A black box in your car? Some see a source of tax revenue

[Dont Taz Me Bro]

In Nevada, where about 50 volunteers' cars were equipped with the devices not long ago, drivers were uneasy about the government being able to monitor their every move.

"Concerns about Big Brother and those sorts of things were a major problem," said Alauddin Khan, who directs strategic and performance management at the Nevada Department of Transportation. "It was not something people wanted."

As the trial got underway, the ACLU of Nevada warned on its website: "It would be fairly easy to turn these devices into full-fledged tracking devices.... There is no need to build an enormous, unwieldy technological infrastructure that will inevitably be expanded to keep records of individuals' everyday comings and goings."

Nevada is among several states now scrambling to find affordable technology that would allow the state to keep track of how many miles a car is being driven, but not exactly where and at what time. If you can do that, Khan said, the public gets more comfortable.

A black box in your car? Some see a source of tax revenue - latimes.com

I don't get more comfortable. Who can trust the government to not use the data to spy on you, particularly after the NSA revelations?

I'm sure the "if you have nothing to hide" candy ass crowd will roll over for this one too.

I don't see this being a privacy issue as long as the black box only uses gps to calculate miles driven and does not transmit gps coordinates. This can easily be written into the law.

My whole point is that you can't trust them to respect your privacy even if it is written into the law. Who is going to know it's happening?

NSA, anyone?

 

[Quantum Windbag]

If the purpose of these monitoring devices is that of facilitating more efficient traffic control I would voluntarily accept installation only if a law were passed making it a criminal offense (with a minimum one year imprisonment penalty) to employ or reveal the data it generates for any other purpose.

I am confident that proviso would prevent any bureaucrat from misusing or allowing misuse of the data.

hahahaha.....'confident'......hahahaha......

Yes. Confident.

If you were a bureaucrat in a position to misuse that data, what would motivate you to risk a prison sentence for doing it? You'd really need to be either stupid or masochistically suicidal.

I will assume there would be one or two nitwits who might do it, but I can't imagine why. The only reason why there is so much corruption and abuse of citizens' rights by bureaucrats is there are no serious penalties for it. And that is the problem.

I was very surprised to learn the corrupt mayor of Detroit has been sentenced to twenty-eight years in prison. You may rest assured that action will cause a lot of politicians to walk a straight line. Not all. But a lot.

What motivates police all over the country to risk a prison sentence to look up the address of pretty women they see in a car?

I think the real problem here is you are an idiot that actually thinks laws stop people from doing bad things.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

I don't get more comfortable. Who can trust the government to not use the data to spy on you, particularly after the NSA revelations?

I'm sure the "if you have nothing to hide" candy ass crowd will roll over for this one too.

I don't see this being a privacy issue as long as the black box only uses gps to calculate miles driven and does not transmit gps coordinates. This can easily be written into the law. Currently, electric cars get a free pass when it comes to collecting gas taxes and to a lesser extent hybrids vesicles. so using miles driven would seem to be a fairer method of collecting road taxes.

I trusted the irs not to target political enemies of the president too.

I didn't.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

I don't see this being a privacy issue as long as the black box only uses gps to calculate miles driven and does not transmit gps coordinates. This can easily be written into the law. Currently, electric cars get a free pass when it comes to collecting gas taxes and to a lesser extent hybrids vesicles. so using miles driven would seem to be a fairer method of collecting road taxes.

well, but I see it as a problem. you allow tracking the car - and the pandora box is opened.
NO

If the boxes only contain what is needed to determine mileage, I don't see that as a problem. Tracking, and reporting locations would require a lot more technology than just recording how much you drive a year.

How would that work, in your universe? In the real world it is impossible to not get other data from an odometer, even if it is an old fashioned analog one that has been standard in cars for decades. Using just the mileage readings from an odometer I can tell you the gas mileage, where a person has been, and give you a good guess of how fast he drives.

 

[Flopper]

I don't get more comfortable. Who can trust the government to not use the data to spy on you, particularly after the NSA revelations?

I'm sure the "if you have nothing to hide" candy ass crowd will roll over for this one too.

I don't see this being a privacy issue as long as the black box only uses gps to calculate miles driven and does not transmit gps coordinates. This can easily be written into the law.

My whole point is that you can't trust them to respect your privacy even if it is written into the law. Who is going to know it's happening?

NSA, anyone?

I can't picture the workings of a device installed in 100 million or so vehicles being kept a secret.

About half the people carry a tracking device called a smartphone in their pocket which could be used to track our every move. We give government and business the tools needed to invade our privacy in order to benefit from the marvels of modern technology. In the future, our lives will be an open book for government and business to read as they choose.

 

[MikeK]

lol now that's ironic, the guy with the Guy Fawkes mask trusts the government to do the right thing after all the abuse of power by our government has been shown to be taking place.

Nothing ironic about expecting bureaucrats to behave properly when constrained by laws with menacing penalties for violation.

So, again -- in case you didn't understand this part, the reason for most abuse of power by government officials is the absence of preventive laws and sufficiently intimidating penalties for violating them. Send a few officials and politicians to prison for corruption and deliberate malfeasance and overnight we will see a dramatic improvement in the quality of government.

Your cynicism is understandable but the situation isn't hopeless. All that's needed is for the voters to wise up and start electing candidates with revolutionary ideas, such as Dennis Kucinich and Bernie Sanders, both of whom have recommended serious penalties for official misconduct.

Maybe things need to get worse before they get better. But the problem with cynicism is it quickly turns to defeatism and hopelessness.

The mask doesn't belong to me. You can wear it, too. Just copy it. http://www.usmessageboard.com/customavatars/avatar23819_2.gif

 

[Flopper]

well, but I see it as a problem. you allow tracking the car - and the pandora box is opened.
NO

If the boxes only contain what is needed to determine mileage, I don't see that as a problem. Tracking, and reporting locations would require a lot more technology than just recording how much you drive a year.

How would that work, in your universe? In the real world it is impossible to not get other data from an odometer, even if it is an old fashioned analog one that has been standard in cars for decades. Using just the mileage readings from an odometer I can tell you the gas mileage, where a person has been, and give you a good guess of how fast he drives.

An odometer only records distance traveled. You can not determine gas mileage without knowing the number of gallons used or where the car has been without location information, or speed without the driving time.

A device can use GPS data samples to determine location and thus distance. The device does not need the ability to store and transmit gps coordinates, only millage.

 

[Jarlaxle]

Taxing purchases made over longer periods is tough due to the incentive to get around the tax, i.e. bootleg tires.

Buying gas is a thing you do every few days to every few weeks. People don't want to go through the hassle of cheating out the taxman on frequent purchases, too much of a hassle, to many opprotunities to get caught. But at the typical frequency people change tires there is more of an incentive to hit the black market.

Simplest solution would be to harden the odometer, and have people pay on milage at the time they re-register the vehicle. hardnening the odometer would restritct tampering to only a few tech wonks, and if the penalties are bad enough it may make it not worth it.

Disconnecting the odometer on most cars takes less than three minutes. Changing it is only slightly harder. (Many times, a simple ECM swap will do it.)

With current odometers this would not be feasible, but if you work one into the programming of the computer, and maybe do a few other things, it would be more work for 99% of the people to change it than to just pay the damn tax.

You did not read and understand my post.