Where have you been today? Did you stop by the bar after work, or really go to your mother's like you said? And you better tell us the truth -- we can find out, ya know.
In the Brave New World of the Rotten Apple, police, and others, can now track your movements using records from sensors attached to windshields. The sensors are part of the E-ZPass electronic toll system utilized to speed traffic movement in New York and elsewhere. The E-ZPass sensors act like digital cash for cars by automatically deducting payments from a prepaid account when a vehicle crosses, say, the George Washington Bridge.
Police use the records to track the movements of criminals and crime victims. When the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority first launched the pass program they said that the records could only be obtained with a court-ordered subpoena -- but that policy has already fallen by the wayside.
Authorities are now giving information to police without a court order on cases that are deemed serious -- although no standard exists as to what constitutes a serious criminal case.
At the moment, only police have access to the E-ZPass records. But others, such as divorce lawyer Raoul Felder, are chomping at the bit. "When he says, 'I was at work, Honey,' now she can check the E-ZPass and prove he was at the Hot Bed Motel in Long Island," Felder says.
As New York Civil Liberties Union attorney Norman Siegel says, "Once you have the capacity to track the whereabouts of citizens it opens a huge door for violations of privacy."
(Source: New York Daily News.)
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For more Daily Outrage ranting about the growing threats to privacy, see our Liberty and Privacy essay.
Until such time as Homo Sapiens should decide to rejoin nature, some of us can only hope for the right virus to come along.
-- U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, 1966
