Bureaucrats Want to Put a Black Box in Your Car
At any given time, bureaucrats are plotting ways to take your money and your privacy. This LA Times story relays yet another example:
WASHINGTON — As America’s road planners struggle to find the cash to mend a crumbling highway system, many are beginning to see a solution in a little black box that fits neatly by the dashboard of your car.
The devices, which track every mile a motorist drives and transmit that information to bureaucrats, are at the center of a controversial attempt in Washington and state planning offices to overhaul the outdated system for funding America’s major roads.
…
“This really is a must for our nation. It is not a matter of something we might choose to do,” said Hasan Ikhrata, executive director of the Southern California Assn. of Governments, which is planning for the state to start tracking miles driven by every California motorist by 2025. “There is going to be a change in how we pay these taxes. The technology is there to do it.”The push comes as the country’s Highway Trust Fund, financed with taxes Americans pay at the gas pump, is broke. Americans don’t buy as much gas as they used to. Cars get many more miles to the gallon.
What’s really surprising is that the article explains that some libertarians are on board with the idea. I guess the idea is that a mileage-based tax is more efficient than a gallons-of-gasoline-based tax, when it comes to paying for road usage.
Two objections to such an argument are: (1) Even if the textbook mileage tax made more sense, we can’t trust politicians to set the “optimal” tax rate; giving them another new type of tax, will simply mean more revenue going to the government. And (2) do you really want government officials–who are already monitoring our communications–able to track your every movement in your vehicle?
http://www.eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=84034
Funny how the same ideas get sold around the world… almost like there’s someone coordinating it.
And in terms of voluntary adoption and a strong contractual agreement to limit abuses, I have no problem with it… but that’s not exactly what we are seeing.
And this one in a mix of other stuff:
http://www.eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=78785
Tel,
What is interesting here is that for anyone who believes in the legitimacy of traffic laws and road taxation generally speaking, it would be hard for them to argue against any of this. If the authorities could precisely monitor everything like this, that just means the world is that much better regulated and the laws and rules they favor are that much better enforced.
But I have this strange feeling a lot of people who support the set of regulations concerned generally, would take issue with this specific technological implementation.
There’s a pretty big trust problem. Authorities have systematically abused and extended their powers, probably more notably in recent years.
Taxation is basically protection money, and if you are getting genuine protection in return, then I’d say it’s a legitimate transaction… as these things go. Partly government protects you from itself, party it protects you from other governments.
I don’t see any evidence that tracking people everywhere they go is necessary for the protection of the borders, or maintenance of any law and order.
Tel,
Hmm, I am not sure if your response represents acknowledgement of my point or an addition to it or a tangent but I will restate my position again just in case:
Technically, anyone who believes “The government should regulate X” ostensibly believes that, ideally, the government should SUCCESSFULLY regulate all X.
For example, if someone says “The government should regulate food safety”, they’d be happier if 95% of “food safety” issues were caught and regulated by the government, rather than 65%.
So, if we imagine a technology in a person’s car that essentially gives the authorities full, instantaneous observation over ALL violations of their traffic rules, no matter how minor, and dings people instantly (100% efficiency of oversight), advocates of this kind of regulation should be ecstatic.
And what I am saying is that when they start getting insta-Tickets every time they don’t 100% fully stop at a stop sign, or pull an illegal U when no one is looking, etc., my guess is they’ll be a little peeved rather than saying, “Serves me right, glad to know the system works as well as it does!”
What is really scary even aside from this (and here is my tangent) is all the “administrative errors” that could occur. Not a systematic form of abuse. Just something like a sensor going bad at a stop sign and suddenly 10,000 people passing through an intersection get tickets. And the legal shitstorm that would ensue, at great cost and inconvenience to them, to try to recover their penalty payment, etc.
valueprax,
I see what you are saying, however there are caveats to any ‘regulation’.For instance I actually agree with traffic regulation… To a point. I agree with stopping people who are driving erratically and having laws in place that would place people who, for whatever reason, sleep deprivation, alcohol consumption, hard drugs, etc, in trouble with ‘society’. I think traffic lights and staying on the correct side of the street are proper uses of authority and common sense ‘laws’ to have.
However in traffic laws, I also know that many of the laws and reasons for them are silly and NOT needed, meaning if you had something that tracked 100% of violations, it would be a silly and foolish enterprise.
Where I live the Speed limit on the Highway system is 65 mph. In heavy traffic it is 35… Technically the lowest you can go is 45 mph on the highway, ergo this system would ‘fine’ you according to the letter of the law. Which is ridiculous.
Anyway, I do not trust people in Government to make the proper call 90% of the time. Which is really a sad place for me to be right now on top of that.
Innocent,
That isn’t my point. You’ve completely missed my point. It doesn’t matter how many of the rules you agree with. My point is about whether or not you’re in support of total efficiency in policing them. I think people will find that “regulation works” because it isn’t efficiently policed. If it were, and to the extent it is, it tends to bring economic activity (human action of all kinds) to a grinding halt.
No my point is that if you did enforce them 100% then no one would agree with them…
That would be interesting.
I know many Republican Conservatives and Democrats who love our government. They get itchy when I nonchalantly point out all the laws surrounding them and the laws they are currently breaking. However they still seem to love government and hate me.
Taxes are the same, I ask them why they vote for more taxes yet work so hard with their accountant to dodge all taxes. I also point out that real tax breaks are difficult to come by and most tax accountants are practicing a form of near legal tax evasion rather legal tax avoidance.
Some people are strange.
I totally disagree with the logic here. It’s like saying everyone who enjoys a few beers would be even happier getting smashed on vodka. If watering your garden is good then hitting it with a fire hose would be better.
If someone is ripping past a school doing twice the speed limit, there’s some justification for saying that would be dangerous even if no one got hurt. If someone happens to drift over the speed limit by a small amount on a long drive over open roads we all know it’s no big deal, so yeah degrees of enforcement do make a difference.
Also, you have to trust the enforcer not to abuse their position (that’s a problem any time you have an enforcer) so if you trust them with a small power, they might get corrupt in small ways but it’s tolerable, if you trust them with a big power it becomes impossible to stop the really big abuse.
Same with tax: if I was paying 10% tax and it went toward national defense and sufficient police to offer some deterrent against the worst crimes (and I don’t believe for a moment that police actuall prevent crime) then the system would work. Trying to extend that and say that tax should be 50% and government agents are going to make an attempt to solve all crime just doesn’t work. I mean the GPS scanning won’t stop road crime, it’s only a matter of time before identity theft gets started or people just steal a car when they need one. You will find some strategic records “go missing” just like security video tends to “go missing” today.
I know you tend to think in terms of Rothbardian “all or nothing” terms but as soon as you do away with government, you end up getting invaded by someone else’s government. The primary purpose of government is to stop that from happening, and the job of everyone else is to stop the genie slipping out of its shackels. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
The primary purpose of government is to stop that from happening, and the job of everyone else is to stop the genie slipping out of its shackles. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
Very well espoused statist mythology for older kids. Nicely done. You forgot minor fighting the international scene to secure national whatever. The same stuff but in peace time.
In what sense is s contract with mafia a contract i.e. legitimate as you said?
How do you deal with state authority which does not exist outside the land inhabited by square circles?
Have you ever tried a history book?
What do you think happened to all the small tribal groups? Maybe they voluntarily decided to start paying tax to Rome because civilization was so desirable to them.
Isn’t it amazing that governments have become so entrenched that as a people we collectively forgot how we got this way?
My car already has an odometer. If they wanted to tax me for miles driven a little “black box” is not required.
Hmmmm……
Well that would be the exact same as a gas tax. I assume the supposed advantage of the black box as opposed to a gas tax is that the black box can distinguish between when you’re driving on government-funded roads, as opposed to private property.
“As America’s road planners struggle to find the cash to mend a crumbling highway system…”
Which of course begs the question, what happened to all the money the government has been extorting from all of us for decades allegedly for that very purpose?
Not advocating taxes but I have analyzed this to death(also crushed state effort), and a reduction of Federal fuel tax and a new state and local fuel tax is the way to go. We should also think about taxing fuel as portion of total sale rather than per gallon. Finally the pumps should display said tax as the gallons roll.
This allows more local control, less Federal largess.
This allows privacy.
Per mile privacy invaders are not good. Are you telling me an 8000 pound truck should pay the same road tax as a 2000 pound smart car? Are you telling me the prying eyes of guv should be able to track your whereabouts in real time?
Are you for real? You start out by saying “Not advocating taxes but” and then you follow immediately with “a reduction of Federal fuel tax and a new state and local fuel tax is the way to go.” Gee, that sounds an awful lot like “advocating taxes”, which you claim not to be doing.
No net tax increase. I simply moved road tax from a federal per gallon tax to a state and local sales tax.
People don’t realize that you can NEVER march on Washington but you sure in hell can kick down the door of town hall.
I am just trying to minimize the effects of statiism, seeing how private roads will never exist.
“The push comes as the country’s Highway Trust Fund, financed with taxes Americans pay at the gas pump, is broke. Americans don’t buy as much gas as they used to. Cars get many more miles to the gallon.”
This is probably worthy of analysis.
Step 1: The government, freaked out about global warming, issues sweeping mandates that cars MUST increase fuel efficiency (and also sponsors advertising campaigns and subsidizes giant public transportation pork projects), encouraging everyone to drive fewer miles
Step 2: Mission accomplished. People start driving less and cars are more efficient, thus, revenue collected from the gas tax goes down.
Step 3: Somehow, despite the fact that less driving is happening, the government demands increasingly large sums of money for road maintenance.
Step 4: Instead of simply raising the gas tax (which would be political suicide to anyone who dared propose it) to make up the difference, a brand new taxing scheme is imagined and invented, one that requires the government to be able to track your every move (not for any nefarious purpose of course, solely to enforce tax collection I’m sure!).
Playing devils advocate here it seems to me that Step 3 might be based on a faulty premise. Is it factually accurate to say fewer miles are being driven or would it be more accurate to say that less gas is being consumed per mile driven?
I would guess (but I don’t know) that it’s a mixture of both.
In either case, a new method of taxation is hardly necessary. If fewer miles are being driven, expenditures on maintenance should be able to fall with no real drop in quality. If it’s just increasing fuel efficiency, then all that is required is to raise the gas tax to reflect the current reality of miles driven per gallon of gas.
But raising the gas tax is politically untenable – even moreso (apparently, or they wouldn’t be going down this road at all) than coming up with a brand new tax that includes a black box to track where you’ve been. “Gas prices” occupy a certain bizarre place in the American collective consciousness that people cannot and will not analyze rationally.
It’s almost like inflation has eaten the government’s purchasing power. Gosh, that must really burn. Maybe the Fed should buy road bonds?
I live in a very rural area. Thee county has plans to allow the road to revert to gravel (interesting how they thinka failinf road becomes gravel). Even with this device in my very old truck, I sincerely doubt the roads I traverse will ever receive any attention.
If they want to see roads improve. lift the restrictions on railroads and see heavy items transported more efficiently.
The second point you make is more ominous than people might think. There is nothing to keep the authorities from tampering with your personal information or planting something that is false. Like it or not, authorities really do that sort of thing and when one is dealing with people who have no accountability and no conscience to match, you can imagine what you get.
If you allow this, on what basis do you argue that a GPS tracker in your back is illegitimate if some rationale can be shown to tax you for going certain places on foot?
Evidence of the GPS tacker implanted in your child’s brain will be required to register for kindergarten, right along with their proof of measles vaccination.
A few years ago, David Rockefeller told filmmaker Aaron Russo (of whom he, Rockefeller, was trying to “recruit”) that the ultimate goal of the world power nexus is to implant us all with microchips that carry all of our financial and legal information, controlled of course by the world power. Then, if you go against their rule, they will just turn off your chip.
If you look at what has transpired not only since, but prior as well, the “coincidences” are rather astonishing.
Coincidences such as soon after whistleblowing this, Russo died of cancer.
It’s not difficult with today’s top technology to give someone cancer through poison.
MF,
On the other thread, please let me know what makes “The Ego and His Own” a “dangerous book.”
Thanks
Done.
The Matrix is here! Will 2199 be as portrayed out there? Scary…
“This really is a must for our nation. It is not a matter of something we might choose to do,” said Hasan Ikhrata, executive director of the Southern California Assn. of Governments,”
The above quote is all you need to know before concluding that this is a very bad idea. SCAG is like an exclusive club for Orwellian meddlers and officious, bureaucratic hacks. Notice how the scab from SCAG claims we have no choice in the matter. It’s an imperative from our bureaucratic masters. Sit down, shut up and pay up drones!
As others have noted the logic of this policy leads inevitably to bio-implant chips that track our movement. Some might dismiss that as paranoid but look how far down the rabbit hole of the surveillance state we have already gone. Any institution capable of spying on all of our electronic communications without a warrant is capable of much worse.
Aren’t bio-implant chips already marketed to parents as a way to track their children and to pet owners to track their pets? If you look at it from the perspective of The Overlords the social benefits of mandated human tracking are obvious. They can protect us from our own dangerous habits, reduce crime and terrorism while preventing negative externalities. It’s a win-win-win for everyone!
You are not paranoid enough.
Smart phones have already sent a real time GPS signal to big brother, not to mention the black box already installed in every car 10 years or newer.. They will slowly take out dissenters with drone strikes, EMP, ULF and other hideous weapons.
Didn’t fill out your census or American Community Survey, you have red flag by your address.
Your time is limited.
Now let us get back to how best fund roads that I use, want and rely upon daily.
Thanks for reminding me to switch off the location services on my phone.
Fake switch. Just like the fake light on your webcam. A hacker can easily turn on your webcam and leave the light off. Gates and Buffet designed it this way.
In my quest for mental stability, rather than shun paranoia, I embraced paranoia. Once you reach the end, none of it seems scary.
Want me to list any more paranoia concepts? We can talk about the mandatory smoke detectors you pay to power, or the TV screen camera.
I am just getting started and I specialize in electromechanical paranoia seeing how I have an electrical engineering background.
I first realized something was wrong after I was taught, comprehended and applied all of the formulas known.
They simply hide formulas. We don’t get taught how electricity really works. A trained professional can stair at a circuit and never suspect anything so long as you don’t know how the electricity is really traveling. You don’t have all the formulas. Ohm, Faraday, Hertz. These men all invented terrific formulas ( human articulation of our natural world) but the most powerful formulas are hidden.
Oh crap, they are here. To the bunker I go.
LOL.
The tax is clearly more efficient, but Bob’s worries are well taken. But what you gonna do when driverless cars become the norm? they must communicate wirelessly with each other, so that kind of information will inevitably be available if you choose a driverless car. I know many will declare they just won’t buy them. But how many of you currently actually live without wireless computers, cell phones, toll transponders? Not many is my bet.
Additionally, I’m pretty sure the concept of “technology allows us to create a black box that would track where you drive” is often advanced BY LIBERTARIANS as a practical means of eliminating the free rider problem, thus allowing “private roads” to be a thing without necessitating toll booths every block.
I would assume the difference, as always, is that most of us are MORE comfortable with handing this type of information over to a private company than to the government itself. Of course, these days with the NSA, the actual difference is minimal. The government could theoretically already track the driving movements of any vehicle with OnStar, couldn’t it?
Well, it’s the same with phone calls. Sure, the company giving me phone service has access to the metadata and content of my calls, but it’s often part of a terms of service agreement that they won’t look at it specifically or share it with others unless you have a specific issue and call in for help or if the government has a warrant to access your data. Simply using that technology, however, doesn’t mean we want our private information in the hands of the government.
No we probably don’t, but you can’t really stop it. There is no more privacy.
Right, which is why arguing against this idea on the basis of “That’s an unfair violation of my privacy” is ultimately a loser. We keep it simple and just stick with “No new taxes, kthx”
It is a loser. But for many here that’s a feature not a bug: they want to lose and feel righteously victimized. No names Dan.
There are several issues here. First is obtaining the appropriate LEVEL of revenue to support the road system; second would be, how precisely does the “pricing” of these services need to match usage so as to assign costs to the cost causers; and third, what level of intrusion is needed to allow an acceptable outcome of the first two issues. There are always tradeoffs.
I believe that adequate revenue and reasonable cost allocation can occur WITHOUT having governments recording or tracking our every movement. Remember Coase, Samuelson, and the lighthouses? A combination of fuel tax, vehicle registration fees, weigh scales (commercial trucks), and toll roads (typically for interstates and main inter-city connectors) is likely to be sufficient. If not, or perhaps in any event, maybe some roads should be PRIVATIZED. Or maybe other fees might be correlated with usage, I mean hybrids and EV’s still use tires don’t they? What about a tire-related fee? That would still be relatively anonymous. The “surveillance state” is already too powerful, and willing to abuse it.
gofx wrote:”There are several issues here. First is obtaining the appropriate LEVEL of revenue to support the road system; second would be, how precisely does the “pricing” of these services need to match usage so as to assign costs to the cost causers; and third, what level of intrusion is needed to allow an acceptable outcome of the first two issues. There are always tradeoffs”
You are asking all the correct questions.
I will add, every consumer uses roads even if United Parcel Service brings everything to his doorstep. Sure you can consume products that use less roads or more roads but every consumer uses roads. I guess a fully self sufficient farmer/rancher may not use roads anymore but at 1 time, he had to.
The more road you consume, the more you should pay.
Kind of amusing that the same “libertarian” crowd who is OK with govt regulating pregnancy is not OK with govt knowing how you use the public highways. Doubt the govt would use a black box. They would most likely use the same technology they use for pre paid passes on a toll road (EZ Tag, FastTrak, etc). . They would merely add a bar code to your registration sticker and have tracking devices on every roadway.
And what if you get from point A to point B in less than the approved time?
After curfew?
Additionally it is scary to think GM and Hyundai both have onstar /blue link.
Don’t pay a parking ticket, shazam your doors are locked.
“Kind of amusing that the same “libertarian” crowd who is OK with govt regulating pregnancy…”
No.
Libertarians have a wide range of opinions about abortion. My best guess from the available literature is that a majority fall on the side of pro-choice. Google “libertarian abortion” and educate yourself.
Abortion is a personal decision. I am not saying it is wrong or right, I am just saying that each person needs to decide and then deal with the consequences/rewards. I think the government should distance themselves as far from abortion as possible.
If it is a life, then the government gets 9 more months to control us. Think about it, they could at this point mandate your diet and behaviors because they are caring for a life that cannot care for itself. They could also lock you away for 30 years if you had a miscarriage and they “prove” it was from that glass of wine you had.
If it is not a life, then none of this really matters.
Some Christians say there is an age of accountability and tragic youth deaths are a free ticket to Heaven. I have never understood how an abortion would not qualify for the same free ticket to Heaven?
Well anyway, some decisions are just too complicated for government and best left to the individual. God will sort it out.
Matthew 13:24-30
The Parable of the Wheat and the Tares
24 Another parable He put forth to them, saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field; 25 but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way. 26 But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared. 27 So the servants of the owner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?’ 28 He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The servants said to him, ‘Do you want us then to go and gather them up?’ 29 But he said, ‘No, lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn.”’”
Government monopoly stinks. You can never trust it.
Black boxes are not that bad of an idea if they ONLY were used to charge you for the infrastructure you use.
Think about it. Why pay for roads with a fuel tax. What about transportation that may not use any gasoline? What about vehicles that may not even touch the road surface.
IF I were a private road owner I would want to charge consumers directly, not through a far removed gasoline pump that somebody else owns. I would want to charge consumers based on how much they use my roads and how much wear and tear they contribute. I may charge more for popular sections of road. I may charge more for newer sections of road. IF I also happened to own property/home in immediate area I may charge more for vehicle that pollute more , both noise and emissions. I would charge floating/hovering vehicles less, maybe? Depends.
Government is always so close to liberty but yet always so far away.
One final note,
IF roads were funded charged per mile or any manner other than at the pump, gasoline could then be taxed at the normal sales tax rate and become just like any other consumer good. Per gallon tax in of it self destroys any rational gasoline market.
Ya I was very disappointed to see the Reason Foundation supporting this.
If only we could crack down on the corporations that like to pull similar stunts, too.