Obama Administrations Gives NHTSA Enforcement Authority of Mandatory Black Boxes in New Vehicles

Another spit in the face of privacy in this country. The Obama administration has granted the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration the 'right' to make black boxes mandatory in all new cars built in the United States. Which, it's said, will be policy in full effect by September 2014. Expectedly, the black boxes they will be able to record plenty of information about vehicle operation.What will be recorded is, as outlined on Occupy Corporatism, includes:

• vehicle speed
• whether the brake was activated in the moments before a crash
• crash forces at the moment of impact
• information about the state of the engine throttle
• air bag deployment timing and air bag readiness prior to the crash
• whether the vehicle occupant's seat belt was buckled

While this may seem all good and well in figuring out the causes of vehicle crashes, after they happened, in an attempt to reduce vehicle accidents there is the likely potential for the information to be gathered outside of such events. Actually, you can be sure the government will use this new "authority" as a Trojan Horse to mandate surveillance in all vehicles as time passes. What's about "safety" today will be about audio and video monitoring in the future. This sort of a creeping surveillance state of sorts needs to be resisted.

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• Question of the Day: Do You Consider This an Invasion of Privacy?