Well, the solution on the dustbins is easy enough - simply deposit a portion of your trash in neighboring bins; thus ensuring that your bin is never overweight.

Its all about justifying new taxes - Get used to it.

What I find troubling is the lack of concern being raised over the many TV cameras sprouting at traffic controlled intersections across the state.

The cities all claim they are used for traffic light functions only yet I wonder how one camera can follow the activity of five or more traffic lanes and why they need hi-def Color.

The Brits a re King of such spyware.

If the chip is an RFID tag (most likely), it can be disabled. Or fooled.

Yes, the "green" spin is one of the very few fine points Orwell didn't presciently lay out for us. Insidiously clever.

Already happening in my neck of the woods back East:

http://www.arlingtonva.us/departments/EnvironmentalServices/swd/EnvironmentalServicesSwdCurb.aspx

'Each residence is assigned a blue recycling cart. This cart has been electronically linked to your address, with a radio frequency identification tag (RFID) to record the cart’s identification number, date and time of collection. This tracks how many carts are set out on any given day and allows the County to target our outreach efforts and help better plan the collection routes. We ask that you record the number on your cart and keep it at your property.'

Of course, there is nothing to plan except following the same collection routes and schedules, week after week, month after month, year after year. Could they be afraid Ruby Ridge survivors or Tea Party activists are going to abscond with the carts?

No, the real purpose becomes clear, pressed to allow personal containers we are told,

'•The County shall be permitted to attach an RFID tag for the purpose of tracking participation.'

It's an intentional and unecessarily personalized, straightforward requirement to secure compliance and exert control -- nothing more, nothing less.

Well, the solution on the dustbins is easy enough - simply deposit a portion of your trash in neighboring bins; thus ensuring that your bin is never overweight.

But your neighbor's is. Nice. That happens to me already. Someone will top the can off with their trash, overfilling the can so the lid wont close. And our local collector wont dump the can if the lid doesnt close all the way. Happens a few times a month.

The cities all claim they are used for traffic light functions only yet I wonder how one camera can follow the activity of five or more traffic lanes and why they need hi-def Color.

Here's a link that takes you to a City of Salem website, showing an image from one of the traffic signal mounted cameras:

http://www.cityofsalem.net/Departments/PublicWorks/TransportationServices/TrafficEngineering/PublishingImages/trans_tr_sig_browning.jpg

http://www.cityofsalem.net/Departments/PublicWorks/TransportationServices/TrafficEngineering/PublishingImages/trans_tr_sig_nbbrown.jpg

The cameras on the signals are used for "video detection" (in other words, the induction loops that you see embedded in the pavement, usually diamond or circle in shape, don't exist). The cameras themselves are typically low resolution and are black-and-white, and typically the image is not sent anywhere.

Salem's website used to have a whole write-up that said that the images weren't stored unless a VCR were hooked up to it for testing purposes...so in general they aren't used, but it would not be very difficult to transmit the images elsewhere if the signal had some type of a network connection to a central traffic monitoring center. Which, typically doesn't happen around here.

I would be more concerned about the cameras set up specifically for monitoring traffic that ARE better resolution, color cameras, often coupled with a remote control head that can be repositioned, and are monitored remotely (not to mention fed to all the TV stations and the Internet):

http://www.tripcheck.org/Pages/CamerasEntry.asp

http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/traffic/

http://video.dot.ca.gov/

When is the sex coming? Zippy cammucks or something... George Orwell, back in 1949 told about Big Brother watching constantly, making sure that we behaved correctly. And he also said there'd be plenty of sex to help keep us from noticing that Big Brother is controlling out lives.

Many years ago, I had an employer who had been forced from her home by the Hyde Park Baptist Church in a giant buyout. Their congregation had grown, so they razed many square blocks of a neighborhood that had been a major counterculture headquarters for parking lots.

So, for years on end, she cheerfully threw her garbage...all of it...into their front lawn at night. I'm talking truckloads here. She was a hippie of the old school, Texas style.

This was before the proliferation of cheap, ubiquitous high-res video cameras. I'm afraid this was the last of a great era, the 1980s and early 90s. One could easily get away with all kinds of things, and did. It was a hell of a time to come of age...rotting economy, for-real fascist police state, but...but...there weren't those goddamned cameras everywhere.

Some sad souls have always wished for an orderly, crime free Utopia, and now technology is making it a reality. Why, in Great Britain, the most heavily surveilled society in History, violent crime is...oh, wait a minute. We'll just, um, pass over that one. Perhaps when they proceed with their implementation of video cameras in people's private homes, all of that out-of-control crime will vanish. Why, banning the serfs from owning firearms and cooking knives has worked wonders across the pond there...

As far as the ascendancy of RFID technology and it's ilk goes, are any of you familiar with the work of Dr. Jose Delgado ?

In "Physical Control of the Mind: Toward a Psychocivilized Society," he dreams of future societies where everyone is implanted at birth. Total Surveillance and Control.

What we do know is that he got as far as a Bull and a Monkey that could be electronically controlled with a button. This was in the 1970s, and the trail on much of this research goes cold right about then.

Just imagine the progress that awaits us all. It's enough to make a sane person want to jump off a bridge.

Theodore Kaczynski's magnum opus, "Industrial Society and it's Future," is starting to look less and less like the work of a madman every day.

Those who have nothing to hide will have nothing to fear.

RFID tags are very easy to disable. I imagine one person on a crusade per city can completely ruin this idea. Having to replace thousands of carts every month can be a bit expensive.

On second thought, the masters will just pass a law that the cart can only be put out when the truck gets there then immediatly put away again. No more leaving it out all night long.

RFID tags are very easy to disable.
They're also easy to spoof.

But Allan, it's none of the government's business what I'm throwing away or how much. Or where I'm driving. Or how much electricity I use. As long as I pay for the trash collection or for the electricy I use, then it's just between me and the utility company.

When the government starts monitoring the quantity of my trash, or my electricity usage, or where I drive, then what will they monitor next? How often I eat at McDonalds, and then adjust my insurance rates accordingly? (And I bet I'd never get a discount for NOT eating at McDonald's.)

Just because I don't have anything to hide doesn't mean I like the government looking.

We have the wrong people looking and monitoring. We the citizens need to be more engaged and do the looking and monitoring, and keeping a scorecard of those who make decisions that impact us.

When things reach a crisis point, people need to not ignore politics but be active.

Fill out one page of signatures for a recall. Or take just 5 minutes a day to call say for example the toll free number to Congress? 1 800 828-0498 (Ask the Capitol Operator to speak to your or any Congress member's office)
As distasteful as it may be, denial and hoping others will take care of it somehow has gotten us to where we are today. A better situation does not just appear on the scene by itself.

Maybe City council needs to have the RFID! Activated any time official business is being done. Sets off the recording stuff.