Car Tracking Plates

well done Wiz. ah, car tracking plates. always the same old arguments, *if you´re not doing anything wrong, what have you got to worry about?* by that argument I shouldn´t object to sub-dermal implants or govt controlled cctv cameras in my house or covert surveillance either of myself and my family either. the real reasons for the increasingly invasive levels of surveillance and monitoring are two-fold. firstly, taxation - the more people the govt prosecutes the more money it gets to spend on more surveillance equipment. secondly, to get us desensitized to such surveillance so that we blithely accept even more intrusive monitoring. left to run its course unchallenged we will have a society where everyone is under surveillance 24hrs a day, people can and will be arrested without charge and imprisoned indefinitely without their case ever coming to a conclusion, and a society where anyone who speaks out is deemed as a threat to public order or national security. After 9/11 many Americans said that they´d be happy to lose personal freedoms if it meant preventing another attack. similarly after the London Tube bombings the same things were and are being said. Iis it worth it? freedoms won over hundreds are years such as <i>habeas corpus </i> are now being done away with, the essential framework of what makes western society *free* is being undone and replaced with something that is actually more akin to Soviet Russia, that *everyone* is under suspicion and that if you´ve been arrested, well, you must have done *something* - sadly an easy fallacy to fall into and at the moment we are heading straight for that situation. Mr Wolfgang´s experience showed everyone what really lies at the heart of our *leaders´* plans for us *be good boys and girls, don´t say anything untoward or speak out, all be happy-clappers or we might have to get a bit rough with you, especially if you´re old and defenceless...* - lovely. btw there won´t be no tracking devices on the Tawmobile except the legitimate anti-theft ones that <i>I choose </i> to put on there.

Anyone with half a brain will know that for every surveillance device known to man there is a way of spoofing/forging/faking/fooling it. The people whom this system is aimed at will be the first ones to find a way around this. It´s all foolish and will never work the way it´s intended. Taw, remember the ID card system being proposed in the UK? Eventually they were reduced to the argument that &quot;It would make it easier to get a book out of the library&quot;. Erm, isn´t that what we have library cards for? <img src=smilies/icon_smile_tongue.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle>

Taw you forget about those put there by other *interested parties* What would be the chances of criminals actually getting ahold of whatever they use to identify cars by their numberplates and then using that to track people...or something similar...afterall, anythin ghtat can be used for good can be used for bad as well... -make ´em bleed-

I´m quite sure the technology is already being sold and used for. I also accept that the people this is supposedely aimed at, criminals, will be the first to get round it. and i´m sure the Govt and the Police know that, so I ask again: who does this benefit and why? if criminals can beat it, what is it´s real purpose?

Probabily the statistic that 1 in 6 drivers don´t have insurance. From what I gather though, you cannot get insurance, MOT, Tax etc without proving you have the others (or something like that). Since a numberplate can easily be removed (which is what this is seeming to imply), the only thing it may actually stop is when you get a ticket in central london for not paying parking fines due to having bogus plates. The wardens will be able to scan and determine if the plate belongs to the car or not. I can´t see it serving any other purpose, simply because you´d have to stop cars and scan em to find out if they have false plates anyway. A roadside detector will only detect the presence and record the details of a car with a chipped plate, it won´t log or record a car with a non-chipped plate, so what is the point?? Worst yet - imagine this becomes fact... they will need a computer system capable of reading the chips, and uploading the information to the main database to check (via satellite I´ve no doubt). What does our government succeed with regular occcurance? Massive overbudget, bound to &quot;crash&quot; every other day, have a 2 year backlog, fine incorrect car users and end up with massive settlement costs for &quot;stress&quot; related cockups! Sweepstake time: I reckon it will cost £500 million to make and implement (supposedly), but will take an extra 2 years, run over budget (including a swap of developer, two ministers having affairs, one minister coming out the closet, and one minister being jailed for purgery) and finally cost £13.2 billion. The government at the time (maybe labour) will blame the previous administration, saying they inherited the antiqicated system from them, the Queen will refer to it in her speech, the EU will condone it as being against humanitarian laws, the French will condone it because its not built by the French and will burn a few trailer loads of sheep in protest - the Germans will get paid for it after suing the UK for not sharing the work with germans, the UN will ask the US what they think of it, the US will say its a tool against terrorism which must be allowed, the shadow chancellor will say it undermines the economy, the chancellor will claim OPEC should pump more oil, the media will say it causes a concern for inciting hatred towards muslims, the muslim council will say it won´t, the ethnic minorities council will say it discriminates against black people and the BNP will say we shouldn´t be part of Europe. Tony Blair will simply say &quot;If I had to choose over again, I would choose exactly the same again&quot;. Whats your choice? Edited by - MIke G on 10/1/2005 10:14:22 AM

Lojak and Onstar are &quot;voluntary&quot; measures. You actually have to ask for it and pay extra for the privilege. I think the car tag approach has the makings of being mandatory which is a different story altogether. Cell / wireless phone users should be kept in mind in so far as their whereabouts being trackable is concerned ... so long as they keep their units energized.

wow Chi.. erm *Mike* you must have a time machine or a crystal ball, you predict that so accurately. will you do my lottery numbers as well, those ones I ripped off Lost aren´t doing to well...

Mike what about a cartoon to go with that? LOL Hmm I wonder wha tthe chances are of them ever getting somethign like that over here...probably not

<font size=1 face="trebuchet ms"><BLOCKQUOTE><hr size=1 noshade>you predict that so accurately <hr size=1 noshade></BLOCKQUOTE></font><font face=´trebuchet ms, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica´ size=2> I´m in charge of it, who do you think is going to have the affairs and make a cool £12.7 billion by giving the contract to Jabez to program!! I think that also explains the reliablity issues.

One thing.. &quot;The thin edge of the wedge is the least visibile&quot; ... Next...? The Thought Police?... all in the name of ´cleanliness´ ....? Then where.... 1984 in 20** ? Eventually we will be chipped from birth and trackable.. what then? nothing is new... Harrier

harrier, that´s five things <img src=smilies/icon_smile.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> What are they, quotes?

hmm.... You could say that.. or predictions maybe... Think behind the ´reason´ .......sheesh Harrier