The biggest threat to your privacy is the government. We must drastically limit the ability of government to collect and store data regarding citizens’ personal matters.  Earl Blumenauer is the sponsor of HR-3311 to mandate GPS tracking devices on all our vehicles. To track our every mile and know everywhere we go. The pilot program will waste hundreds of millions of dollars at a time when we are already deep in debt and spending too much. http://thenewspaper.com/rlc/docs/2009/us-hr3311.pdf Do we really think it is a good idea to pile debt on our children? We must stop spending.

This bill is designed to transition us to a per mile vehicle tax system called The Road User Fee Pilot Project and would be administered by the Treasury Department otherwise know as the IRS. This system will track all American cars using a new form of taxation. Cars will be taxed by the mileage they drive.

Under the bill the IRS or Treasury will appropriate $154,000,000 of taxpayers money in the form of free grants to well connected commercial manufactures. It means that every car in America will be tracked through whatever method they choose. This constitutes absolute surveillance whether on public or private property, welcome to another attack on the 4^th amendment.

We must stop the move toward a national ID card system. All states are preparing to issue new driver’s licenses embedded with “standard identifier” data — a national ID. A national ID with new tracking technologies means we’re heading into an Orwellian world of no privacy.

To date, the privacy focus has been on identity theft. It was Congress that created this danger by mandating use of the standard identifier (currently your SSN) in the private sector. For example, banks use SSNs as customer account identifiers because the government requires it.

We must also protect medical privacy. Right now, you’re vulnerable. Under so-called “medical privacy protection” rules, insurance companies and other entities have access to your personal medical information.

Financial privacy? Right now depositing $10,000 or more in cash in your local bank account will generate a federally-mandated report to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network at the United States Department of the Treasury.

And then there’s the so-called Patriot Act. As originally proposed, it:

• Expanded the federal government’s ability to use wiretaps without judicial oversight.
• Allowed nationwide search warrants non-specific to any given location, nor subject to any local judicial oversight.
• Made it far easier for the government to monitor private internet usage.
• Authorized “sneak and peek” warrants enabling federal authorities to search a person’s home, office, or personal property without that person’s knowledge.
• Required libraries and bookstores to turn over records of books read by their patrons.

We must force our government to follow our Constitution.
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