Oppression Watch: Road pricing in the Netherlands
Well, alea iacta est as they say. Last Friday our government decided for all of us that road pricing will be introduced by 2012. The government of course presents this new scheme as a blessing for all, to wit:
To make sure motorists are not worse off, road tax will be scrapped and the purchase tax on new cars will be reduced. Some 60% of drivers will be better off, the government claims.
The transport ministry said on Friday it expected fatal accidents will fall by 7% and carbon emissions would be down by 10%. Traffic jams will be halved and the amount of kilometres driven will go down by 15%.
After which it will proceed to cure cancer and abolish world hunger, presumably.
But there is a bit of trouble in paradise. The Telegraaf, vehemently opposed to the plans, is running a series of article, pointing out obvious issues with regard to privacy, or the completely draconian measures imposed on citizens (suspected of) tampering with this magnificent scheme.
The road-pricing scheme includes the obligation of installing a GPS device (which one has to pay for one self), which may never be turned off. Each car on the roads will be fitted with a GPS device which will use satellites to monitor where and when the car is driven and send the information to a central billing point. Hence, the government will know where you are (or at least: Where your car is) all hours of all days from the moment the thing is installed in your car and turned on. Not only that: Ones speed can be monitored in real time, preparing for real time enforcement of speed limits, another steady source of income.
The ministry said on Friday the information collected about motoring habits would be ‘legally and technically’ protected and would not be accessible to other government agencies. But today it was already forced to backtrack on that promise, admitting that data could be shared with other ministries and police forces (NL), of a situation required such.
If the “security of the state” is at risk, or in the case of “prevention, detection and prosecution of criminal activity”, the police or the intelligence agency AIVD may [virtually] snoop around into your car.
For those that are of the opinion that Dutch government is rather meek in its punishing of offenders, there is good news. With road-pricing the government seems to have overcome its reservations against imposing tough sanctions (NL). The bad news is, of course, that this new found toughness is directed against the average citizen: Malfunction of the GPS device must be reported to the authorities within 8 hours, on pain of a a fine of €18,500 or a jail sentence of six months. That includes of course a criminal record that will last for 10 years. If deliberate tampering is detected, this may run up to €74,000 or four years in jail. Four years! What hardened criminals we must be, that such punishments are in order.
Missing from the reporting completely is the EUnion angle. As with the equally privacy-destroying ‘smart energy meter’, the whole thing is presented as a plan concocted by the christian-socialist cabinet of our would-be EUnion president. As usual the reality is even more grotesque. EU Referendum has done a series of posts in the past, explaining how road-pricing is the vehicle with which the EUnion will fund the Galileo project. Hence, this government is merely executing what their masters in Brussels have ordered. They are not our government, they are the representatives of the EUnion elite. This has been so for quite some time and will be so de jure when The Turnip comes into effect, December 1st.
We are becoming less free and poorer. Not because our own government (who we can dismiss) decided so, but because our supreme government in Brussels (who we cannot dismiss) ordered so. Freed of any accountability, they are in a position to rob us blind with impunity. What we are seeing here is the true meaning of the EUnion for us, mere subjects.
[UPDATE001] Isn’t that just the coincidence: One year ago, to the day, I wrote:
Don’t let yourself be fooled. Road-pricing will come, despite current protestations to the contrary. The EUnion needs it to justify the costs of the Galileo project and the EUnion will get it. Objections from parliament and assurances from Camile Eurlings and others are all sound and fury, signifying nothing.
And here we are, one year later. Being right isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, though… Would that I had been completely wrong.
[UPDATE002] For what good it’ll do here’s a petition against the governments plans for road pricing in the Netherlands: Kilometerheffing Nee
http://kleinverzet.blogspot.com/2009/11/oppression-watch-road-pricing-in.html
THE ROTHSCHILDS AGAIN- WANTING MORE AND MORE!!
Centurean2\'s Weblog 
http://kleinverzet.blogspot.com/2009/11/oppression-watch-road-pricing-in.html
radical plan to raise £100 billion by privatising the motorway network has been presented to the three main political parties by NM Rothschild, the influential investment bank.
Rothschild, an architect of several privatisations, made its pitch in the weeks running up to the summer recess on July 21, Whitehall sources said. Bankers told leading politicians that the sale of the roads overseen by the Highways Agency — all motorways and most big trunk roads — could help revive battered public finances.
Toll-road companies and infrastructure funds would compete to operate and maintain stretches of the network.
In one version of the scheme, the government would pay for upkeep through a system of “shadow” tolls. A more radical, and less politically palatable, option would be for companies to charge motorists directly through toll booths or electronic card readers. The RAC Foundation, a motorists’ group, advocated privatisation in a report last week.
The Rothschild plan has already won the support of Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrats’ deputy leader and Treasury spokesman.
“This is an attractive, positive idea which could release considerable resources to the public finances and may have real environmental merits,” Cable said. “The scale of it is vast — it makes rail privatisation look like small beer.”
CONTINUES…
http://statismwatch.ca/2009/08/30/uk-rothschild-bank-pitches-motorway-privatisation-plan/
By the way, who voted for the new President and High Representative of the United States of Europe? Oh, of course, nobody did. Silly me.
http://nigelhastilow.blogspot.com/
H. L. Mencken:
Democracy is only a dream: it should be put in the same category as Arcadia, Santa Claus, and Heaven.
I cannot believe that the dutch, having experienced living under a police state during the war, will allow this to happen. When is the next general election in the Netherlands?
Just as we here are without real power, so are the Dutch people.
As for elections’ the Dutch realise, Election’s now mean nothing at all.
HOBSONS CHOICE ALL ROUND!!
Vince Cable agrees with this does he? Well that takes the lib dems off my voting list. It seems that
there is only UKIP left. So let’s have them and get out of the EEC.
There is little or no difference between the Liblabtors when it gets down to it.
There are other parties also want out of the EUSSR, here’s a new one started up January 2008 our media fail the people by not speaking up.
I admire this party for a few reasons’ one being, they put nobody forward to be elected into Europes’ parliament, reason being under the 1689 English bill of rights it’s illegal, the QUEEN, MINISTERS, all took an oath stating that to hand over this country to a foreign power is ILLEGAL and that stands for all time, making them ALL Traitors,
Ian Parker-Joseph upheld the bill of rights by refusing to recognise the Brussels parliament!
http://lpuk.org/
lpuk Manifesto……………http://lpuk.org/pages/manifesto.php
Good Luck!
There is an organisation in the UK to oppose all forms of road pricing – the Drivers’ Alliance.
The British people had the opportunity to sign a petition against road pricing and 1.8 million did so in just 12 weeks.
Road pricing is not acceptable to the people and it should be resisted in any way possible when an authoritarian government forces it on an unwilling population.
Actions like this from the Dutch government are why people turn to civil unrest and even terrorism. Would it be wrong to destroy the infrastructure used to impose road pricing when such a large majority of the population are strongly opposed to it?
In the government controlled media this would be called terrorism but to many this action would be seen as freedom fighting.
The imposition of draconian intrusive state control such as seen with road pricing is just the action of an undemocratic state which forces direct action from decent and generally law abiding citizens.
Agree completely with your comments!
Heres’ a link to your site………..http://www.driversalliance.org.uk/