The existence of a license plate indicates that motor vehicle travel is not intended to be untrackable. That makes sense since these are powerful devices. It seems like a fair trade off since a motor vehicle provides many benefits but also high risk.
Your Kids' School Bus Is About to Become a Roaming Surveillance Vehicle
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Re: Your Kids' School Bus Is About to Become a Roaming Surveillance Vehicle
#32Look up the history of this company, bus patrol - they're felons and in prison.
I guess once someone is a felon, they should never be allowed income? You might be right to criticize the company itself, but is their specific felonious behavior problematic (if so, you haven't spelled that out)? The way you say it, just the fact of them being felons is the problem.
Never being allowed income and getting contracts for mass surveillance are not the same thing.
Re: Your Kids' School Bus Is About to Become a Roaming Surveillance Vehicle
#33Maybe design cities to be walkable and bikeable so that you have the option get things done without driving a car which is inherently trackable?
I don't know if that works in the EU but in the US most places are not a city and most places whilst technically walkable the kids will have to start walking at 4am and maybe they will get to school on time after walking along rural highways and on dirt roads. That would be incredibly dangerous, reckless and irresponsible.
As for tracking, I want more of it by individuals just not centralized corporations. The porch pirate bosses often park in front of my place to watch their minions of whom snatch packages around the time that kids are getting home. Some of the porch pirate minions drive vans and could easily snatch kids. I have been encouraging many of the people in my area to install cameras that log license plates and catch faces and vehicles in multiple directions of their roads and highways. We've removed some of the organized crime and pushed some of it out of this area and we will continue to push harder.
Re: Your Kids' School Bus Is About to Become a Roaming Surveillance Vehicle
#34The existence of a license plate indicates that motor vehicle travel is not intended to be untrackable. That makes sense since these are powerful devices. It seems like a fair trade off since a motor vehicle provides many benefits but also high risk.
In a vacuum, I agree. But, license plate readers aren't limited to investigating crime/misuse of vehicle, nor are they limited to the government.
Tracking vehicles and linking that movement to individual movement (and spending and browsing and and and) used to be massively expensive, if not impossible.
Now all that tracking is "cheap" and being done at scale for all sorts of reasons.
Re: Your Kids' School Bus Is About to Become a Roaming Surveillance Vehicle
#35Maybe design cities to be walkable and bikeable so that you have the option get things done without driving a car which is inherently trackable?
So someone introduces a new, problematic feature to a long-existing technical system, and your answer is to "just" reorganize all of society to eliminate that system?
Re: Your Kids' School Bus Is About to Become a Roaming Surveillance Vehicle
#36The existence of a license plate indicates that motor vehicle travel is not intended to be untrackable. That makes sense since these are powerful devices. It seems like a fair trade off since a motor vehicle provides many benefits but also high risk.
Why stop at tracking license plates? Once you've started you should report on pedestrians, bikes, whether people are at-home, which building people are entering, the way they walk and many more. Those are all "alternative revenue streams" that are as valid from the operator/investor point of view and completely unrelated to whether the way of transportation or activity is meant to be untrackable or unrelated to a way of transportation at all.
There is also a factor of scale: a cop can follow you, but a system where everyone is monitored 24/7 is a very different story.
Re: Your Kids' School Bus Is About to Become a Roaming Surveillance Vehicle
#37Maybe design cities to be walkable and bikeable so that you have the option get things done without driving a car which is inherently trackable?
> Maybe design cities to be walkable and bikeable
Why does everyone suggest this like it's easily done and the only reason that we haven't is due to lack of intelligence and/or will?
It's not. It's an effort that will take decades, cost trillions of dollars, and will face both legislative and legal hurdles.
Besides, with individual trait recognition technology and smartphones, you'll just be tracked regardless. You have to hold leaders to account for this sort of abuse of power.
Re: Your Kids' School Bus Is About to Become a Roaming Surveillance Vehicle
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
The vast majority of folks don't want to walk/bike in Phoenix, Atlanta, Houston, New Orleans, etc where it's near or over 100 degrees in the summer.
But those people don't even have the option, so what do you mean they prefer to not walk/bike? How pleasant walking/biking will be is linked to density, reduced distance to amenities, and infrastructure, things almost no US cities have. I live blocks from Costco in one of those cities but the option is either get on my bike and share the four-lane road with aggressive drivers in massive trucks/SUVs or use a tiny side…
What are you going to buy at Costco that you can carry home on a bike?
In other words, if you want to bike to get your groceries, Costco is the wrong choice.
Re: Your Kids' School Bus Is About to Become a Roaming Surveillance Vehicle
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
The vast majority of folks don't want to walk/bike in Phoenix, Atlanta, Houston, New Orleans, etc where it's near or over 100 degrees in the summer.
But those people don't even have the option, so what do you mean they prefer to not walk/bike? How pleasant walking/biking will be is linked to density, reduced distance to amenities, and infrastructure, things almost no US cities have. I live blocks from Costco in one of those cities but the option is either get on my bike and share the four-lane road with aggressive drivers in massive trucks/SUVs or use a tiny side…
Wait until you try putting a Costco-sized bulk package of something on a bike.
Re: Your Kids' School Bus Is About to Become a Roaming Surveillance Vehicle
#40Yes, this is concerning. But there's also the other side. Some of the little miscreants who shared my bus ride were positively nasty. Some surveillance would have helped a number of people avoid bullying.
That's only true if the school will actually do something based the surveillance evidence. It seems many do not.