The Safe Drivers Act is A Real-Time National Driver Surveillance Program
By guest writer Joe Cadillic, editor of the MassPrivatel Blog. A new Senate bill, called the Safe Drivers Act (H.R. 4531), would create a real-time national driver surveillance program. A local Massachusetts TV report revealed that law enforcement would know anything and everything about a driver at the click of a button. MA Congressman Seth Moulton […]
Massive 30-State, Real-Time ALPR Database Revealed: NMA E-Newsletter #558
By guest writer Joe Cadillic of the Massprivatel Blog Our worst fears about automatic license plate readers (ALPR) are coming to fruition, and no one in public understands just how much our privacy will be invaded. This summer, I warned everyone on my blog, and in the NMA Weekly E-Newsletter #554, that police in Arizona […]
Law Enforcement is Using License Plate Readers to “Grid” Entire Neighborhoods: NMA E-Newsletter #554
By guest writer Joe Cadillic of the MassPrivatel Blog What does gridding mean? The Arizona Mirror recently described it this way: “As part of the training for the ALPR (automated license plate readers) systems, Chandler police officers are taught to “grid” neighborhoods during their downtime – systematically driving up and down every street in an area, indiscriminately […]
Universal Road User Charges Really? Many Questions that need Answers by the Rest of Us
Editor’s Note: One of our Texas members wrote the following guest post as a response to this past week’s first part of the NMA three-part newsletter called: Are We Slinking Ever Closer to a Universal Road User Charge. Parts two and three will be on the website www.motorists.org on July 28 and August 4, respectively. […]
Are We Slinking Ever Closer to a Universal Road User Charge? Part 1—the National Landscape: NMA E-Newsletter #549
A road user charge or RUC (also referred to as the Vehicle Miles Traveled Tax or VMT Tax and Mileage Based User Fees or MBUF) currently permeates nearly every discussion of how our country will pay for infrastructure in the future. Many transportation planners and elected officials seem to agree the time has come to […]
Paying More for Less Service: NMA E-Newsletter #534
By 2021, New York City will begin charging drivers who enter Manhattan below Central Park under the guise of congestion pricing. No one is surprised. City and state officials have been trying to make this happen for years. The rare alignment of views between the governor, the mayor, and the state legislature─each likely motivated by […]
Tracking Legislative Activity the NMA Way: NMA –E-Newsletter #533
Today we complete the first full calendar quarter of reporting motorist-related activity that is passing through state and federal legislatures. The NMA Bill/Regulation Tracker (Bill Tracker) was introduced in the Winter 2019 issue of Driving Freedoms and went live on Motorists.org in early January when most states began new legislative sessions. Only three months in […]
NMA Principle Number 4: Freedom from Invasive Surveillance
The Driving in America Blog was started a year ago to bring more information to those who are beginning their journey as motorists’ rights advocates. Over the next several months, I will be working with each of the seven NMA principles to give readers of this weekly blog some idea of what we all are working towards […]
Customer Loyalty Rewarded with 9,000 Highway Spy Cameras: NMA E-Newsletter #527
From guest writer Joe Cadillic, of the MassPrivatel blog The die has been cast, whether it’s digital driver’s licenses, digital license plates, license plate readers or facial recognition cameras. Everyone from private corporations to law enforcement follows the same script; offer Americans customer loyalty rewards programs in exchange for the loss of their privacy. Surveillance […]
The Next Ten Years – Readers’ Edition, Part 2: NMA E-Newsletter #523
In NMA E-Newsletter #520, The Next Ten Years, Jim Walker, Gary Biller, and Steve Carrellas provided their thoughts — limited by the NMA to less than 300 words — on the significant challenges that motorists and the NMA will face over the next decade. We asked readers to chime in with their thoughts and published […]