Snowplowers Object to Satellite Surveillance

First
weekend since March it looks like the Just Don’t Suck tennis club will
not be meeting. A steady snow has been pelting down since before dawn,
and there is already an eight-inch blanket over Malden, MA. with the
brunt of the storm yet to come. Just in time for what promises to be
a record December blizzard, and following
in
a great local tradition of public service extortions, all 1,100 snow
removal contractors in Massachusetts have been threatening to strike
this week over a new state requirement that they carry tracking devices
in their vehicles while working for the Commonwealth….

The road-sign-yellow units incorporate a high-tech clock and
a microchip that taps into the Defense Department’s global positioning
system satellite network. Highway officials expect to have up-to-the-minute
information about where the state’s 3,000-plus contracted plows are during
storms, so they can redeploy trucks to snow-clogged highways — and make
sure drivers aren’t clearing private lots or munching Dunkin’ Donuts
on state time.

from the
Boston Globe