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Or implanting chips into people in order to exert security control. People actually pay for the priveledge, and buy their own personal bugs and trackers in the form of cell phones, GPS equipped vehicles, OnStar equipped vehicles, and quite frankly and modern vehicle that has an onboard computer. Technology is a double edged sword, that while providing convience also allows law enforcement agencies a gaping window into their lives.
Cell phones not only can be used as bugs, but they are also being used to track hundreds of thousands of people daily. Last summer, in what is being called a traffic control measure, people who live in the St. Louis, Kansas City and Columbia Mo areas were being tracked(supposedly in an anonymous fashion) via their cell phone. The private company contracted for this test marketing is doing this for the so called purpose of monitoring traffic and allowing it to move much more smoothly. However I find it suspicious that Columbia, a town of 100,000 people, is being used as a test market for this product. The rush hour, while quite busy, lasts perhaps thirty minutes, and none, absolutely none of the major arteries gets the massive traffic stack up common in larger metropolitan areas. However Columbia is a quite liberal college town, with a large Muslim community:shrug:
It came out about a year ago that OnStar systems were being used to monitor people's in car conversations. Given that OnStar has a GPS system also, then one can presume that this willed be used to track vehicles, if this hasn't started already.
In fact anybody with a GPS device of any sort runs the risk of having their every move with that device monitored.
And then we have vehicles with on board computers. The technology is such now that every single move that the car makes is recorded, and can be read off and transfered to another computer at the dealer or service station. Why do dealers and mechanics need to know where you've been? Who else is getting this data? As we've seen, large corporations aren't shy about sharing this sort of information with government authorities, all in the name of homeland security.
Modern technology has become a two edged sword. The infrastructure is being built that will enable every single person to be fully monitored, including their most intimate conversations, everywhere they go. And most people will be completely ignornant that every move they make is being monitored and filed away for future reference. Go to an anti-war protest, or a mosque, or some other "subversive" location, and expect that your every move will be scrutinized and your file flagged. This is a brave new world we're entering, and sadly it looks like we're even going to be the ones paying for it, one cell phone, one vehicle at a time.
We can, and should raise havoc about this, but I doubt that much would come of it. Both sides have motivation for not confronting this encroaching spy state. The 'Pugs love a surveillance state, always have. The Dems, while less enamored of this state, aren't going to put up much, if any, fight, for they don't want to be labeled as being soft on terror, homeland security, etc. A large part of the population will simply respond to this information in a sheep like fashion, "If you have nothing to hide, why does it matter?" So we're probably on our own here. If you carry a cell phone, take out the battery and carry it seperately. But an older, pre-computer vehicle, and keep it in good shape, for it has to last. Don't buy a GPS device for your convience of finding locations, instead sharpen your map reading abilities and find places the old fashioned way. Is this inconvienent, sure, a bit. But before we had any of these fine electronics, we all got along quite well. And frankly, given the trade off, in my mind, I would rather be an old school luddite than to be tracked every single moment.
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