I do not have anything to hide, but do not wish to contribute information to systems without privacy protections. I pay cash.
Odd don't you think that this all started seriously for my friends in the UK during the tenure of another man named Blair? Personally I am happy I do not yet consider myself a "subject", even if the reality is that I am "subject" to more intrusions upon my liberty with each passing day.
Wabi-Sabi
Matthew