Thursday, August 10, 2006

C'MON...DIVE RIGHT IN....


EXHIBIT A.
Most people are unaware that many automobiles have an EDR..no that isn't an erectile dysfunction reliever it is an:
event data recorder
(a little black box) under the front seat.

This device records the last 20 seconds of your vehicles speed/braking/acceleration data before an impact.
This information has helped to convict
dishonest people by providing solid evidence of the event.
Brilliant right?

The American Civil Liberties Union is worried that this information will advance to Orwellian proportions and become a surveillance monster. What if illegal and dangerous driving habits could be monitored without your permission...
Oh (BIG) Brother?

For instance, you could get ticketed for traffic violations by checking your EDR or via satellite monitoring..imagine getting ticketed without your criminal activity being witnessed..HUH..
can something be wrong
even if nobody else sees you doing it ?
Hmmmmmm.


The basic catch 22 of our legal system is the idea that people are deemed innocent until proven guilty which was designed to protect the accused,
not the victim.


In Arizona, a Roman Catholic Bishop was convicted in a hit and run trial thanks to the little black box (surrogate conscience) in his car.
He almost got away with it but the crash data retrieval system proved that he had hit the brakes ... therefore he had seen the victim....
and then he took off!


Thank goodness that we baaaaad little sheep had that little blaa blaa blaack box to watch over our 'ethically challenged' shepherd.
Sheesh, what is this world coming to if you can't rely on a Bishop to confess to driving over a pedestrian?

31 comments:

  1. **What if illegal and dangerous driving habits could be monitored without your permission...

    Well that's not something one should be doing while driving anyways...so I say it's ok to get monitored :)

    Keshi.

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  2. My husband had to throw out his toothpaste before boarding a within-B.C. flight yesterday. That's Big Brother enough for me, no matter how practical and wise and prudent.

    PS I bet Keshi never colours outside the lines.

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  3. kind of scary to me...seems to have the potential of making situations black and white in terms of how they are viewed from an enforcement perspective. And as we know, circumstances surrounding most situations are in shades of grey...

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  4. sorry for the double poost...just wanted to say that I enjoy your site. I enjoy the interesting and quick tidbits of info! Gonna add you to my blog roll!

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  5. I don't think a Bishop is any more likely to be honest than an Atheist.

    One more example of morality not being mandated by faith, or lack of it. Now can the religious fundies shut the hell up about Atheists like myself being evil because we don't toe the evangelist line?

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  6. I want to have a double post too!

    H.E. - you "da man!"

    /grin

    (ps. already added ya to my blogroll)

    Have a snazzy weekend! I'm traveling to Chicago for a consumer-spending blitz. Ikea! Can I get a WOOP WOOP?

    ReplyDelete
  7. Well, if you are willing to have your behaviors constantly monitored, then you should be willing to live in North Korea, for the ultimate consequences of Big Brother behavior, no matter how beneign it may seem, leads to the same thing.....totalitarianism....that's a word, right?

    Sooner or later government will classify acts that you as a citizen consider perfectly harmless as punishable offenses and you'll be getting tickets in the mail left and right, and that's not the kind of world I want to live in.

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  8. As someone who has now been ticketed for a third time for speeding at the same f*&%#n' intersection and being caught by photo radar, I deplore this development.

    Not in the sense that speeders shouldn't be caught for speeding -- but in the sense that on this particular road, the speed limit is set artificially low (50 km) and it's a major north-south thoroughfare in a city which has far too few of them.

    There are no kids, ever, on this street and it's a street haunted by notoriously slow-moving traffic.

    That's a city planning issue.

    This is nothing more than a cheap, easy, automated cash grab for the city. It's dishonest.

    Was I speeding? Yep. Was I going what SHOULD be the proper posted speed? Yep. Am I a criminal? Nope.

    The bishop is a perfect example of where this kind of technology can and should be used.

    But where are the cops?

    All I know is I'm $167 lighter in the wallet...

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  9. keshi,
    You strike me as a very responsible motorist so you would have little to fear from such activities.

    andrea,
    Ah the grim reality of the war on ERRORism
    (wrong god & wrong worldview)...
    btw, it is going to get a lot harder than that to get on a plane. I for one am delighted to have monitors in every nook and cranny of an airport.

    and I am sure that keshi is an excellent colourer.

    angela,
    There certainly are shades of grey. But we could use a little more b&w. I don't understand why victims of crime, especially deceased ones, are so completely discarded by our system. The rights of living psychotic sociopaths should not be more valuable than those of murdered children.

    Sorry for the tangent but crime and punishment is my achilles heel in an otherwise exemplary liberal platform.

    tidal grrrl,
    I just put that story in because the hypocrasy of it all makes me want to SCREAM! AAAARGGHH! I knew that you would be reasonably outraged.
    Hey have fun in the Windy City! Woop Woop!

    the Michael,
    This pressure to monitor everything and everyone is the price that we pay for trying to be all things to all people. If there truly was a separation of church and state and pure logic ruled the day maybe then we would have a chance.
    As Dawkins said "the theory of evolution ia about as much open to doubt as the theory that the earth goes around the sun".
    Yet here we are in 2006 and some humans believe that blowing airplanes out of the sky will drop 72 virgins on their lap in the next world.
    It is going to be as grim as all of those futurists predicted because we are still trying to drag our relic myths around with us.
    Open Wide!

    within,
    You went over the speed limit.
    If everyone decided which speed best suited them or when they could go through intersections we would all be dead.
    I have photo radar right outside my house and I love it. I call police and chase away drunken teenagers who try to push it over. It has stopped idiots from racing down our street.

    If you speed you pay.
    If you don't you don't.

    Sorry bud. I would have photo radar at every intersection.

    ReplyDelete
  10. OK, that's it! I have adopted a religean that strictly prohibits one's image from being engraved while moving. If these Godless heathens continue to commit blasphemy in such a manner, I will have no choice but to call down the full fury and judgement on this evil sinful society and flood every television signal with overriding episodes of the Gong Show, until they repent and repeal this sinful oppression!

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  11. NO NO NO!!!!!!!! Not the Gong Show!!

    Blearggggggghhhhh!

    Oh, by the by did anyone see "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind?"
    It's based on the book written by the host of the Gong Show.

    FREAKING HIGH-LARIOUS! Get it on your Netflix now, people!

    /huge grin

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  12. We give up certain liberties at the assumption being more secure.

    It is a no win situation. That of which can cause a warranted and just outcome in one situation, can hinder us in another.

    I see the good and the bad side to most anything. It is as if we advance beyond the horizons as far as technology is concerned, but our civil liberties and rights to privacy are backtracking due to the increased level of crime and terrorism. A good thing, in a sense, but on the other hand...

    We want a safe society, but at what cost?

    Dang, I don't know what to think.

    ReplyDelete
  13. You're just like Jean Chretien, the Canadian prime minister you say is so forgettable.

    You are talking out of both sides of your mouth. (Actually, he just spoke out of one side of his mouth, didn't he?).

    The same civil serpents who develop speed limits based on bumping up the city's sorry bottom line by using automation -- not based on safety issues -- are the ones who continually cut back on services without lowering our taxes at the same time.

    Instead, what they've done is buy all these photo radar systems to take the place of police.

    It's not just Big Brother, it's Big Money-Grabbing Brother taking advantage of motorists who are so pissed off with slow-moving traffic that they get a bit of a lead foot when there's no danger and on a roadway that should have a higher speed limit to account for the flow and the conditions.

    They are nickel-and-diming law-abiding citizens. Yes, I was over the 50-km limit (going 63). Was our crime reduced that day? I doubt it.

    It's a travesty and not as black and white as you paint it. Not nearly. And they know it.

    ReplyDelete
  14. God forbid it come to the gov't monitoring our driving habits. If they do, we'll all be dinged.

    We ALL drive over the speed limit, especially when there's no one else around. That's just the way it is.

    If you want more Orwellian talk, watch V for Vendetta. I love that movie.

    ReplyDelete
  15. I speed regularly. Born with a lead foot. I've passed patrolman going over 85mph and have never gotten a ticket.

    My husband says I have some kind of natural immunity. I don't know about that, but I do know that would hate to have pictures and tickets sent to me all the time. and I had no idea my vehicles came with a little black box.

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  16. the Michael,
    NO make it stop!
    Make it sto-op!
    What kind of twisted sick mind could even dream up such a scheme?

    tidal grrrl,
    Chucky..chucky..chucky!
    What about juicy JP Morgan the porno star! and the unknown comic!and Gene Gene the dancin' machine!

    awaiting,
    Hey you. I think that our happy median is going to get further away from the middle unless something drastic happens.
    Actually even Ronald Reagan conceeded that the only thing that could unite earthlings would be an attack from outer space!

    Gee willikers that would be keen!

    within,
    Quit whining and stop speeding and then you won't have to pay.
    You were speeding...you were wrong...let it go.

    and on a moose,
    You have already got me psyched for V.
    You are supposed to drive as if you have a cup of coffee on the dashboard...that way you save fuel and you are more cautious.

    hi pamela,
    Meep Meep!
    I wonder why the county mounties don't stop ya?? Maybe you look like the governors wife?

    I'll keep watchin' America's Most Wanted: Unsolved Police Chases IX, perhaps the Cops have just never been able to catch you?

    ReplyDelete
  17. You are supposed to drive as if you have a cup of coffee on the dashboard...that way you save fuel and you are more cautious.

    Thats why I read this blog. I learn something every time.

    ReplyDelete
  18. anonymousblogger,
    Exactly..I don't know very many people who actually drive that 'carefully' but it would certainly lower the road rage levels if everyone 'took it down' a notch.
    Stress from road rage will kill you.
    Leave 20 minutes earlier instead of driving like Mario Frickin Andretti!

    ReplyDelete
  19. I always try to keep "it dowm an notch"
    Road rage can kill... and it has
    here in CO. a few times as I recall.
    And, I sure as heck do not want a
    ticket from my wonderful friend
    Big Brother!
    Cheers!

    ReplyDelete
  20. samuru999,
    I have never been able to erase the images of smeared blood and rubber that I saw on the concrete freeway dividers the very first time that I drove into Denver. Some of them were 3 feet off of the ground!

    ReplyDelete
  21. Anonymous3:14 pm

    What is speed limit? :-)

    Anyway, the problem is not that information is being collected. The problem is who is it being collected by and how they might use it. As we see with US government, for example, they basically freely access all the personal information about everyone available everywhere without any due process or public accountability. This information is often seems to be used to keep track and possibly suppress anyone who disagrees with the "officially approved" line of thinking.

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  22. I really don't know. Great if they can catch these hit and runners and it would stop so much racing in the streets. However, almost everyone speeds and these are big fines. People can't afford this. *sings* "Hands in my pocket, hands in my pocket.." If you don't know that commercial I'm screwed.

    Love the comments, Fiesty!

    LOL @ Meep Meep
    Handsome swimmer! ;)

    Hope you're having a lovely weekend. Beach tomorrow for me! :)Weeee!

    ReplyDelete
  23. sh,
    Hi. You are absolutely right. The 'MAN' already has more information on us than we care to know about. What they do with that info IS the problem.
    For instance if they told your insurance carrier that you are in fact a wreckless speed freakin' suicidal maniac on the road your premiums would go up in a hurry.

    christine,
    Ha ha know it well, did you see this hour has 22 mins. version of knee in my package!
    Off to the beach eh? Is it near Sam Robert's cottage you little stalker you?
    Have fun at the beach because in a few weeks it is... THUD!
    (1 TON weight falls from ceiling)

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  24. Wonder if they could install black boxes on some priests to monitor other types of 'bump and run'?

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  25. That's why I avoid it all. No black box. No EZPASS. Very little of anything else. I opt out.

    JMJ

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  26. i don't drive, and i see mad drivers often. wish they took a cab instead. but some cab drivers drive like mad dogs too.

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  27. Oh my! I had no clue... and for one who is a potential magnet for trouble that is a good thing to know!

    That is all I am saying... no more...

    Dios mio!

    ReplyDelete
  28. ladyvooortsmith,
    Unfortunately they do not have most of the songs that I would like to play but we'll see how it goes...
    DA NA NA I'm an al-li-gator!

    Frontier Editor,
    OOooh I wondered when someone would make the old abstinence makes the church grow fondlers remark. I am afraid that the litigation lawyers have their jaws locked on this puppy for the next decade or so. Ka-ching!

    jersey mcjones,
    I love the witness protection program too! It hurt like hell when I dug that GPS tracking chip out of my ass last week but what are ya gonna do eh!

    liquidplastic,
    I think that since people feel so powerless and insignificant in this society that they take it out on others when they have 2 tons of detroit steel under them. I also think that $3 gas will make them even madder! LOOK OUT!

    ReplyDelete
  29. **You strike me as a very responsible motorist so you would have little to fear from such activities.

    Hell I am :) I have to be responsible for my life and others' lives too. U can call me a nerd lol!

    Keshi.

    ReplyDelete
  30. I drove to the Windy City (not too windy, btw) this weekend, and when some jerk in an SUV tailgated me all I could think of was the speed/proportional to crash lessens every 5 miles/hour slower I drive, so I went slower...and slower...and slower...just in case he was planning to hit me.

    ROFL!! I love having a boyfriend who was a physics major in college. He explained the speed/crash thing. I move much more slowly now when anyone is behind me...in cars too!

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