The Driving in America Blog was started a year ago to bring more information to those who are beginning their journey as motorists’ rights advocates. Over the next several months, I will be working with each of the seven NMA principles to give readers of this weekly blog some idea of what we all are working towards as association members. We thank you for your support and please, if you have questions, ask below in the comments section.
Check out the Driving in America on Principle Number 1: Traffic Safety through Sound Engineering and Real Driver Training
Check out the Driving in America on Principle Number 2: Traffic Laws Fairly Written and Reasonably Enforced
Check out the Driving in America on Principle Number 3: Freedom from Arbitrary Traffic Stops and Unwarranted Searches/Seizures
Freedom from Invasive Surveillance
Myriad surveillance schemes – among them the tracking of motorists and vehicles by GPS, indiscriminate license plate data collection and retention, and the use of the driver’s license as a national ID card – do irreparable harm to the privacy rights of motorists.
The US is quickly approaching a time in the near future that someone can be tracked wherever they go through surveillance cameras, automated license plate cameras (ALPRs), other automated traffic enforcement devices (red-light cameras and speed cameras), face recognition software, GPS trackers, Sting Ray Devices that track cellphones, vehicle black boxes, smart parking meters, smart street lamps and toll transponders.
The near future sounds like it is already here.
Next wave of surveillance includes in-vehicle camera monitoring, connected car technology that includes V2V (vehicle-to-vehicle), and V2X (vehicle-to-infrastructure), wholescale predictive policing, and a way to count the miles you travel to tax.
Data mining of our whereabouts, likes, dislikes is already occurring along with the selling of our personal information gathered by our state’s Department of Motor Vehicles.
Much of this surveillance equipment that our government and police are using against us is in the guise of safety or even more heinous—money—or policing for profit.
When will motorists wake up and realize the dreaded Big Brother is already here?
Here are a number of NMA writings that may be useful to you on your road as a motorist rights’ advocate:
- NMA Issue Page on Vehicle Black Boxes
- Customer Loyalty Rewarded with 9,000 Highway Spy Cameras
- Follow You, Follow Me
- Covert Facial Recognition Street Lights—Coming soon to a Neighborhood near You?
- To Record or not to Record, That is the Question
- No More Policymaking by Procurement
- A License Plate to Remember
- Are License Plate Numbers Personal Data?
- Do I really want a nanny cam on my face while I drive?
- NTSB Wants to Turn Our Highways into a For-Profit Police State
- The Real ID Act: How Not To Use A Driver License
- Seven Years Later, Real ID Still Real Stuck
- The Real Consequences of Real ID
Join the National Motorists Association today to work with other like-minded motorists to help control the surveillance apparatus that is taking over our lives.
