After a certain point, it’s not paranoia.
The latest brick in the wall is the predictably named “Moving
Ahead For Progress in the 21st Century Act,” also known as Senate
Bill 1813. (See here for
the full text of the bill itself; the relevant section is 31406.)
This legislation — already passed by the Senate and likely to be
passed by the House — will impose a legal requirement that all new
cars made beginning with the 2015 models be fitted with so-called
Event Data Recorders (EDRs). These are the “black boxes” you may
have read about that store data about how you drive — including
whether you wear a seat belt and how fast you drive — ostensibly
for purposes of post-accident investigation.
These EDRs are not new. GM and other automakers have been
installing them in new cars for years — in GM’s case, since the
late 1990s. What’s new is the proposed federal mandate, which would
make it illegal to not have one — or (in all likelihood)
to remove or disable one in a car required to have the device.
The question arises: why?
Several possibilities come to mind:
First, the EDRs could be — and almost certainly will
be — tied into your vehicle’s GPS. (Most new and late model cars,
conveniently, already have this, too.) Then data about your driving
can be transmitted — as well as recorded. To whom? Your
insurance company, of course. Progressive Insurance already has
such a system in place — voluntary, for the moment.
When EDRs are mandated, you will no longer have a choice.
We’ll be told it’s all for the sake of (groan) “safety” — just
like the old 55 MPH highway speed limit and every radar trap in the
country. Of course, it’s really for the sake of revenue — the
government’s and the insurance company’s. Your rates will be
“adjusted” in real time, for every incident of “speeding” or not
buckling up. It’ll be so much more efficient than using
cops to issue tickets. After all, so many fishes escape! With an
EDR in every car, no one will escape. Your “adjusted” premium will
be waiting for you when you get home.
You’ve got mail!
And naturally, they — the government, insurance
companies — will be able to track your every move, noting (and
recording) where you’ve been and when. This will create a
surveillance net beyond anything that ever existed previously. Some
will not sweat this: After all, if you’ve got nothing to hide, why
worry? Except for the fact that, courtesy of almost everything we
do being either “illegal” or at least “suspicious,” we all have a
great deal to hide. The naivety of the Don’t Worry, it’s No Big
Deal crowd is breathtaking.
But the last possibility is probably the creepiest: EDRs tied
into your car’s GPS will give them — the government
and/or corporations — literal physical control over (hack) “your”
vehicle. This is not conspiracy theorizing. It is technological
fact. Current GM vehicles equipped with the same
technology about to be mandated for every vehicle can be disabled
remotely. Just turned off. All the OnStar operator has to do is
send the appropriate command over the GPS to your car’s computer,
which controls the engine. It is one of the features
touted by OnStar — of course, as a “safety” feature.
In the future, it will be used to limit your driving —
for the sake of “energy conservation” or, perhaps, “the
environment.” It will be the perfect, er, vehicle, for
implementing U.N. Agenda 21 — the plan to herd all of us formerly
free-range tax cattle into urban feedlots. So much easier to
control us this way. No more bailing out to the country or living
off the grid - unless you get there (and to your work) by
walking.
The pieces are all coming together.
First, computer-controlled cars. Next, widespread adoption of
GPS in cars. Then, EDRs tied into them.
Viola. “Your” car is suddenly under the control of
others. Just as “your” other (cough, hack) property — “your” home,
for example — is under the control of others. It does not matter
that you paid for it. Or even that you have the legal
fiction of ownership. You do not control “your” property
— hence it is really the property of others. You are
merely allowed to use said property — under certain
conditions — by the leave of the true owners.
And once SB 1813 is passed and signed into law, there will no
longer be an opt-out. In fact, sure as the rooster crows in the
morning, you can bet the next step will a law requiring
older cars not originally fitted with the technology be fitted with
it — or else decommissioned. It is inconceivable that
they — the government and its insurance company cronies
— will allow anyone to drive a vehicle not subject to this
monitoring and control. They will insist it’s not “safe” — and of
course, “unfair” that owners of older cars not equipped with EDRs
are able to “get away” with “speeding” and not wearing their seat
belts.
Our cars were once a tangible expression of the freedom ideal.
They are fast becoming mobile cages. And the really devilish thing
is they’re making us pay the costs of our own imprisonment,
too.
