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Texas Considers Putting RFID Tags in All Cars
Posted by
timothy
on Sat Apr 02, 2005 07:48 PM
from the hot-pursuit dept.
from the hot-pursuit dept.
An anonymous reader submits "In section 601.507 of Texas HB 2893, the Texas Legislature is considering replacing all vehicle inspection stickers with RFID tags. The legislation also makes provision for the government to use the devices for insurance enforcement. The bill contains limited privacy provisions, but does not seem to exclude other law enforcement usage."
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Remember... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a unique vehicle identifier that can be deciphered using the electromagnetic spectrum, similar to the way human eyes or a tollbooth camera might use visible light to view a license plate, another unique vehicle identifier.
Texas is planning on using it for automated vehicle registration and toll booths (relevant bill excerpt below).
Sounds like a perfectly reasonable use of technology to me. Are we to now fear any new legislation that doesn't specifically and explicitly "exclude [...] law enforcement usage", even if utterly irrelevant?
This may sound trite, but:
RFID != bad
Anything - including a license plate or an old fashioned inspection sticker - can be abused for illegitimate purposes or to abridge someone's privacy. And keep in mind that "illegitimate purposes" is awfully subjective. But trampling - or spreading FUD about - technology is not the answer.
Relevant section:
Sec. 601.507. SPECIAL INSPECTION CERTIFICATES.
(a) Commencing not later than January 1, 2006, the department shall
issue or contract for the issuance of special inspection
certificates to be affixed to motor vehicles that are inspected and
found to be in proper and safe condition under Chapter 548.
(b) An inspection certificate under this section must
contain a tamper-resistant transponder, and at a minimum, be
capable of storing:
(1) the transponder's unique identification number;
and
(2) the make, model, and vehicle identification number
of the vehicle to which the certificate is affixed.
(c) In addition, the transponder must be compatible with:
(1) the automated vehicle registration and
certificate of title system established by the Texas Department of
Transportation; and
(2) interoperability standards established by the
Texas Department of Transportation and other entities for use of
the system of toll roads and toll facilities in this state.
Re:Remember... (Score:4, Insightful)
Why would they want to do that? Well, how about crime fighting, to start? If a house is broken into, they have an instant record of every car that's been into the neighborhood. How about speeding tickets? If you go from one mile marker to the next in less than 60 seconds, you're going more than 60 miles per hour.
But, even if it might help catch a few burglers, do you really want the state tracking every location where you drive your vehicle?
Parent
Re:Remember... (Score:5, Insightful)
that's the only problem I have with this really. It would be so easy to turn into a cash cow
Imagine this for a minute:
An RFID tag in your car gets read at mile-marker 100.
It gets read again at mile-marker 101 57 seconds later.
elapsed time against known distance==speeding ticket in the mail...
Parent
Re:Remember... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Remember... (Score:3, Interesting)
The same thing that prevents them putting laser license plate scanners [techdirt.com] on every street corner: cost, privacy laws, and litigation-hungry lawyers.
You're right to be concerned about your privacy, but there's already plenty of tech out there for tracking your car. If you don't want cops to spy on you, you need to make sure there are legal safeguards in place, not worry
Re:Remember... (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed. And in this case they would track and detain all vehicles in the area EXCEPT the one they're actually looking for. Sounds like a great system, no?
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Re:Remember... (Score:4, Insightful)
And your SSN was originally designed as a convenience to help make sure that you get your share of some government handouts.
Since things never expand beyond their original purported purpose, surely you'd have no qualms about posting your SSN here.
Parent
Re:Remember... (Score:5, Insightful)
And the income tax was originally 3%, and those who warned it might one day reach 10% were told they were paranoid. And your Social Security number was never to be used for identification purposes. The slippery slope is not always a fallacy [ucla.edu].
Parent
Wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
The point was that the transponders were originally sold as a way to auto-pay on the toll roads [eztagstore.com], not as a tracking device for anything else.
Now that "mission creep" has happened, as with so many other government programs, it would be trivial for local law enforcement to track any "EZ Tag"-equipped car for any reason, or no reason at all. Want to fill the city coffers? Start auto-generating tickets for any vehicle that exceeds the speed limit [houstontranstar.org].
I guess while you were not looking, they went and took another of your "rights." Enjoy those you have left.
Parent
Re:Remember... (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:Remember... (Score:5, Insightful)
You really think that's literally what's going on? That politicians are just licking their lips at the prospect of dismantling everyone's privacy, and the first thing on Texas' minds is abusing this tool, and the tollbooth business is just a charade? And do you honestly think that these backroom deals you envision include sleazy promises of how easy it will be to endlessly abridge the privacy of the working class (thereby solidifying their power structure, of course)?
That's an awfully sad view of the world.
The RFID technology itself is hardly relevant. Any other identification mechanism can be abused.
Parent
Re:Remember... (Score:4, Interesting)
Your kind of denial is typical, portraying the the abuse as so extreme as to be unthinkable. When it's really just business as usual, without all the demonic trappings: sell out the public, starting with our privacy, for corporate gain and political power. Or couldn't you bring yourself to read the part about how Giuliani has already perpetrated this scam here in NYC?
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Re:Remember... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Remember... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Remember... (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, they do. But the role they have does not include automatically tracking and logging the movements of ordinary citizens going about their daily lives.
Parent
Re:Remember... (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder what Slashdot would have said if it had been around for the invention of the license plate.
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Re:Remember... (Score:4, Insightful)
One would complain that this is an attempt by Ford to maintain it's evil monopoly by providing the only cars that have a license plate holder.
Another would write a mini sci-fi story about how the big bad gov't would use this to track where individuals go even though it's laughable to think that the gov't is competent enough to manage that much info.
Yet another would get a +5 Insightful for claiming that license plates wouldn't do any good because people would cover them up.
And yet another would shoot right up to +5 for claiming that it would affect gas mileage.
And yet another would
Parent
Re:Remember... (Score:3, Funny)
Uh, no, I don't think they'd make a [NO CARRIER] joke then.
Re:Remember... (Score:5, Funny)
It turns out there's some truth in it after all - they're having a hard time using RFID in fruits because the high water content absorbs the signals.: www.ebi.temple.edu/programs/RFID/RFIDSupplyChain.p df+rfid+fruits+absorb+signal&hl=en [64.233.167.104]
http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:j7dhJE6hsjsJ
Parent
Re:Remember... (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Visibility of Registration / Insurance is good (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm sorry, when did we decide this?
There are a few things I don't want. I don't want the state knowing where I go at any given time. It's not their business. I'm not doing anything wrong, but if I want to go to an adult entertainment store, it's no one's business--although people think it is--and should I run for office one day, I don't want my personal business being brought up by people who think
Re:MOD GRANDPARENT DOWN (Score:4, Informative)
This is generally not a good sign for a bill. Normally if a bill is popular with the members of the Texas House you'll see more than one author, and several co-authors. For example HB259 has 5 authors, and 50 co-authors. This bill past embossment by a vote of over 4-to-1. HB259 was very popular.
Not all bills that pass are that popular with the members of the Texas House. That said, for a bill to have just one author, and *no* co-authors does not bode well for that bill to pass embossment.
As of Sunday April 3, 2005 HB2893 has yet to make it through the Transportation Committee. It is scheduled for public hearing via the Transportation Committee on Tuesday, April 5, 2005.
Parent
You've already got "RFID" (Score:5, Insightful)
This takes very little away, but think about what it might add: the ability to pay for tolls, gas, or parking meters without swiping a card. You have to admit that'd be pretty cool.
It's the access, not the medium (Score:5, Insightful)
But IMO the issue isn't really electronic vs visual ID. The issue is electronic vs human reading of that ID.
Up till relatively recently, a numberplate could be read by any human, but not by an automated machine. So it could be easily checked when really necessary (e.g. when stopped by the police, when photographed leaving a petrol station without paying, when photographed by a speeding camera, &c). But it wasn't checked as a matter of routine.
Now, though, there are machines which can look at a numberplate and automatically recognise the vehicle ID. And there are RFID chips which can be automatically read by machine. Both of these have a similar effect: car IDs can be read as a matter of course, and checked against whatever information they want to.
Arguably, when used to stop cars which have no tax or insurance, that could be beneficial. But would you want your husband/wife to be able to subpoena records of all your movements in a divorce case, say? ("You claimed to have been working late at the office, but your car was recorded as having driven to your girlfriend's house at 5.27pm that evening!") And if the system is widely used, how easy might it be for people to gain unauthorised access? You have only to look at any detective novel to see how people can have good, legitimate reasons for wanting to conceal their movements. And it'd be a gift for stalkers and paparazzi...
Here in the UK, we already have automated numberplate recognition, not just for speed cameras and red-light cameras, but also for the recognising cars entering the London congestion zone, and sending out appropriate bills. (And I gather there's a good number of people who were billed incorrectly...) There's also a new type of speed camera, which recognises your numberplate as you pass fixed locations on motorways, and issues a speeding ticket if your average speed between two such points exceeds the limit. (Which is fair, but worrying for the privacy implications.)
So yes, I agree with your conclusion that RFID doesn't seem to have any intrinsic dangers over and above those which are here already...
Parent
/me microwaves sticker (Score:5, Funny)
Re:/me microwaves sticker (Score:5, Interesting)
Might even have been one of those banditos who runs through parking lots de-activating all of the tags.
Parent
Re:/me microwaves sticker (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, about your driver's license - you need to get THAT replaced within three business days as well - you'll need to go down to the DMV for that, and it will cost you $35.
Good day, drive safely, buckle up, and, uhhh, try to avoid those "stray electromagnetic fields" in the future, sir."
Parent
Hmm, this presents a bit of a problem... (Score:5, Funny)
Hmm, I wonder if a radar gun at very close range would suffice...
Well, the old "whack it over and over with a rubber mallet" would work, I expect. Break the chip but not the windshield and hopefully not the sticker itself.
AHA! I've got it...
A Tesla coil! Put 200kv across the sucker and see how well it fares.
Nevermind, problem solved. Go about your cries of doom and gloom, everyone.
Re:Hmm, this presents a bit of a problem... (Score:3, Insightful)
Surely the microwave would only damage the RFID tag.
Do you have OnStar? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Do you have OnStar? (Score:5, Informative)
More than possible, it has already been done. The FBI got the Mercedes equivalent of On-Star to route a suspect's telemetry to them first. They remotely turned on the "phone" and listened to all the conversations in the car.
We know about it because Mercedes took the FBI to court over it after the monitoring had extended for more than a month. Mercedes's problem with it was that if there was a real emergency, the FBI's wiretap prevented normal emergency services from being provided to the car owner who had paid for them.
The courts ruled in favor of Mercedes, without addressing the privacy issues at all, instead basing their opinion pretty much on the issue of the wiretap interefering with normal usage.
Here's an article [com.com] that summarizes it pretty well. The part they missed is that the car vendor in question was Mercedes. I read in a different article at the time that while the company's name was sealed or otherwise not made public, the lawyer for the auto company in the suit was public knowledge and it was also public knowledge that his firm primarily worked for Mercedes with few, if any, other auto manufacturer clients. Thus the inference to Mercedes.
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Re:Do you have OnStar? (Score:5, Informative)
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Privacy vs Safety (Score:5, Interesting)
1) This is a great idea- AS LONG AS there is a recorded method for access that is timestamped and GPS'd by the police department for querying the users information (ie, after pulled over but not before).
2) This is a BAD idea because, as has been demonstrated with the SpeedPass(tm) the encryption routines thought secure have been easily broken by dedicated hardware. Access to the db by walking out with a copy of it would result in very interesting privacy implications.
Now, I'm a fan of the black-box in a car because should I get into an accident and die, I'd really like my loved ones to know whether or not I was being a responsible individual or an asshole. And frankly, given the number of total incompetent drivers that are apparently granted licenses to operate 2500lb guided missiles, I think the black box has got a better chance of defending me in an accident than attacking me.
RFID tags provide a method of enforcing insurance- do you know what happens if an uninsured motorist hits you and does damage? You're fucked. Totally, completely, fucked. It would have been better for you to wrap your car (and yourself) around a tree than to get hit by an uninsured motorist.
First, your insurance skyrockets because there's no one to recoup the cost from- guess what, you're fucked.
Second, there's no one to go after for pain and suffering (and I suffered for 5 months after getting T-boned by an asshole that ran a stopsign)- thats alot of physical therapy and chiropractic work to get your neck to move in the right direction without needles of pain shooting everywhere.
Finally, there's the whole issue of 'submitted claims' that then follows you around for 7 years. It doesn't matter that your only fault was existing in that particular place at that particular time, it'll follow you on your record and probably influence such things as your credit report and interest rates.
A much better solution would be to simply confiscate the car of a driver that was uninsured or driving illegally, and if it was someone else's car require a 250$ or 500$ fine, doubling each time the car was 'caught'.
But I guess that's my opinion... someone that's had a perfect driving record, dodged into oncoming traffic to avoid hitting a little girl that ran into an intersection (great mother), been t-boned by a moron, and had 2 friends killed by drunk drivers with no insurance.
Forgery (Score:5, Interesting)
A few points that need clarification: (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:A few points that need clarification: (Score:5, Insightful)
Agreed. Totally.
With all the above said, there is nothing wrong, illegal, immoral and unethical to have the black boxes used to automatically ticket bad drivers.
"The black box says you crossed the solid yellow line in a residential area. $150 fine"
"But I was avoiding a little kid chasing a ball!"
"Too bad. Prove it."
In the city I live in, they are getting ready to put in a bunch of red light and speeding cameras. You know what the most reported effect of this will be? "The city will get approx. $X.X million per year in revenue." Not the safety aspect, not reducing speeding. Money. Now...this is partially the fault of the news reporting agencies, but I have heard little else besides the money aspect.
Parent
Re:A few points that need clarification: (Score:5, Insightful)
* Driving, per say, isn't a right; however, freedom to travel without producing papers is. Read up on the actual law for a "driver's license"...it's not as bad as the conspiracy nuts make it out to be, but it's not what you think it is either. Much like the "opt-out Social Security System" that seems to be pretty darn mandatory.
* Driving on public roads doesn't automagically negate your rights...especially when "We the People" are "The Public" and paid for those roads.
* We apparently have different definitions of "public safety". Preserving such safety does not warranty *ANY ONE* to violate said rights. Hence, the cops not being able to roust you on the road just because you're on it ("Sir, we pulled you over because we don't like your face."). Personally, I'm all for such things as "Kill someone while DUI, get a bullet on the spot", but I'm a capricious bastard that way.
* Rules of the road are implemented as any other civil rule of law: by whomever is in power at the time for whatever gain they may get from it (including, but not limited to, personal sexual gratification from knowing they can make others do what they want.) We had 55MPH held over from the '70s to appease the MADD loonies instead of something based on actual science and current socio-political circumstances.
* Some police find it a demeaning task; others fall into the above catagory of power-trippers.
* So basically you'll be all for writing automatic tickets when you pass a given 1/4 mile stretch randomly chosen by the state? No appeal, no ability to explain that you were going 8MPH over the posted limit to get around a dangerous driver? These days Big Brother gets just as much of a whacking as Nazis, but it really does push to a very scary future, don't you think?
* Under no legal standard that I'm aware of is anyone required to be a mobile snitch for the law. For other victims of American Education who didn't bother to get better informed later: our system of law is *POSTSCRIPTIVE* not *PRESCRIPTIVE*. "Innocent until proven guilty" means "do whatever you like, but if we catch you, your ass is grass". Much like the Ten Commandments, you're free to be an asshole, but you can't whine later that you didn't know there was a punishment for getting caught.
* Planes are a lot different from cars. My car can't wind up in your living room unless there's a road nearby. My plane can destroy your remote log cabin and you'd never know it until someone contacted you. The ability to cause harm is much more limited and requirements for operation are way lower for a car. Applying a blanket standard for wildly different things is rather silly and, well, unsafe for the public, eh?
Time to stop pandering to the narrow-minded nimrod special interests and actually excercise some Freedom for a change.
Kingstrum
"He had that rare weird electricity about him -- that extremely wild and heavy presence that you only see in a person who has abandon all hope of ever behaving 'normally.'"
-- Hunter S. Thompson, "Fear and Loathing '72"
Parent
Hey ... (Score:3, Funny)
Speed traps a thing of the past (Score:5, Interesting)
I have mixed feelings about it.... I laugh when it happens to someone else, I cry when it happens to me. You know, life is pretty tough and law is pretty unforgiving. But when financial times are hard, sometimes you can skip along with some luck until things get better. I'm having good times now, but I've had some bad ones where insurance and registration wasn't as important as gasoline and rent. (And for the record, I don't drink, smoke or otherwise waste money recreationally all that often and never did.) The thought of having an almost robotic police force out there pulling people over getting the most income possible from fines and such is a little creepy.
On the other hand, if it were forbidden to pull someone over for trivial offenses (insurance and registration for example -- they could mail out a "warning letter" and make you pay postage or something... that would be reasonable) but say, "Amber Alert" type stuff, someone with a warrant for a violent crime, stolen car(!) and stuff like that I'd be down with. Is there any hope for sanity in the application of new technology in government?
Re:Speed traps a thing of the past (Score:3, Insightful)
Hmm... (Score:3, Interesting)
TOP SECRET FACT: Cars altready have RFID! (Score:5, Interesting)
Spy transmission chips embedded in tires that can be read REMOTELY while driving.
A secret initiative exists to track all funnel-points on interstates and US borders for car tire ID transponders (RFID chips embedded in the tire).
Yup. My brother works on them.
The us gov T.R.E.A.D. act (which passed) makes it illegal to sell new passenger cars lacking untamperable RFID in the tires.
Your tires have a passive coil with 64 to 128 bit serial number emitter in them! (AIAG B-11 ADC v3.0) . A particular frequency energizes it enough so that a receiver can read its little ROM. A ROM which in essence is your GUID for your TIRE. Multiple tires do not confuse the readers. Its almost identical to all "FastPass" "SpeedPass" technologies you see on gasoline keychain dongles and commuter windshield sticker-chips. The US gov has secretly started using these chips to track people.
Its kind of like FBI "Taggants" in fertilizer and "Taggants" in Gasoline and Bullets, and Blackpowder. But these car tire transponder Ids are meant to actively track and trace movement of your car.
Taggant research papers
http://www.wws.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/byteserv.prl/ ~ota/disk3/1980/8017/801705.PDF [princeton.edu]
(remove spaces in url from slashcode if needed)
I am not making this up. Melt down a high end Firestone, or Bridgestone tire and go through the bits near the rim (sometimes at base of tread) and you will locate the transmitter (similar to 'grain of rice' pet ids and Mobile SpeedPass, but not as high tech as the tollbooth based units). Sokymat LOGI 160, and Sokymat LOGI 120 transponder buttons are just SOME of the transponders found in modern high end car tires. The AIAG B-11 Tire tracking standard is now implemented for all 3rd party transponder manufactures [covered below].
It is for QA and to prevent fraud and "car theft", but the US Customs service uses it in Canada to detect people who swap license plates on cars when doing a transport of contraband on a mule vehicle that normally has not logged enough hours across the border. The customs service and FBI do not yet talk about this, and are starting using it soon.
Photos of chips before molded deep into tires!
http://www.sokymat.com/sp/applications/tireid.html [sokymat.com]
(slashdot ruins links, so you will have to remove the ASCII space it insertess usually into the url above to get to the shocking info and photos on the enbedded LOGI 160 chips that the us gov scans when you cross mexican and canadian borders.)
You never heard of it either because nobody moderates on slashdot anymore and this is probably +0 still. It has also never appeared in print before and is very secret.
Californias Fastpass is being upgraded to scan ALL responding car tires in future years upcoming. I-75 may get them next in rural funnel points in Ohio.
The photo of the secret prototype WAS at
http://www.tadiran-telematics.com/products6.html [tadiran-telematics.com]
http://www.telematics-wireless.com/site/index1.php ?ln=en&main_id=33 [telematics-wireless.com]
but the fact is... YOU PROBABLY ALREADY HAVE A RADIO TRANSPONDER not counting your digital cell phone which is routinely silently pulsed in CA bay area each rush hour morning unless turned off (consult Wired Magazine Expose article). Those data point pulses are used by NSA on occasions.
The us FBI with NRO/NSA blessin
Re:TOP SECRET FACT: Cars altready have RFID! (Score:5, Interesting)
What are the implications of RFID for automotive suppliers?
There are no industry-based automotive mandates out there today. Perhaps the only exception to this is the Tire TREAD Act in which RFID is specified as a method of identifying tires supplied to OEMs. The U.S. Congress passed the TREAD (Transportation, Recall, Enhancement, Accountability and Documentation) Act after the Firestone/Ford Explorer issues emerged. The act mandates that carmakers closely track tires from the 2004 model year on, so they can be recalled if there is a problem. RFID tracking could be available for the 2005 model year. Michelin revealed that it has begun fleet testing of an RFID transponder embedded in its tires to enable them to be tracked electronically. After it completes testing, which will likely last 18 months, Michelin plans to begin offering automakers the option of purchasing tires with embedded transponders.
But there is no reason why automotive manufacturers and suppliers should not adopt RFID to achieve supply chain improvements just like any other industry.
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Any chance this isn't as heinous a plot as parent believes?
Parent
Those facists! (Score:4, Funny)
I'm working on an embedded Gnu/Linux device that will be roughly 304.8mm wide x 152.4mm tall that can be mounted on the back of the vehicle to prevent readers from picking up the signals from the tags. I'll post details to this thread when it is ready.
I recommend all Colorado citizens contact [state.co.us] and complain to their representatives tonight!
So? (Score:3, Insightful)
I can understand the need for privacy, but when the information is already out there, it seems silly to get excited about something like this.
Convenient but dangerous (Score:3, Interesting)
Likewise, consider the effect on the public? How much easier would it be to raise prices? If you pay now, you can protest. If you get a statement at the end of the month, how many people will go to the trouble of arguing?
Many Houston Drivers Already have RFID (Score:3, Insightful)
The tags could be easily abused to monitor speeding, but they are not. Real-time traffic maps are generated from the travel speed data:
http://www.houstontranstar.org/ [houstontranstar.org]
Metallic Windshield Tint? (Score:3, Insightful)
Big Brother Alert: Loop detectors (Score:4, Insightful)
They are everywhere. At most intersections you will see diamonds cut in the concrete and covered with tar and a line from the diamond that runs to the curb, usually headed towards a big silver box that operates the traffic lights.
When a car passes over the loop the magnetic field changes and the system knows a car went over. Not only can it count cars, it can tell the size of the vehicle (motorcycle v. car v. truck) and estimate the speed and direction. This is usually to help control traffic lights so that the light doesn't sit on red when there are no cars there. It also is used in apartments and mini-storage areas to let cars out and shut the gate behind the car to prevent tailgaters from sneaking in.
This loop can also act as a receiving antenna and it would be a very, very simple matter to have these loops "light up" the RFID chips and read them, then the equipment could pass the data upstream to what ever EVIL BIG BROTHER system you want (or don't want) to imagine.
This is BAD... My suggestion? If this passes, you should destroy the chips. A couple hundred thousand volts should do it. A $30 stun gun should fry these nasty little bastards.
Texas WILL pass this. I know how they work, Texas is very much into being a BIG BROTHER state.. They are wanking off at the thought of this right now..
In Other News (Score:4, Funny)
the Texas Legislature has passed a law requiring all "American" flags flown throughout the state to contain the phrase "Heil Bush!" and the Carlyle Group corporate logo.
Meanwhile, a few hundred more black kids will have their feeding tubes removed under the "Futility" law because their poor parents can't pay the hospital bill for the treatment.
And a few hundred more minority criminals will be executed.
Welcome to Texas - land of "the law" (as they used to call it.)
Memo to Osama: Got any idea where your next target should be?