You know the land of the freedom, well it aint no more (if it ever was). The Onstar technology featured in many of the American designed cars nowdays, the safe way to make sure if accident happen the ambulance will automatically find you...well there is an addition to that. If the car gets stolen it will be found easily by police that will via a satellite disable the car ignition while its riding on a highway and stop it.

Well thats nice and all, but that opens an opportunity for the government to stop any car they wish whenever they want. So enjoy the "freedom" while you riding that American-designed car with OnStar technology.

http://www.livescience.com/technolog...ar-police.html

This has never been a secret. People choose to use this product. How can this choice be against our civil rights? You have to pay a monthly fee for the service which rewords the user with cheaper insurance premiums. The fact that this technology is in use does not put our freedoms in jeopardy. However, its mindless use and our gradual dependance will.
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"... and knowing is half the battle." - G.I. Joe

can't they also track you using the GPS in your cell phone if they wish? Can't they also track you via satellite? How about all the cameras set up in stores and on city streets?

Onstar isn't mandatory. You can opt out of it and choose to have it deactivated at any time. If it were required, then it may be a civil rights violation. When you "sign on the bottom line" you agree to certain terms.

Don't sign. No issues.

~String

I disconnected the antenna from my OnStar unit. Just to be sure.

I think you should cover it in aluminum foil as well. Especially the windows!

Indeed.

There's a saying in my industry: "Major in the majors." Meaning: Make your purpose & spend your time on the big things, that really mater.

I'll exhaust energy worrying about this if I get Onstar and when I feel the police are abusing this authority.

~String

does draqon even have a car?

no, but I will make sure not to have Onstar in my car when I buy one (next year most likely).

Onstar isnt just tracking, its interference with the car engine, they can hook up to the electronic processing unit and potentially even control a car with such a technology.

How long will it be untill Onstar will become mandatory, I know police will love to have that kind of power over everyone.

There are ads already on TV on the latest technology featuring cellphone ability to unlock a door of owned house just by dialing a number from anywhere in the world.

You left out a key part of the article, draqon: "GM also stated that the owner of the vehicle may opt out of the service upon request. GM's research has indicated that 95% of current OnStar subscribers would like to participate."

The majority of the people who subscribe to OnStar want this feature. People who subscribe to OnStar are (I suspect)

• Law-abiding, and probably drive-me-crazy law abiding. That is, someone who goes under the posted limit in the fast lane. Someone who waits for the light to turn green rather than taking a right-turn on red.
• A bit insecure. The OnStar sales pitch is largely aimed at calming the insecure.
• A bit paranoid. "What if someone steals my car?"
• A bit naive. The people who buy into this technology ignore that all a car thief has to do is remove the right fuse, and voila! OnStar is non-functional.

Since driving on public roads isn't a recognized civil right (at least, not in the US) it arguably wouldn't violate your civil rights even if it was mandatory.

True, but I suspect that if a substantial fraction of thieves start disabling OnStar in the cars that they steal, the car makers will simply couple OnStar to the car's body control module so that it won't start when OnStar is disabled. This would be trivially easy to do, since the BCMs in most modern cars are already set up to disable the car (usually by locking the fuel injectors) if various systems in the car aren't happy. Usually it's coupled to some kind of key sensor that checks to make sure a proper key has been inserted.

This is how I see it. What's the point of fearing government intrusion when they pay/strong arm privet companies to do it for them? This is how the phone company received immunity from prosecution over the hole domestic wiretapping infringement. What worries me most is that people are willing to hand over their civil rights for this false sense of security. These products are marketed toward our fears and unfortunatly too many consumers behave like mindless drones. The infastructure being created by these services will continue to grow which will eventually tempt another "W" type administration to abuse it. This is the price society pays for conveyance.

I heard the government was starting to track tinfoil sales.

Maybe that was just a disinformation rumour.

If their not then Walmart sure is.

Dude they can do that now it is called a road block and spike strips. Add on Sat survalence and Bang there you have it. I would sooner ride in a car with ONStar then not.

Look at this statement someone who goes under the posted speed limit in the Fast lane. There is no "Fast Lane" that I know of in North America that I have seen. People that go under the posted speed limit period should piss you off. I have never seen a posted speed limit on a per lane basis.

Sorry for the hijacking I will stop know just wanted to point this out is all.

There are very real advantages to OnStar - it's not merely a "false sense of security." Being able to have emergency medical services automatically summoned in the event of a crash or having the ability to shut your vehicle's engine down/locate it if it's stolen is not some trivial, imaginary benefit that's of no real use to anyone. You might not personally think that it's worth the privacy trade-off, but that doesn't mean that someone else who comes to a different conclusion is a "mindless drone."

Well to be fair, you can't track a car in real-time with a sat. Or at least, not very often, and not for very long. The sat would move out of position very quickly. And even if you could, your local police certainly aren't going to have access to the data. They could always follow a car around in a helicopter or something, but that's a fairly big deal and you can only watch one or two cars at a time that way.