Re: Great for divorce lawyers
Congressmen rarely get exercised about anything to the degree they are willing to leave behind their partisanship and work together on legislation, but one of the quickest ways to insure that is to make something a threat TO THEM.
If the manufacturer of a car has access to a history of where a congressman has been it potentially exposes mistresses or corruption, or even in the case of the squeaky clean guy (if any exist) it could expose a meeting with the opposition he would prefer his own party didn't know about. All you need is an employee with access who is partisan for the 'other' party, or one who is friends with a journalist / blogger looking to dig up dirt.
All it will take is some scandal where this information is "illegally" released (in quotes because there are no laws governing it today) similar to when the list of Bork's video rentals was made public and congress will quickly act once they realize it could be used against THEM.
Obviously this has nothing to do with Tesla, GM has been shipping cars that can report position back to home base for years with their OnStar product. They might have a 'privacy policy' on that information, but the question isn't whether they keep records of where cars have been, only how many people have access to those records. Tesla may be keeping more detailed records, since it can probably gauge your position by other means when you are out of contact with GPS which OnStar probably cannot, but this is merely a difference of degree.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
