Care to post a link showing another way that law enforcement and big business are using electronics to eliminate privacy and erode personal liberties in the Western World?

Your Thruway E-Z Pass is being read in other places besides highway toll booths. Shopping malls, parking lots, stores, Town government are buying readers. The readers record the date and time (and location) you passed near them. Placed under road signs or behind shopping mall entrances signs they read your info without your knowledge.
Who knows what they do with the data.

Unless you plan to be on the highway put the EZ Pass in a foil bag and stuff it in your glove box. (Or mark it and take turns swapping it with your friends.

Note: You can purchase a small commercial device that will illuminate a red light when your pass is contacted and transmits. Buy one for the office and take turns sharing it.

You asked for a link.
This link discusses an example of E-Z Pass monitoring in Brooklyn NY – and shows you a typical reader.

GREAT example, @LuckyGuy. Thanks for linking…I’ll read them all with interest and pass the paronoia information on to everyone I know.

I’d really like to compile a list.

Related to @LuckyGuy‘s incidence/link.

@ibstubro. There was already a brouhaha over Apple recording location data and having the phone periodically send the file to them without the owner’s knowledge. (No doubt to personalize the user experience and better serve us.)

There is also the capability to remotely turn on and monitor laptop, tablet, and smart phone microphones surreptitiously to record room conversations. The info is quietly stored and then sent to the snoop when the user connects to the internet. A dummy plug with the correct impedance placed in the mic input port will prevent this in most, but not all, cases.

There was an interesting article in (I think) the NY Times a few years ago about EZ Pass. I will try to find it. It was about the potential uses for the technology.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/02/fbi-really-doesnt-want-anyone-to-know-about-stingray-use-by-local-cops/

I think something that we overlook, is the possibility that the NSA and spying on citizens could lead to political abuses.
Spying could lead to stopping any kind of possible dissent, as well as ruining political careers of politicians who may not be “status quo.”

In the age of hacking, it seems the only thing that would make the majority of citizens care about it’s government spying, would be if a file was released containing all the information that the NSA has been collecting to the public, including everyone’s emails, text messages, phone calls, etc

Cars don’t need EZ make-you-pay devices to be tracked by all the police cameras which have computers reading the license plate numbers and putting it in a database. I know someone from Washington who was pulled over by several police vehicles at once while driving from California into Nevada, after having been on private property for over a week. They lied that he had “crossed the median”, and interrogated him about where he had been during that time, and threatened to detain him if he didn’t give them “permission” to open his trunk for them (he’s totally law-abiding and had nothing to hide). Evidently it’s become suspicious to not have been tracked everywhere you go.

I had a similar experience with a St. Louis patrolman before they even began the random license number collections, @Zaku.

I don’t doubt your story in the least. As a matter of fact, I’d say that a good percentage of the seemingly random stops are electronically generated. I don’t see a drop in the crime statistics.

@ibstubro You had a group of police interrogate you about your movements for the last week during a traffic stop?