Congress poised to pass bizarre auto-tracking bill …
The United States Senate has recently passed a bill that would require the installation of tracking equipment in all vehicles sold in the United States after 2015. The bill, deceptively titled “A bill to reauthorize Federal-aid highway and highway safety construction programs, and for other purposes,” provides for event recorder “black box” to be installed in all vehicles. This box would then record the actions of the vehicle and record it for later retrieval “Not later than 180 days after the date of enactment of this Act, the Secretary shall revise part 563 of title 49, Code of Federal Regulations, to require, beginning with model year 2015, that new passenger motor vehicles sold in the United States be equipped with an event data recorder that meets the requirements under that part,” reads the bill.
The bill allows for the retrieval of the data on the recorders by law enforcement and courts. However, it would not require a police agent to intervene on the highway to download data from the recorder. The bill also requires the deployment of a “vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communications systems” that would allow passing vehicles to “phone home” to government agencies through hardpoints along the road.
The bill requires the approval of the House of Representatives and the President.
… would also stop tax debtors from leaving the country
Another strange provision of the bill would revoke the passport of any U.S. Citizen who owed more than $50,000 in back taxes. This rule is ostensibly designed to prevent Americans from fleeing the country to escape tax debt. What may not be apparent to may Americans is that IRS debts are determined, not by a court judgement, but by a ruling from the IRS itself, essentially a bill. “It takes away your right to enter or exit the country based upon a non-judicial IRS determination that you owe taxes,” attorney Angel Reyes told reporters in an interview. “It’s a scary thought that our congressional representatives want to give the IRS the power to detain US citizens over taxes, which could very well be in dispute.”
Partly cloudy skies today with a high near 80. Tonight, an 80 percent chance of rain showers with a low around 47 degrees.
