MCViewPoint

Opinion from a Libertarian ViewPoint

Posts Tagged ‘GPS monitors’

How the New Mileage Tax Will Get Your Old Car Off the Road – EPautos – Libertarian Car Talk

Posted by M. C. on August 9, 2021

https://www.ericpetersautos.com/2021/08/08/how-the-new-mileage-tax-will-get-your-old-car-off-the-road/

The long and short of it is they intend to ankle-bracelet all new cars and that will leave a gaping “loophole” – older cars, made before embedded electronica – that they will insist must be closed. 

They won’t pass a law. That is too blatant. It might arouse objection – before it’s too late. They will simply regulate vehicles sans the embedded electronica out of existence by requiring them to comply with the electronic data collection mandate.

This will prove technically unfeasible.

By eric

Joe Biden and the Republicans – without whom Joe Biden could not have done it – may have just outlawed cars that can’t be tracked without actually outlawing them, per se. Instead, they will be regulated away – the new trick in government’s dirty bag thereof.

It might have caused a ruckus to propose a law outlawing older vehicle without Onboard Diagnostic (OBD II) electronic data collection ports, GPS transponders or some other, similar means by which a vehicle can be externally tracked – using the pretext of keeping track of its mileage that way, so as to tax its owner that way. This being bad enough all by itself, being invasive enough all by itself. Instead of paying gas taxes anonymously at the pump whenever you fill up – possibly with cash – the federal government will tax you automatically and electronically by the mile, wherever you drive.

Which will also give the government – and the insurance mafia, which is also effectively the government, just ex officio but endowed with governmental power to make you do things or else – the power to monitor how you drive, since the same OBD data port/GPS that will be used to keep track of mileage can also keep track of how fast you drive as well as where and when you drive.

Everything about your drive will, in other words, be known unto them.

That is one of the many treasures hidden within the just-passed – by enabling Republicans, who provided the necessary support for the Democrats who confected it – “Infrastructure” bill. Which only has about 20 percent to do with building new roads and bridges or fixing the ones that exist and 80 percent to do with funding various projects that almost no one wishes to fund voluntarily, as by paying for them willingly. Things like Amtrack and related forms of government-controlled herd transit. Also “green” things such as electric car charging stands and of course electric cars, themselves that cost plenty of green – all of it to be extorted from the public that would otherwise never freely pay the cost of it.

Hence the need to fleece and force them to.

Thanks, Joe!

But the real thanks are due to the Democrats who identity as Republicans that made it so. The ones who voted for the above, which also includes the pre-crime conviction of every American who drives – who is henceforth to be considered presumptively drunk and – as was once done to convicted drunk drivers – not allowed to drive until his car determines that he has not been drinking. Even if he doesn’t drink. Even though he has never been so much as accused of ever having driven “drunk.”

All new cars will be fitted – at our expense – with some kind of alcohol detection technology functionally the same as the equipment courts sometimes order convicted DWI offenders to have installed in their cars that prevent the car from being driven if they sense the driver has been drinking. The difference being no conviction will be the prelude to this degradation of all American drivers, commencing just as soon as the new regulations can be articulated.

Which brings us to the  way they’ll regulate older, pre-OBD and GPS and similar follow-you-around technology cars off the road under the pretext of taxing by the mile:

Cars without such follow-you-around technology cannot be taxed-by-the-mile. Not electronically. Not automatically. They have mechanical odometers that would need to be read manually, by some form of government busybody. They cannot be read in real time, as you drive – in order to dun you as you do – which is what Biden and the Republicans have just decided they are going to do to all of us. Not without retrofitting them with some type of electronic transponder, at any rate.   

See the rest here

Be seeing you

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , | Leave a Comment »

5 Examples of the Rise of German Free-Speech Nazis | The Daily Bell

Posted by M. C. on December 30, 2019

If the German reference was removed from the title what country would you think was the subject?

https://www.thedailybell.com/all-articles/news-analysis/5-examples-of-the-rise-of-german-free-speech-nazis/

By Joe Jarvis

Germany. What are you doing? You’re the poster child for oppressive government!

And maybe it isn’t fair to single Germany out. The Soviet Union under Stalin had a much higher body count, and China’s under Mao was still higher.

But Germany is European, Western.

China and Russia reformed and changed on their own without being defeated by outside military forces. They were never entirely broken down to be built back up, like Germany–or Japan–for example.

So it’s not especially surprising when China marches ever onward toward authoritarianism. For instance, China introduced a social credit system where every behavior including online comments and neighbors’ opinions is factored into a social credit score. Low scores are used to deny citizens jobs, apartments, and the ability to travel.

But there is something especially ironic about German authoritarianism, even for an allegedly good cause.

For instance, in Germany, it is illegal to deny that the Holocaust happened. They were so concerned about that horribly oppressive time in their history… that they oppressively limit free speech.

I understand that Germany is extremely sensitive to the rise of any groups that could be easily compared to Nazis. But to paraphrase Nietzsche, he who fights Nazis should be sure that in the process, he himself does not become a Nazi.

In Germany you can get up to five years in prison for “insulting, maliciously maligning, or defaming segments of the population.”

Let’s go through five examples of German officials becoming free-speech Nazis.

1. Surveillance on minority opposition political parties.

A “far right” political party called Alternative for Germany first gained seats in the German parliament last year. They are said to be aligned with racist, xenophobic, and anti-Islamic groups.

Angela Merkel has been quite liberal in her immigration policies. The AfD is the answer to an increase in terrorism in Germany from Islamic extremists.

A poll found 57% of Germans believe the political party should be placed under surveillance.

So just for affiliating with a party which has valid concerns about loose immigration policies for refugees, you could be monitored like a criminal. No specific accusation required.

2. Ban on “Hate Speech” and “Offensive Speech.”

This year Germany banned “hate speech” and tasked social media websites with combatting “offensive speech” on their platforms. Platforms like Facebook and Twitter face €50 million fines if they do not remove “hate speech” within 24 hours of a complaint.

The clear problem becomes defining what exactly is incitement to hatred, or offensive speech.

And the German government defines it with a broad brush.

For instance, failing to call a transgender person by their preferred pronoun is considered “hate speech.”

And now people are afraid to even talk about issues like immigration and refugee policies. It is just too easy to be labeled a racist hate monger for expressing skepticism about liberal immigration policies.

3.  Raiding the Associates of the Associates of a Suspect.

Sovereignman.com summarized this absurd incident which took place in July.

Unable to obtain the information they wanted from an activist group, police basically played six degrees of separation until they found associates that they could raid.

Police say a blog’s planned protest included calls to violence. That blog used the privacy VPN and email provider RiseUp. RiseUp used a site called Zwiebelfreunde to collect donations. Zwiebelfreunde is a partner organization with TorServers.net.

So naturally, police raided the homes of three TorServers board members, a former board member, and Torservers’ office. The raid was based on the original warrant regarding the protest.

Among mountains of personal electronics and communications, police seized a list of donors to RiseUp and Torservers, including bank account details.

So now people who have donated to these privacy advocacy websites have all their information in the hands of the German Federal Police. And these are people who have absolutely no connection to the blog on which the original warrant was based…

There is absolutely no legitimate reason for the police to have raided the homes and offices of TorServers board members.

But RiseUp deletes all data about its users, so the police would gain nothing from raiding them. Raiding an associated organization was the closest they could get. But it was completely unjustified.

4. Raiding Homes Over Facebook Posts.

Last summer, German authorities raided 36 homes of people accused of hateful posting on social media.

Most of the raids concerned politically motivated right-wing incitement, according to the Federal Criminal Police Office, whose officers conducted home searches and interrogations. But the raids also targeted two people accused of left-wing extremist content, as well as one person accused of making threats or harassment based on someone’s sexual orientation.

“The still high incidence of punishable hate posting shows a need for police action,” Holger Münch, president of the Federal Criminal Police Office, said in a statement. “Our free society must not allow a climate of fear, threat, criminal violence and violence either on the street or on the internet.”

Unless of course that climate of fear is created by the German authorities against whoever they decide to target.

5. Ankle Bracelets for “Extremists” Guilty of Nothing.

Last year, Germany passed a law that allows authorities to track suspected extremist Muslims.

Suspected is the key word. The people forced to wear the GPS monitors have not even been charged, let alone convicted, of a crime.

Previously, only convicted individuals could be required to wear the device used to monitor location and movements.

The cabinet proposal, “Gefährder,” or people who pose a security threat, who have not been convicted can be forced to wear the device by order of the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA).

So now they are policing pre-crime.

Has no one considered that being treated like a terrorist might actually make it more likely that someone is driven to extremism?

Germany is using the rise of the Nazis in the past to justify the current government’s quite Nazi-like behavior.

Being unable to express yourself without fear of arrest is not a good place to be.

Be seeing you

NUJ members under police surveillance mount collective ...

 

 

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »