They're Watching You

[wolf]

Most of the time 911 has to go through an assortment of hoops to get that data. I've had to have them track down a couple of suicides based only on a cell phone number off the caller ID. It's a pain in the ass when you're trying to save some dumbass' life, because the 911 dispatch supervisor has to send paperwork to the cell carrier before the carrier will release the information, and with number portability, the original carrier for the number might not have the data you need.

[tw]

Originally Posted by wolf

Most of the time 911 has to go through an assortment of hoops to get that data.

Which goes right back to the same question: Are you saying it is legal but not right for government to track your car with EZ-Pass?

[Kitsune]

Originally Posted by tw

Which goes right back to the same question: Are you saying it is legal but not right for government to track your car with EZ-Pass?

Well, it isn't right, but here's a secret: without EZ-Pass, they still track you.

[tw]

Originally Posted by Kitsune

Well, it isn't right, but here's a secret: without EZ-Pass, they still track you.

How besides license plate and cell phone?

But this all goes right back to a bigger question we don't ask. It therefore only festers. What is and is not considered private? I you file taxes electronically, that company can now sell your information? Is it really legal? Is it right?

In essence, there are two questions here. One is the definition of privacy. The other is the definition of identity protection. We are still doing nothing (except kludge patchwork laws) to address either.

Hopefully, (and due to an identity program foolishly based in SS numbers) with the theft of the identity of every serviceman's SS and other information, now we will decide to address the problem of identity protection. And with that program is its cousin that cannot be ignored - a definition of what is and is not private.

But again, I ask wolf a basic question: Are you saying it is legal but not right for government to track your car with EZ-Pass?

[Kitsune]

Originally Posted by tw

How besides license plate and cell phone?

When you pass through a toll, you are logged, even if you pay with cash. Your license plate is captured via camera and the software pulls the letters. If you pass through the booth and no coins are detected, you are sent a fine. If I'm not mistaken, the government isn't tracking your car, but the contractor that handles the tolls certainly is.

Since the records may be retrieved by the government, should there be a requirement that will permit transportation anonymously? Of course, you are always welcome to take toll-free roads, but how long before that changes? After all, if people love the convenience of EZ-Pass, perhaps they'd love a system that also keeps their roads safe. Tolls, Speeding tickets, stolen cars, all controlled by a little box that could be required to drive the roads. If the people don't love it, the government will.

Besides, what do you care if people know where you go and how fast, right? As long as you're not doing anything wrong...

[xoxoxoBruce]

When you pass through a toll, you are logged, even if you pay with cash. Your license plate is captured via camera and the software pulls the letters. If you pass through the booth and no coins are detected, you are sent a fine. If I'm not mistaken, the government isn't tracking your car, but the contractor that handles the tolls certainly is.

If the toll is paid, why would the contractors go to the bother and expense to keep a record of the hundreds of millions of cars passing through toll booths every day?
Software pulling plate numbers won't stand up in court, they need a photograph and in some places the photograph must show the drivers face.
I doubt if they have enough people to chase that they can't process the plate pictures manually.

[Kitsune]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

If the toll is paid, why would the contractors go to the bother and expense to keep a record of the hundreds of millions of cars passing through toll booths every day?

If the equipment is there, why wouldn't they? Especially if it might aid law enforcement/court case.

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Software pulling plate numbers won't stand up in court, they need a photograph and in some places the photograph must show the drivers face.

But with the system in place, they have both the photograph and plate number. The mailing system is automated. And if you have an EZ-Pass, you might want to read up on the fine print. In Florida, the EZ-Pass is the owner's responsibility and is tied to your car by plate and tied to the owner by DL number. They aren't intended to be transferred from vehicle to vehicle and, should another person use yours to blow through tolls with an empty account, the owner is responsible for handling the fines. With every parking lot filled with cars displaying a little white box on their windshield, you know this might become a big problem.

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

I doubt if they have enough people to chase that they can't process the plate pictures manually.

With the "drive-by" system on the Greenway, Beeline, and the other toll highways in and around Orlando, there is plenty of opportunity to abuse the system -- you never pass through a booth, you never stop at a gate. You blow under a metal bar at 70mph and never touch the brake. There are no people involved. Why have a manual system when you can automate it?

[wolf]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Software pulling plate numbers won't stand up in court, they need a photograph and in some places the photograph must show the drivers face.
I doubt if they have enough people to chase that they can't process the plate pictures manually.

One such toll booth picture is a major piece of (not very useful) evidence in a local (probable) murder case ...

Wife of a dentist in Lower Merion Township went missing. A vehicle belonging either to her or to her husband passed through a toll booth on the Penna. Turnpike (I believe at old exit 28 - Philadelphia). The SUV was found abandoned in a McDonald's parking lot.

The toll booth photo shows what appears to be a female slumped toward the window on the passenger side of the vehicle. The driver cannot be seen.

To this day she has not been found.

[tw]

Originally Posted by Kitsune

When you pass through a toll, you are logged, even if you pay with cash. Your license plate is captured via camera and the software pulls the letters.

Currently that technology is limited to places such as Border Patrol controlled crossings. Information is so large that border guards completely ignore cars that are detected by the system as stolen.

But your example defines what I was suggesting. Just because license plate and EZ-Pass recording is not standard today has nothing to do with what will exist tomorrow. Yes, your license plate is public information. However should that informaton behnd that license plate be available to a toll taking institution? The toll authority can report a toll violator. But law enforcement - a separate institution - should only have enough information to fine the violator.

Currently, without specific guidelines for identity protection, we have this hodgepodege of systems that permit outright privacy violations. In short, we have no specific standards to define privacy. AND we have no system for you to protect your privacy (ie quickly discover that day that someone else is using your identity).

Which goes right back to a question that wolf has not answered:

Are you saying it is legal but not right for government to track your car?

What should and should not be right?

[wolf]

Originally Posted by tw

But again, I ask wolf a basic question: Are you saying it is legal but not right for government to track your car with EZ-Pass?

Sorry, missed the first time you asked ...

No, it is not legal for them to track you using EZ-Pass, but it does make it easier for "them" to do so.

[tw]

Originally Posted by wolf

No, it is not legal for them to track you using EZ-Pass, but it does make it easier for "them" to do so.

What I was seeking are reasons - some underlying principles - that define what is and is not right. It is a problem that will only get worse. I just don't see an underlying definition that defines a principle called privacy. As a result, those privacies would only diminish.

For example, one could define no privacy protection of anything one exposes in public - ie a picture of your face. However does that also apply to items owned by that person - ie a car? No one has a right to track you (ie because your clothes contain RFID) but they have a right to track your car? What principle defines a difference?

A credit card is property of that bank. Therefore that bank can track where that credit card goes - where you take it? At what point do we define privacy? At what point do we change laws so that what is legal and illegal agrees with what is right?

I keep asking a fundamental question in a thread entitled "They are watching you". Credit cards, RFID tags, cell phones, remote car keys, fingerprints, DNA, and even electronic keys embedded into skin. Which are and are not protected by constitutional rights of privacy? According to White House mouthpieces, you have no expectation of privacy. Therefore anyone can talk to your credit card if you enter their building? Therefore anyone can take, process, publish, or duplicate your genetic code? At what point can anyone demand personal information?

We discussed identity protection a few years ago. Government meanwhile completely ignored the concept. Now we have virtually every member of the armed forces with irreplaceable personal information lost or in wrong hands - and no way to correct that problem. Once they have one's SS number, birthdate, and name, then one has no identity protection ever again. So virtually every active duty seriveman can have his identity protection permanently violated? It is what happens when a problem is ignored.

Now we have another problem. What is and is not covered by principles that define personal privacy - assuming that constitutional privacy protection even exists. Do we wait for privacy of 10% of Americans to be destructively violated before we even bother to define what is and is not private? Notice the problem. Even here in the Cellar is a widespread fear of addressing this challenge - to define what is and is not right - a definition of what is private. It is a simple question. What are principles - the concepts - that define privacy protection? The answer appears to be too difficult.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Look on the bright side, when the feds know what everyone is doing all the time(1984), there won't be any identity theft problem or indeed, any unsolved crimes at all.