Well, sorry to burst your bubble, but that isn't some conspiracy theory, or secret program, and the actual law that that program is designed to study will involve odometer checks not GPS. GPS is being used for the study, because it allows quick results. Having to manually check the millage of all the vehicles would not only delay the information, it would balloon the cost of the study, and quite simply the study would not even happen.

The reason we're doing pilot studies on the feasibility of mileage-based taxes is twofold:
* We have high adoption of electric and hybrid vehicles, and currently we're projected to run out of money to maintain roads because our road funding is mostly from the gas tax. No gas, no gas tax!
* Anti-environmentalists are complaining about gas vehicles having to subsidize electric without a vote, by avoiding the tax that is used to maintain the roads.

Care to elaborate on how any of that has anything to do with what you were replying to?

And by-the-way, any such future changes will be decided by a direct vote of the People of Oregon.

No, semantically we don't have any information about the views of the reader and who they view as undesirable, so it should be and/or.

Tools are not problems or solutions.

The problem is, and I'm using the example that was often cited in the 90s, you're 3 hours into your vacation and are worried you might have left the stove or coffee maker on. Being able to login to your home network and check the status could save your vacation! Otherwise you have to worry the whole time, or call somebody and beg them to visit your house, and probably have to give up the location of your spare key over an unsecure line. Networked coffee makers were, of course, already decades old, though most were custom built.

I find it... unlikely... that you truly cannot find your own examples of where information about "things" is useful to the owner of said things. It should be... very easy.

You seem to miss the fact that the companies could do that now, but don't want to. You're basically proposing to strip freedom from service companies, and have some sort of government regulator determine where their storage Must Be, and what API they're restricted to only using. Otherwise, you'd simply be proposing that companies stop wanting what they want, and everybody to agree on a common solution. Which is silly, because human traits are distributed according to a known distribution, and it is guaranteed that both individuals and companies will want things from the full range of possibilities.

What we already have is a system where those of us who are intolerant of platform lock and restrict ourselves to only certainly types of tools that support interoperability can already do this.

And, by-the-way, Google doesn't have a walled garden, they have an open API and other companies can already integrate and let their users keep backend data in a variety of google services such as google drive. You can remix or mashup the services of any company that has an open API. And you can go the other way in most cases, and import your data stored in other services to the google services. It is only the companies that don't, that instead have a walled garden, that deny this ability. The fact that you conflate walled gardens and open APIs suggests to me that you don't actually understand the technologies you're discussing.

I've been saying "no, never" to platform lock since 1998, and interoperability has only improved. It has only improved. You're not sharing and inter-operating because you're willing to use sucky services. That is the only reason. You can't save others from their sucky choices without stripping their Freedom, you can only save yourself by making better choices.

Your State is obviously badly in need of a "ballot measure" system. In most US States, the type of law you imagine would only last until the next election, when it would be repealed.

Here in Oregon, State politicians who vote "Yes" on a law later repealed have a 100% rate of being replaced by their own party in the next Primary Election. The result is that anything controversial, they don't even vote on the law; they only vote on referring it to the voters. Voters don't punish politicians for asking us to decide, even if they asked us to say "yes" and we actually say "no."

Also, insurance isn't a licensed product, so it can't have a EULA. They would need a clear agreement, there would be a whole extra privacy form. And there only has to be 1 insurance company that doesn't require it for it to not actually be required. There would be instant demand for such an option, so it would be offered, because insurance is highly competitive.

And, the idea of a contractual requirement connected to a drivers license that has nothing to do with driving is pretty silly. That is unlikely to get past scrutiny from the Courts, even if you can find a State with voters so stupid that such a law would get passed.

Way to put the SCO in CISCO.

It doesn't mean you are "for sure" but it does mean you are "most likely" and "within x [very high] certainty."

The vast majority of times people who own cell phones don't have it with them, they either left it at home, or forgot it somewhere in a stationary location.

If it is usually where They think it is, that is more than good enough that they can be "pretty sure" where you are.

Privacy is not retained by there being a small chance that the invasion of privacy is rarely and temporarily incorrect.

Dumb cellphones give away your triangulated location to within a few dozen yards, too.

If you really don't want to be tracked, you can't even use a pager.

That's why I plan to stick to a private intranet of things.

That's a pretty idiotic proposal IMHO. I would vote "no."

That would never fly in my State (Oregon). If you think this could happen in your State, my advice, get a "ballot measure" system where you can exercise Direct Democracy. Then you don't have to worry about those kinds of idiotic conspiracy theories, because if they were to pass such a law, the People would simply revert it at the next election.

Actual "patriots" would sooner die than run away to Russia.

Real Patriots would face whatever consequences to do what is best for the nation.

Real Patriots who thought the government was acting illegally would stand up to that government at any cost they would not slink away into the darkness and hand national secrets to foreign governments.

Real Patriots would stay and fight for American principles against any threat, even a (nonexistent, in this case) threat of death.

Snowden didn't do any of that. He gave away national secrets and ran away, because he doesn't believe in America, doesn't trust American juries, and doesn't believe in Justice, or in fighting for it.

Snowden is not only a Traitor to America, he's also a Traitor to whatever American political forces would support his actions.

Maybe that is some sort of meme, but misunderstanding isn't "fixing," and neither is offering a different view.

You still didn't get it, there is a bunch of derp on your chin. Try wiping in bigger motions.

When they change communication methods is exactly when we discover new people to track. That works out even if we're slow to track their new methods, because we at least are tracking a small percent of the new method.

Mostly though this isn't used for "terrorism" or international law enforcement. It is used against governments where we're involved in military conflict, or might be. That is the main use case, hostile governments.

You can reasonably infer all of this by closely watching the military leaks during the early stages of new conflicts, such as Syria and Libya. When government officials try to go into hiding, that is exactly when we can break their whole communication system and find out what everybody is doing. That is what the signals people (NSA) see their job as, not any of the inane things people accuse them of, like industrial espionage. (which is handled by the CIA, if you believe any of the most credible accusations)

The report just says they didn't release or adopt any new encryption tools in a short timeframe associated with the leaks.

To meet the standard in the report, they would have had to have had more secure communication tools at the ready, but not deployed. They would have had to have known their security sucked, but have been communicating that way anyways, waiting for somebody to tell them that the NSA was listening so they would know to push the "super secret" button before talking, or something.

The report isn't a "lie" exactly, it is just totally full of shit.