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Defending the right to rant!

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eddobloggo - Defending the right to rant in the USA!

Defending the right to rant!

Conservative Commentary

Ed Donath

An OnStar call replay you'll never hear on the radio. RSS feed

In 2010, when this rant was originally published, it garnered an average number of views and comments from eddobloggo® readers. Unlike most of the current events-topical pieces presented here, however, this story has legs as mainstream media types might say. Via search engines, this particular commentary continues to gethits nearly every day from people who want to know more about the ramifications of having a GM vehicle equipped with OnStar.

Earlier this year at t a consumer electronics show in Las Vegas GM announced that it is releasing a product that makes OnStar available as a retro-fit to non-GM vehicles. Since then, my story's legs have grown even longer...

OnStar performs all of those remarkable tricks you hear about in its call-replay radio ads with the help of a satellite like this one. Of course, OnStar subscribers' privacy is invaded in the process.

... in just the last 24 hours the following known

search phrases have landed users here:

Can OnStar be tracked?
OnStar surveillance capabilities
Can police use OnStar even if it is deactivated?
OnStar arguments on tape
Consumer complaints about OnStar
Big Brother's eye in the sky.

General Motors began installing OnStar in select models in 1996 and eventually made its GPS-based safety/security system standard equipment on most models. I know about this firsthand because I was there with OnStar, albeit reluctantly, in Chevrolet, Buick, Pontiac, GMC and Cadillac dealerships from the day that GM introduced it.

By now you surely know, as a result of those dramatic OnStar-call replay radio ads, that the system can do such things as report subscribers' accidents and other emergencies to first-responders or to unlock doors remotely when they leave their keys inside their vehicles. Recently, in addition to newly-updated navigational and diagnostic services, OnStar has been bragging about its latest feature -- the capability to slow an equipped vehicle to a safe stop if it is stolen and/or involved in a potentially dangerous police chase.

Regarding OnStar, I don't know about you, but I'm not happy about leaving myself open to unmanned drone attacks, let alone speeding tickets from some invisible Bear in the Air. The downside of having access to these and other equally remarkable services is that every OnStar subscriber's precise location is known from moment-to-moment as GM's Big Brother Satellite scans the globe from on high. Of late, it reminds me of those unmanned drones waiting for an Osama bin Laden sighting as he mountain-bikes his way through the Tora Bora hills.

I don't know about you, but I'm not happy about leaving myself open to unmanned drone attacks, let alone speeding tickets from some invisible Bear in the Air.

With GM continuing to be partially government-owned, it wouldn't surprise me if OnStar's GPS satellites have been co-opted by the Obama czars to give them the ability to prove that my early arrival at Point B from Point A constitutes yet another act of defiant extremism. What's next? Will they slow me to a stop and have a unionized trooper detain me until I pony up some wealth that can be redistributed to various unionized shovel-ready projects?

While I have been forced, in effect, to shill for OnStar by continuing to sell GM's vehicles [For the record, my 16-year affiliation with GM ended in June 2010 as a result of an economy-related dealership closure. -ED], it had been quite easy for me to resist becoming an OnStar subscriber myself, simply by buying cars and trucks that could be ordered without OnStar. But since doing so became impossible in recent years, the GMC truck I sold myself in 2009 came with OnStar -- and that one-year free trial they tout in those radio spots -- as standard equipment.

Of course, Mrs. Bloggo and I have never contacted OnStar and we have been quite happy, as well, never heariong from them (other than by mail) either. Just the same, it has always peeved me to have an electronic back-talking GPS monkey on my back.

Likewise, it has been very annoying having to spend all of that extra time activating OnStar behind the scenes for new vehicle customers and then having to explain and re-explain how it works and how to use it. OnStar has never reciprocated with as much as an attaboy for my uncountable hours of slave labor on their behalf.

Furthermore, although their representatives regularly claim otherwise, I have never witnessed the consummation of a car deal that was a direct result of OnStar being part of the vehicle. Needless to say, therefore, I was happy to receive a letter from OnStar last week informing me that our free trial was about to expire.

Then on my day off last week I received a phone call from an OnStar telemarketer attempting to get me to become a paid OnStar subscriber...

"Hello, Mr. Dontack?"

"Close enough. Who's this?"

"It's Betsy from OnStar."

"Hold on, Betsy. Is this call being recorded?"

"It probably is, Mr. Dontath. Almost everything we do is monitored for quality control."

"Great. I'm going to make a statement. Are you OK with that?"

"Yes, Mr. Dontatack."

"I'm a GM car and truck salesman and I've been forced to work for OnStar unpaid and un-thanked for many years. For the last year I've been forced to have OnStar activated in my own personal vehicle. Nonetheless, today I am your most satisfied customer."

"And why are you so satisfied, sir?"

"Mainly because OnStar has finally been deactivated in my truck."

"Are there any other reasons?

"Yes. This number is listed in the Do Not Call Registry, so if I ever hear from anyone at OnStar again I'll sue. I have just one more thing to say, Betsy."

"What's that?"

"OnStar call ended!"

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Comments (Comments may be edited for clarity and/or profanity.)

I agree with you about Big Brother in the sky, that's why I drive a old beat up Ford.

Fitzhugh Havens

Golden Valley AZ

[That dodge (no pun intended) doesn't work anymore. Beat-up old Fords are high on Big Bro's profiling list -- especially in Arizona. -ED]

Ah, eddo, we've talked about tracking. How do I track you? Let me count the ways...

You know they have to have proof of your meetings with those subversive aliens from another planet to convict you in a court of law, if a true court of law can yet be found in these United States. OnStar records could be used to prove you did meet with subversive free aliens from Planet eddoBloggo and are plotting the overthrow of the Muslim Mole and his uber-rich European patrons. Just like Visa and Mastercard and every other credit card can provide legal evidence of purchases should a circumstantial case need to be made against any one of us, if only to shut us up.

I wouldn't buy a new vehicle from Government Motors, even if they were a dollar. I wouldn't buy a new vehicle in the state of Montana anyway--the state of no sales tax at the register likes to stick you for exorbitant sales taxes for five years after the purchase in the form of license plates and registration. Six years or older, there's my new vehicle. And no OnStar in evidence.

Guess I'm feeling rather cranky today.

novelator

Great Falls, MT Tribune

You know, considering I don't really do anything wrong...I have no problem with any government entity or camera monitoring where I take my car. I wish they'd install cameras on every single square inch of public space so that the criminals would be caught on camera and couldn't get a lawyer to represent them.

Big Brother can watch if "he" really wants to, btw...I'm highly certain they don't need to rely on On-Star...

MariannSimms

Montgomery, AL Advertiser

That's hilarious.

TriarchicTheory

Jackson, MS Clarion-Ledger

It probably is not an issue for you, judging by your blog, but should you fail to pay your child support the government would be quite happy with bringing your vehicle to a halt and preventing it from starting until you bring your accounts current. It's not Lalaland, unfortunately, and should you be doubly cursed by having a professional license issued by government, you not only can't drive your car, you can't work either... Not an issue for me either, but it just blows my mind that this kind of garbage happens now in the 'land of the free, home of the brave'.

Maureen001
Townhall Blogs

Heck of a tale Ed. I never thought of OnStar as a spy for Uncle Sugar but you may be right. Just think, they could track me down to the Local Union Hall and spy on my vote! Well, maybe not spy, but surely know how I voted by my boasting how I stuck it to the man that night. Conspiracy theories are a dime a dozen Ed. Surely you can do better.

gas hog

Austin, TX American-Statesman

[I know the conspiracy theory may be a stretch but most people never stop to think of the downside to having all that GPS crap in their cars

-- many of the same folks who scream for their right to privacy at every turn. -ED]

Striking a blow for freedom. I wonder if the OnStar operators are as lonely as the Maytag repairman?

GreyCaravel

Montgomery, AL Advertise

Has our government ever had a device capable of illegally spying on its citizens that it DIDN'T use to illegally spy on its citizens? You don't need to take off your tinfoil hat, the others need to get their heads out of the sand. Cell phone tracking and internet usage are now standard law enforcement tools. All of our personal electronic gizmos have become the equivalent of court-ordered ankle monitoring devices, only more sophisticated. Another giant step toward total surveillance of law abiding citizens.

colecounty

Springfield, MO News-Leader

Hogwash! last time I checked Onstar was a subscriber service. If you don't want the service simply don't subscribe. If you have any evidence that the service is being used in any invasion of privacy way you should report it immediately. Otherwise you are simply blowing in the wind.

Anonymous

[It is a subscriber service -- after the one-year free trial. But In order to retain a GM franchise, the dealer must give auditable assurance of activation for each buyer prior to delivery of each vehicle. Furthermore, although the GPS element of OnStar can be deactivated after the subscription or trial expires, it is both an inconvenience and a cosmetic nuisance because the interior controls permanently display a red warning light. Furthermore, there's a big difference between having concerns and writing an expose based on "evidence". If you trust our current government more than I do, feel free to allow them the opportunity to breach your privacy. Obviously, retaining your anonymity has some importance to you or we'd all know who you are. -ED]

Was there a government anybody ever really trusted? The gov tracking a person, for whatever reason, has been going on since long before the advent of GPS. The only way to prevent it is to completely cut yourself off from civilization... and there are very few people willing to go without the precious modern conveniences they have. OnStar can be tracked. Cell phones can be tracked. Landlines can be tracked. Your Internet usage can be tracked. Credit cards. Bank account. Hell, Google Maps can take a picture of you picking your nose while you fetch the Sunday paper from your porch. Anybody really THAT naive to think Obama is the only president to allow this? Anybody really think Bush DIDN'T do this? Or any other president going back to who knows when? Please. Anyone ever hear of J. Edgar Hoover? How did Hoover get those huge files on you little naughty little subversive hippies back in the day? No GPS, no cell phones, no Internet? I just can't wrap my head around the "we're being watched!" crowd. Governments have been doing this in one form or another since the beginning of time. And what about the good parts of things like GPS and OnStar? Its always the same... you protest the tracking part, but when a baby is trapped in a car after an accident and something (God forbid) horrible happens, you are the first ones yelling that "if the had something like OnStar in the vehicle, this would never have happened!!". Talk about double standards. Anyways, you do have a choice... if only for your peace of mind. Unsubscribe. Or don't buy a car with OnStar if possible. I'm sure there are some out there still. And, before you even say, yes, I agree they should give you the choice in every vehicle to have OnStar or not, or make OnStar equipped and non-OnStar versions of all vehicles. -

Cheers,

ThaRev
Kingsley, MI

[Only partial agreement, but a great rant nonetheless. -ED]

It's not only Government Motors, the Japanese are getting into the act with the EnForm on their Lexus.

Anonymous

Montgomery, AL

Conspiracy theory at its best, I bet back in the late 70’s you thought everyone was a commie. I would wager that people working for the government have better things to do than worry about where you are going. But there is a way to stop it, don’t buy a GM vehicle, don’t buy a Tom-Tom, Magellan or Garmin GPS unit, get rid of your cell phone and make sure you wrap you head with tin foil before you leave the house and you’ll be just fine.

Reddman

Montgomery, AL Advertiser

[Since I do not own any GPS devices and do not have a cell phone number, the only GPS monkey on my back for the last year has been OnStar. I would wager that people who work for the government would do a lot more for the government than the rest of us would. I also suspect that there are way more kommies plotting against us in the 20-Teens than there were in the 19-Seventies. Funny how lefties will rave and rant about the Bush administration monitoring international calls to terrorist states but talk about tinfoil do-rags when GPS has the potential to be used against hundreds of millions of Americans. -ED]

You can rave and rant, but you are selling vehicles with OnStar as a standard feature and you get paid. That is your thanks and therefore you are not a slave. OnStar, cell phones, security cameras, satellites, we are being monitored, but don't tape my phone and monitor my emails, without a warrant. I don't like the idea of anyone monitoring me without cause, but then that is the world we live in today!

I do like the visual image of Osama on a mountain bike, too bad it doesn't have OnStar!

honestly_john

Wausau, WI Daily Herald

[Rant yes. Rave no. I think I explained my relationship with OnStar very objectively. Thanks for the read. -ED]

So, Ed. You're saying that when you sell an OnStar-equipped vehicle that costs more, you're not getting a higher commission
on the higher selling price of that vehicle? Once upon a time, when OnStar was an option to be ordered, you'd get either a
commission or bonus for having sold it. Now that it's available as a pre-packaged option, you're getting a higher commission
on the higher price. Please. I don't feel bad for you. You're not selling it for free. And how annoying it must be to give good customer service after the sale of a vehicle. GM still do CSI's? Woe for the days when one could take the dough, wave goodbye and never hear from the suckers again, no?

Anonymous

South Lyon, MI
[Your imaginary knowledge of the car business is pathetic. Suffice it to say, OnStar is standard equipment -- a no-cost option -- for which there is no mark-up/profit. I'll match my CSI (Customer Satisfaction Index) with anyone over a 23-year period. BTW, they've been keeping score since before my entry into the business in 1987 so I can only guess that you are fossil. -ED]

Makes me appreciate my old cars. And my incentive to buy a new one is?

Don't you just love those telemarketing calls? I finally figured our how to avoid Sears calling me for an extended warranty on appliances. I pay cash, and my number is 555-1212. ;-) I've noticed they have MANY customers with that number, they usually have to do a second search for my name.

rainbowed

Great Falls, MT Tribune

Great blog.

MikeSears

Lansing, MI State Journal

I have OnStar and am sooo glad to have it. I am an elderly woman who drives in some remote places by myself and the security this gives me over-rides any concerns about the feature.

FROM A THANKFUL ONSTAR USER

Dear Mr. Donath,

Sir, if you are using a fairly new cellular phone that you leave turned on all the time, we know exactly where you are and where you go even without OnStar.

Respectfully submitted by Sgt. Skids at Ft. Huachuca

theglimmerman

Great Falls, MT Tribune

Dear Sergeant-

Please be advised that I have never personally owned a cell phone nor any other GPS-based device and that I have no intention of caving in at this late date. Unless you Army Intel boys are being ordered by your Dear Leader to monitor my keystrokes when I visit Mapquest, you will never know my whereabouts unless you're prepared to burn some fuel and/or shoe leather.

Best regards,
-eddobloggo