Tanker Truck Shut Down Via Satellite 529
unassimilatible writes "Satellite Security Systems, in cooperation with the California Highway Patrol and InterState Oil Company, demonstrated the first wireless remote shutdown of a fully loaded, moving gas tanker truck. Described as "a viable solution to the challenge of controlling rogue hazardous waste vehicles that could pose a threat to homeland security," satellite communications were used to disable the truck in seconds, 530 miles from the demonstration site. But that's not all. California Assembly Bill (AB) 575 (PDF link) would require truck disabling devices, global positioning or other 'location reporting systems' on all hazardous material haulers. With all of the police pursuits in California, can mandatory GPS and disabling devices in all vehicles be far away?"
So much for homeland security (Score:5, Insightful)
This sounds to me the beginning of the end
I foresee a future headline... (Score:1, Insightful)
Land of the free ... (Score:1, Insightful)
One would have to be pretty naive to beleave that
America is one of the least free places in the western world!
And yet, they feel they have to help the rest of the world be free...
Americans shout words they dont know the meaning of
When will they come off their ego trip, and realise they are just an enslaved population, following their governments every whim ?
And the land of the free? (Score:3, Insightful)
When will law makers get it? (Score:5, Insightful)
You can't legislate away these kinds of problems.
Right... (Score:5, Insightful)
Like California can really afford this.
*eyeroll*
To the paranoid... get over yourself. Like they're going to track you down and shut down your car and arrest you for the CD full of pirated MP3s in your stereo.
If they know who you are, it's easier to just send the cops to your house. This is useful for hijacked hazmat vehicles and maybe eventually for stopping high-speed chases or tracking fleeing felons. Not for keeping tabs on everyone... not even California has enough state employees for that kind of volume.
Re:Hazardous Waste is a far cry from everyone (Score:2, Insightful)
Don't be so sure. It's already on the table [slashdot.org] in the UK. It started out as just a way to collect use fees on high-traffic roads turing peak times, but is slated to expand into a means to enforce all traffic regs.
Can't happen in the U.S. you say? Maybe not, but photoradar had no trouble jumping the pond.
Note, too, that GM's OnStar already does the tracking bit, BTW. So does your cell phone (has to for 911 service). Even if you don't have OnStar or a cell phone in your car, do you use EzPass or similar? They can't track you from very far away, but they can see when you've gone through a toll both and can spot you from a hundred or so yards out with a reader.
The question really isn't whether law enforcement has the capability to track your car (or phone). They do. 'Get over it,' as McNeally says. The questions are who can use that capability, under what circumstances they should be able to use it and what sort of safeguards there are to prevent unauthorized use.
Switch the rig (Score:3, Insightful)
Ok, so how often does this happen? (Score:1, Insightful)
Even the stupidest terrorist is going to figure out how to cut the wires connecting the GPS device and the motor, so this obviously is not a counter-terrorist measure.
They'll pitch it as an anti carjack law (Score:5, Insightful)
Step 2 is constant motion monotoring to insure speed limit and red light compliance. This will be pitched as a cost savings measure since fewer cops will be needed. You'll simply get a bill in the mail each month for your driving usage and overage a.k.a. speeding/violations.
Step 3 is a comprehensive shut down program. Unpaid fines, lapsed insurance, orders of protection, domestic violence, etc. Will all be used to trigger the vehicle's shutdown.
Remote Shut down of autos exist (Score:3, Insightful)
However currently its just to get people acclimated to the concept of others having control/monitoring. Incremental acceptance of loss of privacy.
Later it will be extended, then mandated "for our safety".. The police have been asking for this level of control for years.
machine or man? that is teh question... (Score:3, Insightful)
Such technology should always be counter balanced with consideration of problematic mindsets, who are the controller behind such technology and machinery.
Is such technology making it possible to effectively shut down major highways during rush hour by simply getting ahold of the controls of the technology to do so?
In warfare, isn't control over communications and transportation top targets?
Re:And the land of the free? (Score:2, Insightful)
The rest of the world can help out by refusing to deal in any way with U.S. companies, especially those with strong ties to the U.S. Republican party such as Halliburton and Bechtel. Countries such as India and China should be using their workforce to build their own goods and infrastructures and intellectual property rather than giving it to U.S. companies. With the Bush Administration's extreme war spending and the fad among U.S. companies to outsource everything now, the U.S. economy and job market is in big trouble, so now is the best time to compete with the U.S. in every conceivable way.
Re:Right... (Score:3, Insightful)
First they came for [telisphere.com] the tanker trucks, and I did not speak out because I don't drive tanker trucks.
The price of freedom is vigilance. To ignore transgressions of your freedom, is to loose that freedom, inch, by inch, by inch.
No matter how silly or worthy of an *eyeroll* that inch may be.
Re:Wasn't the bill introduced by a Democrat? (Score:3, Insightful)
Consider the main, key point of this (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:In the land of the indolent (Score:3, Insightful)
The Iraqi military was 70% Russian/Soviet equipment, %20 French, and %10 Other(mostly European). The French are well-known arms-whores. The US doesn't sell to countries it decides are "evil".
it looks like you still pay the price in Blood these days, but you honestly think the US went in there out of the good of their heart? When was the last time the US did something just out of pure humanism?
Kosovo? Somalia? I defy you to find ANY pressing national interest for the US in places like that.
Despite that there even is Photograhic evidence that Rumsfeld was shaking hands and telling jokes with Saddam.
(no debate is complete without a Hitler reference)
I'm sure Neville Chamberlain had a jolly time negotiating "peace in our time" with Hitler. National relationships change all the time. Furthermore, diplomacy is often about glad-handing the opposition while simultaneously letting him know through "back channels" that you could blow them to pieces if they get out of line.
Re:The problem with this. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Land of the free ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Americans don't seem to know or care much about Israel at all. "America" reportedly has an opinion on the matter, but that's the government, not the population.
On one hand, many people do not seek outside news sources. On the other hand, they are not nearly as widely available as localized news sources in America. Other countries' media outlets are more well-connected. I would doubt that this fact is a result of specific action by the populations of other countries, but more a result of geographic factors.
Re:So much for homeland security (Score:3, Insightful)
I have no problem with rational laws that have a net benefit for society. The problem is the irrational laws that restrict freedoms without providing more benefit to society than they cost. I think the drug laws are the best examples of irrational laws, but I think there are more than a few anti-terrorism laws that do not have higher benefits than costs.
Re:So much for homeland security (Score:3, Insightful)
Those are all things that take away the rights of other people.
You taking drugs does not at first glance hurt other people, and it would not be outlawed if this was the whole story. Drugs are basically outlawed because of the secondary very negative effects of their use to the society. Though not all (alcohol, tobacco) are outlawed.
But you can easily argue that some/most drugs do not hurt other people and should not be illegal (and you can counter-argue that they do, and thus should be outlawed).
You'll have much harder time arguing that enslaving or killing other people does not hurt them or their rights...
Re:In the land of the indolent (Score:4, Insightful)
No, it's utterly obvious that the large sums of money borrowed by the Baathist government for public infrastructure improvements was not actually used for that purpose. The electrical distribution network, for example, was using 1950's technology, and outside of Baghdad there was no power for much of the day. The water purification plants and sewage plants were in a state of terrible neglect. Even the earmarked oil-for-food money was diverted, thanks to the incompetently lax management of the UN. Look at the huge palaces and mosques. The only improvements made were those that contributed to directly the glorification and comfort of the ruling officials, especially Hussein himself.
They are now expected to use the oil revenue to rebuild what was destroyed in the war. America decides who gets the contracts to rebuild and awards the contracts to American companies that submit closed bids. The oil flows again and America gets the money. Iraq has to pay yet again for infrastructure that it still has to pay for the first building of. And America wonders why the Arabs hate them ?
See above. Much of the infrastructure that hadn't already fallen apart due to deliberate neglect was damaged in the Gulf War of 1991, when Hussein invaded Kuwait. (Remember that?) It was not rebuilt, despite claims to the contrary by the Hussein government and despite aid given them for that purpose.
As for American companies getting the many of the contracts, yeah, so what? You may have noticed that we're also paying $87 billion for the reconstruction. The recent "study" which attempted to coorelate campaign contributions to contracts is so flawed as to be completely bogus. And the UN has turned tail and run, clearly showing how interested they really are in long term results.
Forget Palestine, just follow what is happening in Iraq and Afghanistan.
What's happening in Afganistan? We dealt one of the world's major terrorist operations a critical if not fatal blow. We've freed the people who live there from a regime that killed people for such horrible transgressions as being a female teacher, and kept those same people from reasserting control. And then, unfortunately, we turned over reconstruction to the UN, which has spent most of the time since shuffling paper and contemplating their navels instead of fixing things.
What's happening in Iraq? We're rebuilding infrastructure that's been broken for decades, often using the huge piles of cash that the Baathists had hidden for their own use. We're establishing a police force that's not controlled by a sadistic madman and his sons. We're rebuilding hospitals and given them modern equipment. We're opening schools where the students aren't required to sing songs praising said dictator or arrested and taken from their parents for criticism of the government. For the first time in memory, Iraqi's are allowed demonstrations, private newspapers, and free speech. There are people who don't want these things to happen, including the ones that style themselves as martyrs and kill civillians to encourage a return to the good old days when all these things were illegal and the people knew their place. Right under their heels, of course.
Do not forget that the rest of us get hurt in the revenge attacks that American actions create... I am fed up with terrorism and am therefore against this American war on Terrorism and the terrorism that it creates. I think that it is time the rest of the world started a war on terrorism and stopped the US stupidities.
Er, yes, because there was no terrorism before bad ol' America got involved. Just like there were no Nazis before Churchill got all worked up over that silly Poland thing and ruined peace in our time.
If we were all just nice to the terrorists and left them alone, why then they wouldn't have to hijack planes and
Re:So much for homeland security (Score:3, Insightful)
Some recent-graduate twerp in the purchasing dept (who got deported from the US on a visa screw-up because the Homeland Security couldn't tell the difference between him and the thousand other students with the same name, then had to start university studies all over in another country, and got stuck with the bill for four years of tution at the American college) finds this story and shows it to the purchasing manager.
The purchasing manager thinks: 'If I buy American, then at any time and for any reason, someone can just push a button in Oklahoma and all of my trucks will just stop running and might not ever work again'.
The German-Korean joint conglomerate get the contract, and the next one, and the next one. The American company fires 15% of its workforce each year. Ten years later they sell out to the German-Korean conglomerate pennies to the dollar of the original worker's pension fund investment.
This short-sighted stupidity just goes on and on year after year.
Re:So much for homeland security (Score:3, Insightful)
Huh? Are you nuts? This is a Godsend!
"Live and direct on KTLA, we have a tanker truck full of TNT, it's been stolen and it's on a rampage! We have word from the authorities that the GPS failsafe is on board and ready for activation, causing the truck to careen out of control and roll down a cliff, culminating in a spectacular explosion! And since we know when it'll happen, we can safely pause for a few words from our sponsor! Stay tuned for the choadsome explosion and screaming fiery death after the break! Get your VCRs ready!"
IRV (Score:3, Insightful)
kill the two party system.
kill government by the lesser of two evils.
kill the party-line campaign donations (castrate lobbying).
return to actually campaigning on the issues.