Trumped by terrorism

Interesting discussion about congestion pricing's impact on personal liberty at Transport Blog and then at greater length at White Rose.

But it is all trumped by the politics of terrorism. Pentagon goal: to track every vehicle in a city.

The Pentagon is developing an urban surveillance system that would use computers and thousands of cameras to track, record and analyze the movement of every vehicle in a foreign city.

Dubbed "Combat Zones That See," the project is designed to help the U.S. military protect troops and fight in cities overseas.

Police, scientists and privacy experts say the unclassified technology could easily be adapted to spy on Americans.

The project's centerpiece is groundbreaking computer software that is capable of automatically identifying vehicles by size, color, shape and license tag, or drivers and passengers by face.

According to interviews and contracting documents, the software may also provide instant alerts after detecting a vehicle with a license plate on a watchlist, or search months of records to locate and compare vehicles spotted near terrorist activities.

Though this program is obviously not designed to help aid the "war on congestion", the Pentagon now has a political constituency of congestion pricing enthusiasts to point out an additional benefit of keeping track of every car. The political ground --- & the presumptions and burdens of persuasion which are so critical to legal and political discussion --- has just shifted. The issue is no longer "Can we institute a congestion pricing system without tracking individual cars?" Now it is "We have the data. Of course we should use it to stop other bad things besides terrorists. Don't you agree?"

But don't worry, it will all be done anonymously.