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EZ PASS - EASY MONITOR? BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU By: Barbara Stanley I live on the east coast, in the state of New York and we have toll roads, tunnels and bridges. Recently the toll has been raised to $6 per trip. The cost is two dollars cheaper if you use EZ PASS - an electronic monitor that registers as you go through the tollbooth where the signal is picked up by the scanner. For the last few years, as I travel to the New Jersey ocean, I have noticed that the exact change or token lanes are scattered about in a random pattern from toll plaza (plaza? -newspeak for parking lot that occurs during many driving hours as folks try to find the right lane) to next, with more and more EZ PASS lanes designated. It is interesting that on one particular trip, the traffic jam was actually from one toll to the next. Yikes. There we sit, waiting to get chits, or toss coins or tokens, as the EZ PASS drivers move on by, talk about incentive to switch from money to electronic signals. The EZ PASS lanes are inconsistently placed from toll plaza to toll plaza, insuring an that even a greater circus takes place wasting even more time. Soon we can expect the class warfare of some drivers hating those who are not ‘up to speed’, (figuratively and literally) and I do not for one minute think this is coincidental. You want to get to the job on time? Then get in step, get in line, no talking and if you err, here come the authorities to hold you up for ridicule. And now, with the tolls being raised just recently, the enrollment in the EZ PASS system of tracking is on the rise. What is the commuter to do? Gotta get to work and so they either pay considerably more or join up in the new age of monitoring that the socialists foist upon us. In the rush to make a living and pay the taxman, we are being driven through the cattle gates to the slaughter of our freedoms and if we don’t wake up and wake up now, we will all be lost in the flush. I also learned that some years back, chips were placed in newer cars which allowed them to be tracked and also allowed an outside source to cut the engine, effectively denying the freedom of moving from place to place as they pursue happiness. Now, I am none too happy with having to have a driver’s license, registration, insurance and now the switchover to electronic monitoring either. And it is sold to us as a boon, to help us when we are lost or to retrieve stolen autos. Gee, who wouldn’t want their car back in a damn hurry when it is stolen? And, God forbid, what if the car is hijacked and your little junior is in the back car seat? Now, this doesn’t really involve me for my cars have a combined total age of thirty-nine years, not new cars either of them by any stretch of the imagination. But I was alarmed when I heard the rumours that Christy Whitman, then governor of New Jersey, was working on legislation that would make any car over a certain age illegal — and you guessed it — my car won't qualify! Whereas some believe older cars are major polluters, my cars are kept running well and do not add any measure of note to the usual emissions. And now I learn that thumbprints are required in some places and this worries me. What’s next? Urine sample? DNA via epithelial cells from cheek scrapings? Can I expect to obtain a driver’s license only after saying ah? Incrementalism, that’s the ticket! First begin these intrusive practices in large cities, where all the folks in a hurry live and then spread them out to the rest of us in the provinces. Not a good sign for the rights of privacy, the freedom to travel, is it? Soon we can expect to be monitored in all we do, tracked in all we buy and controlled from cradle to grave. “Papers please” will soon replace, “have a nice day’ as we go about our daily lives and living la vida loca will be the tune we hum as blackshirts and armed border guards patrol all our roads. Did I wake up in the USSR? Seems to me that communism is not only not dead, but alive and thriving in the sheep’s clothing of the ‘caring socialist’. Pretty soon “it’s for the children” will be replaced with “it’s for your own good.” Not bloody likely for our own good, not at all, but for the good of a police state. Coming soon: taxes on travel added to the taxes we pay constantly every day. Pursuit of happiness? Obviously nothing more than a fond memory, if things continue in this path. There is more and more reporting, monitoring, high tech oculars that allow spying through walls and microphones sensitive (and bugging devices small) enough to spy on us and it looks more and more like ‘Big Brother is Watching’ and this big brother is a bully. I recently heard on Infowars (Alex Jones’ radio broadcast) that a man decided to declare himself a sovereign state, make his own license plate and carry no driver’s license. When his uniqueness finally got him pulled over by the highway police, he asked the officer if he swore an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. When the officer said he had, the driver then asked him to delineate exactly where in the US Constitution was the allowance and regulation for a driver’s license. When the officer found no answer, the driver then informed him he would be suing the officer personally and if necessary, the chief, for denying him his Constitutional rights and their dereliction of duty. The officer let him go on his way. Wow! Can you imagine if everyone did this? If everyone held their officials to their oaths, threatened to litigate them personally, not the business, or department, but hold them each personally accountable, well, it does make one wonder, doesn’t it? |
