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."

Comments

What?

[DarkIye]

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?

Re:What?

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

In the old days, a stalker had to take time off work to follow a victim and find out every place she went.

With comprehensive vehicle tracking, all he has to do is suborn someone with access to EZ-Pass records.

Too hypothetical? Then consider something that's already happened, divorce lawyers using EZ-Pass records.

Agreed, though, calling it 1984 is hyperbole as long as there are feasible alternatives to having an EZ-Pass.

Re:What?

[Angstroem]

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?
br> Also, how does this qualify as having to do with Our Rights Online?

Ignorance is bliss, Darklye, isn't it?

You just may want to have a look at Germany. You might or might not remember the fuzz about the German "Toll Collect" system introduced a couple of years ago. A definitely overblown system being able to measure the car, count axles, shooting fotos, talking to board computers etc.

Everyone thought that this was a crazy amount of technology thrown at a problem so simple as collecting toll. Everyone laughed at the tech consortium which was not able to deliver in time

First voices arose why the contracts were not publicly viewable. No freedom of information for this very contract... Still everyone insisted that this technology will solely be used for collecting toll.

Meanwhile, things changed. A total surveillance infrastructure being able to track individual cars not only with the help of the installed board computer, but just by mere picture recognition (mind you, Germany introduced machine-readable using OCR fonts -- of course all for the sake of increased security against plate counterfeiting -- plates already in the 90s). And while the law still is active that the infrastructure may be solely used for toll collecting, it gets constant fire -- and it will probably only take another legislature period until it falls and finally, all the authorities will also have access to this data.

Your turn, Mr. Spock.

Re:What?

[MrNaz]

Agreed, though, calling it 1984 is hyperbole as long as there are feasible alternatives to having an EZ-Pass.

Well, no. That's like saying the sentence "Microsoft is a monopoly" is hyperbole while alternatives to Windows exist.

Re:What?

[rizzo420]

so now you just walk or take public transit. last i checked there was no toll for walking or taking transit to enter manhattan.

you have to understand that driving is not necessary in places like new york. don't want to be tracked, don't drive. people who use the ez pass do it out of choice. you aren't required to use one on the highways. you can just pay cash at the tolls and not be tracked. or if you're still worried, take the bus or train. driving a car is not a necessity or requirement, it's a luxury.

London 1984? ;)

[Hanners1979]

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.

Re:Funny

[pimpimpim]

If there ever was a treshold that would stop this due to privacy reasons, it has long been passed. The German Autobahns have a huge system covering almost all the Autobahns tracking trucks for billing reasons. It is now still forbidden by law to use the system for law enforcement, the tracking is done independently from police databases. Though, as recently one police officer got killed at a tank stop, for which the offenders could have been caught using this system, and with the paranoid Schäuble as minister of interior, it will probably not take long before the police gets full control over that database. Face it, registrations like this are pretty harmless on itself, but also a part of the slow and seemingly unstoppable, erosion of privacy.

Good

[Professor Mindblow]

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.

Re:who wants to go there?

[User 956]

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 problem is ..

[Dr_Barnowl]

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.

Re:Awesome!

[mr_matticus]

Because it's just like driving through any other toll plaza anywhere else. I've not heard of any that don't use cameras to track cars or give away the fact that you crossed the control point with your ETC transponder. How this information is any different from going through other toll plazas or border crossings is beyond me. Moreover, why it matters is also a puzzling thought. So a computer knows you drove into Manhattan. It's not like it would have been a secret without these toll plazas.

If "they" want to watch you, they can do it. That ability is not new, nor is it going anywhere. Attempting to attribute some lingering fear to the fact that you're visible to others in public is paranoid.

Re:Funny

[FireFury03]

will give up their privacy for a discount card at the supermarket.

There is a big difference between voluntarilly giving up your privacy and being *required* to do so though.

Re:Awesome!

[CmdrGravy]

Classic, first of all you denounce the entire UK as a bunch of right wing Sun reading racists and then in the very next sentance you moan about people making sweeping statements about sections of society. A case of double standards here perhaps ?

The majority of people in the UK are not right wing Sun reading racists, although some of us are and some of the more religiously inspired members of the Muslim community are really not interested much in integration.

If you actually want to do something to help both the right wing racists and the isolationist muslims it's best to see people as they actually are rather than relying on broad caricatures.

papers, please

[roesti]

Oh, and if you're going to give me the "if you've got nothing to hide you've got nothing to fear" line, please don't, I've heard it many times before and it sounds dumber each time I hear it.

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.

Re:Awesome!

[halber_mensch]

"I 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." I could care less. It would establish my innocence. I don't find it intimidating at all. I think you've missing the bigger picture here. In a free society information about citizens isn't arbitrarily stockpiled for potential criminal investigations. In a free society, information for a criminal investigation is gathered once a citizen is officially suspected of a crime. The purpose of a free society's law enforcement is not to preemptively scour the populous with microphones and video cameras for all lawbreakers and dissenters, as you would see in a totalitarian state, but to respond to visible breaches of the law. In America, we're headed down a slippery slope - letting our congress sign away our traditional rights and liberties, because we're afraid that the "terrorists" are going to get us in our sleep. Eventually, we'll have no liberties to be abused by the "terrorists", and we'll simply trudge through servile lives anxiously avoiding any "suspicious" activity or thought deemed dangerous (read: independent) by the government, lest we be whisked away in a black van paid for by our own tax dollars to an offshore unsupervised prison we opted not to care about when it was erected, to be interrogated through torture we legalized to get information from terrorists, out of sight and mind of anyone that might care but now can't do anything without being locked in the cells next to us. Maybe that's a paranoid rant, but that's how I imagine a life lived in "safety" in exchange for liberty.

i live in times square

[circletimessquare]

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