Posted on 07/22/2004 6:12:38 PM PDT by Mulder
SEMINOLE COUNTY, Fla. -- Is Big Brother watching Central Florida drivers? The Department of Transportation is planning a new way to track hundreds of thousands of drivers, and traffic. But some people say tracking their every move is going too far.
We see traffic studies all the time using those little ropes that count cars and cameras that watch for accidents. But this device is different. It can actually track your specific car as you drive around town and you give them the tool to do it.
You drive along minding your own business. But just who else is minding your business?
You might not notice it at first. But if you look a little closer, you'll see it, and it can see you.
Mike Patient doesn't like that.
"You're actually tracking a single individual in a vehicle going from point to point to point," he says.
The Department of Transportation is placing 120 electronic readers, just like the ones that read your E-PASS, at intersections to track drivers from the Turnpike and I-4 and through surface streets like 436, 17-92 and Highway 50.
Some of the readers even blend right in with existing signs and lights and they read the E-PASS transponder that's already in your car.
"Basically, it's just another tool so you can determine travel times," explains Steve Homan Department of Transportation.
A computer will assign your E-PASS a number to keep someone from tracking a person by name and the data is erased within minutes of being stored. There's just enough time to calculate the travel time for a traffic hotline and a website you'll be able to access next year.
"Our goal in this equipment is to tell how long it's gonna take to get from point A to point B. That's the intent. We intend to serve the public, not track 'em down," Homan says.
But the DOT admits, the technology could be used to do that.
The Expressway Authority says, when you sign the contract for an E-PASS it's actually in there that you agree to be a part of traffic studies.
By the end of the year, all 120 of the readers should be installed so the system can be up and running next spring. The state will begin by tracking cars in Orange, Seminole, Osceola and Brevard counties.
Because some cars will turn off or use other roads, only about five percent will end up being tracked.
An interesting quotation, new to me.
Why do you think they have? Could it be that intellectuals deeply resent the fact that the population as a whole does not recognize that they are superior beings who have all the answers (sarcasm)?
I believe that they think will be in charge in a world where totalitarianism reigns.
No, I've never read it but I can imagine why it is scary.
We're going to take things away from you (LIBERTY) on behalf of the common good." Hillary 6/29/2004
Oh, my God, what has it been? Ten years ago? I still remember every page.
No other book like it!
I'd love to be privy to his research for that book.
Do you think he had NSA pals help him or what.
In terms of Gov. snooping, it's more important than 1984!
And to think, it was written in the previous century!
One of the scariest parts was when the bad guy used the search and seizure laws to take down the cop that was getting to close. Ouch! That was when I first started understanding just how bad things were getting.
VERICHIP * RFID. Let's bar code and track you. Bagged, tagged, caged and tamed. If you THINK you have $50,000 in your hand, don't worry we can automatically "adjust" your account. You have 5,000 speeding incidents recorded this month, so we'll call it even til next month.
Next month, your soul. If you resist? ... well you wouldn't want to do that ....
The sheep are being led to the slaughter. "No big deal."
How can we afford to maintain the government in the manner to which it has become accustom?
You could be right. Of course, they never will be -- the men of action will always take charge over a bunch of vacillating pencil-necks (and I speak as a PhD pencil-neck).
Wrong. Your position can be caluculated to within a few feet. Mobile phone "GPS" does not use satellites, it uses signal strength to antennas and the location of the antennas to calculate where you are. You have been bagged and tagged.
Gonna be big market for "jammers". That way you can use your E pass at the tolls, then turn on your jammer and blot out the signal when you don't want it broadcast.
Not true if you are only accessing one cell site, or if you are mobile. It can ID an area/vicinity , but not a location to within a few feet.
That is only true if ONLY one tower recieves your signal. In 80% of mobile wireless coverage areas (maybe more for CDMA) more than one tower sees your signal and the sytem must decide which tower you will be connected through. Which is also why the mobile wireless network already collects the data needed to locate you.
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