At the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity, Executive Director Daniel McAdams highlights something that occurred in the Senate last week that many Americans may have missed. He writes:
Last week, Sens. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Edward Markey of Massachusetts revealed that automobiles sold in the United States with a GPS or emergency call system accumulate the travel data of the vehicle on computer chips located in the vehicle and the vehicle manufacturers have remote access to the computer chips. They revealed this is a letter to the Federal Trade Commission that, at this writing, has gone unanswered.
The senators complained that the computer chips in late-model vehicles retain the records of the location and driving habits utilized by the operator of each vehicle.
One probably expects some of this as most GPS systems ask if you are looking for directions to a location to which you have traveled in the past. That very request on your dashboard should trigger the observation that the vehicle’s computer chip has stored the requests you have input to the GPS.
But it doesn’t stop with a record of your GPS requests. What the two senators revealed was truly startling. The computer chips record every movement and speed of the vehicle; and some vehicles — those equipped with certain sensors and exterior cameras — also record the surroundings of the location of the vehicle.
Both senators complained that Americans largely do not know that the manufacturer of the vehicle they drive has remote access to the computer chips in the vehicle, and most Americans are largely unaware that the vehicle manufacturers make this data available to the government without a search warrant.
Is this constitutional? In a word: NO.
The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution was written to protect the quintessential American right — the natural human right — to be left alone. Justice Louis Brandeis called it the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized persons.
It presumes that you can think as you wish and say what you think and read what you want and publish what you say, that you can exclude whomever you wish — including the government — from your property and from your thoughts; that you can move around from place to place; and do all this without a government permission slip, fear of government reprisal or the government’s prying eyes.
This natural right is expressly protected by the Fourth Amendment, which requires a warrant issued by a judge based upon probable cause of crime before the government can invade your property or spy on you, directly or indirectly. When the government has access to the data in your personal vehicle, it is simultaneously invading your property and spying on you.
Action Line: You have read about the “virtual Panopticon” slowly enveloping Americans. The continued erosion of Americans’ privacy by both governments and corporations is distressing. Click here to subscribe to my free monthly Survive & Thrive letter. I won’t be sharing your information with anyone.
