Is this merely adding a device to a criminal’s vehicle? What stops manufacturers from including speed limiters by default to make it easier to retrofit cars? Then what stops a switch from being flipped to enable it for all cars regardless of “criminal” status? Unlike breathalyzers, which had an economic barrier from reaching step 2, a software limiter has no economic barrier.
A user controllable software limiter is already in Tesla vehicles for example. It would not take much to go from it being user controllable to being controlled by state law. That brings us to an issue analogous to the issue opponents of backdoors in encryption want to avoid, which is that there is nothing stopping it from being used indiscriminately.
That said, this would likely start with adding devices to “criminal’s” vehicles because older vehicles do not support this, but it would end with these “device” being integrated into every vehicle from the factory, since the other safety equipment being included in vehicles makes it easy to deploy this in software. I find it odd that people who are opposed to encryption backdoors do not see this.
>>Is this merely adding a device to a criminal’s vehicle?
For the topic of the post, YES
The article was specifically about laws allowing a JUDGE to add a device to a specific convicted person's vehicle for a limited time.
OF COURSE there is the slippery-slope argument you describe very well.
The slippery slope danger is real, and I've stated that I oppose any motion down it.
But I also oppose posts which wrongly scream that we have already slid down it entirely when in fact the article is about taking a single limited step down the slope.
Descending every slippery slope is not inevitable. Falsely declaring that it's already done is at best a strawman argument.
Yet, evidently as soon as any surveillance topic comes up, hordes of HNers are happy to discard reading comprehension and act as if any hint that a step might be taken onto a slippery slope is a full endorsement of speedrunning down it.