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>allows the government to monitor ... the precise movement of every locally registered vehicle. Okay, wow. But.. >The project appears to be popular in Singapo

>allows the government to monitor ... the precise movement of every locally registered vehicle. Okay, wow. But.. >The project appears to be popular in Singapore, where faith in the government is high and citizens have accepted limits on behavior, including restrictions on public speech and the press, in return for a more efficient state. Now it is clear that this article is deeply biased, or maybe just ignorant. I lived in Singapore for several years and am still closely in touch with my community there. I have never heard a single Singaporean show strong confidence or trust in their government, and the lack of free speech is not insignificant to many. I'm sure several Singaporeans will show up here to tell me I'm mistaken, but the reality is that there is strong suspicion among many as to the motives of the government, but most can't say too much about it publicly because of the punishment imposed.

jfoster 10y ago
"Punishment" seems a bit of a stretch. My understanding is that you're referring to civil defamation suits brought to court by SG prime ministers, acting as individuals. Perhaps that's a bit of legal smoke and mirrors, but it still seems far more above board than what goes on in plenty of other countries.
- hellofunk 10y ago
  I would consider bankrupting a college kid because the PM doesn't approve of the questions he raises in his blog, to most definitely be "punishment."
  - philliphaydon 10y ago
    I assume you're referring to Roy. Well Roy posted a few articles trying to say Singapore is expensive in comparison to England. It was so factually incorrect that I have no doubt that the stuff he wrote about PM Lee was also incorrect.
  - mediumdeviation 10y ago
    Roy Ngerng? He wasn't posting 'questions' to his blog - he was posting cringeworthy conspiracy theories that were provably false. Granted I don't think he should have been sued - that just legitimizes him and made him out to be a martyr, but he's most certainly guilty of the crimes he was charged with. If you don't trust the official media, even independent blogs whom don't typically side with the government don't report on him favorably - eg. http://mothership.sg/2015/07/this-was-how-senior-counsel-davinder-singh-tore-blogger-roy-ngerng-a-new-one-in-3-hour-cross-examination/ http://mothership.sg/2015/07/this-was-how-senior-counsel-dav...
    - throwanem 10y ago
      'Who', not 'whom'. 'Who' is subjective or nominative case, 'whom' objective; the parallel is 'they' vs. 'them', or 'he' vs 'him'. You wouldn't say 'them don't typically side with the government'. In general, if you're not familiar and comfortable with the grammatical rules around pronoun case, don't use 'whom' at all, and stick with the more common pronouns whose correct usage you'll have learned by osmosis.
    - hellofunk 10y ago
      What's interesting is that the PM actually got involved with it personally, which had the ironic effect of making Roy seem more important than he should be. Can you imagine Obama, for example, getting upset about a college kid's blog? The idea that many in the West had was that Singapore PM just had nothing better to do than go after a kid's website. You have to admit it is rather strange behavior for a PM of a major country.
      - notahacker 10y ago
        I can't imagine Obama suing somebody insignificant for defamation but Trump has a track record of doing just that... I think you're right that politicians in the West generally refrain from doing so not least because they're concerned about looking ridiculous or overbearing. Legally they can though, and more minor politicians often do if the claim is sufficiently incendiary and well publicised. Here's a British member of the House of Lords suing a politician's wife simply for implying something over Twitter http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/lord-mcalpine-libel-row-with-sally-bercow-settled-in-high-court-8896773.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/lord-mcalpine-lib... And the UK of course also has a fine tradition of MPs losing their libel lawsuits and sometimes even ending up in jail for perjury as a result of the original claims turning out to be largely true.
mediumdeviation 10y ago
> I have never heard a single Singaporean show strong confidence or trust in their government In the last general election the ruling People's Action Party was voted in with a 70% popular vote. > and the lack of free speech is not insignificant to many It is not insignificant to many, but it's also not a major issue to most, again not at least if you look at the elections. I should mention at this point that I don't look upon the ruling party favorably. But these are the facts. > but most can't say too much about it publicly because of the punishment imposed. [citation needed]. The government doesn't take too kindly to certain types of speech, but critiques of its policies are generally not suppressed, and certainly not to the degree which you make it out to be (people fearing punishment for expression opinion out loud? Really?) I'm going to say that I don't have too much doubts about the government's motives, but rather its competency - the government, like most governments doesn't have the best track records in terms of its IT infrastructure, and a breech into a system that collects that much data will be incredibly damaging.
- TheCoelacanth 10y ago
  > In the last general election the ruling People's Action Party was voted in with a 70% popular vote. The lack of a significant opposition party kind of screams not-really-democratic to me. Even if all the voters had nearly identical views, you would expect there to be multiple parties competing over the few differences that do exist.
  - mediumdeviation 10y ago
    Your statement would have been true for every election other than the last. In the last election the opposition parties fielded candidates in all but one of the constituencies. The 70% popular vote in what is the most hotly contested election in recent history after the dismal 60% the ruling party got in the previous election is widely seen as an affirmation of the party's mandate.
    - TheCoelacanth 10y ago
      In a real democracy, 60% is not dismal; it is a landslide victory.
ArchD 10y ago
I think they need to monitor vehicles to charge for road usage. There's already an ERP system but these sensors will probably allow finer granularity. So, it's a valid use case. However, I'm not saying it's all good or all bad. It's what it is and people who manage to compromise the system may put the data treasure trove to some creative use and cause serious harm. This is the big elephant in the room.
- hellofunk 10y ago
  There are plenty of ways to monitor traffic on roads than to follow individual, specific cars.
nicolas_t 10y ago
The funny thing about Singapore is that I know a lot of Malaysians who think very highly about the Singaporean Government but the Singaporeans that are know are usually much more critical.
throwanem 10y ago
> I have never heard a single Singaporean show strong confidence or trust in their government This is oddly phrased. Have you ever heard a single Singaporean express the converse?
- hellofunk 10y ago
  I sure have. Ask a taxi driver in Singapore some time, they will gladly vent until you arrive at your destination about how much they don't like the government. This was a guarantee for any cab ride in which it came up. It's possible they were only willing to talk to a foreigner, however. They might not be so loud on the subject to a fellow Singaporean if they don't know who the person is.

jfoster 10y ago

"Punishment" seems a bit of a stretch. My understanding is that you're referring to civil defamation suits brought to court by SG prime ministers, acting as individuals. Perhaps that's a bit of legal smoke and mirrors, but it still seems far more above board than what goes on in plenty of other countries.

hellofunk 10y ago
I would consider bankrupting a college kid because the PM doesn't approve of the questions he raises in his blog, to most definitely be "punishment."
- philliphaydon 10y ago
  I assume you're referring to Roy. Well Roy posted a few articles trying to say Singapore is expensive in comparison to England. It was so factually incorrect that I have no doubt that the stuff he wrote about PM Lee was also incorrect.
- mediumdeviation 10y ago
  Roy Ngerng? He wasn't posting 'questions' to his blog - he was posting cringeworthy conspiracy theories that were provably false. Granted I don't think he should have been sued - that just legitimizes him and made him out to be a martyr, but he's most certainly guilty of the crimes he was charged with. If you don't trust the official media, even independent blogs whom don't typically side with the government don't report on him favorably - eg. http://mothership.sg/2015/07/this-was-how-senior-counsel-davinder-singh-tore-blogger-roy-ngerng-a-new-one-in-3-hour-cross-examination/ http://mothership.sg/2015/07/this-was-how-senior-counsel-dav...
  - throwanem 10y ago
    'Who', not 'whom'. 'Who' is subjective or nominative case, 'whom' objective; the parallel is 'they' vs. 'them', or 'he' vs 'him'. You wouldn't say 'them don't typically side with the government'. In general, if you're not familiar and comfortable with the grammatical rules around pronoun case, don't use 'whom' at all, and stick with the more common pronouns whose correct usage you'll have learned by osmosis.
  - hellofunk 10y ago
    What's interesting is that the PM actually got involved with it personally, which had the ironic effect of making Roy seem more important than he should be. Can you imagine Obama, for example, getting upset about a college kid's blog? The idea that many in the West had was that Singapore PM just had nothing better to do than go after a kid's website. You have to admit it is rather strange behavior for a PM of a major country.
    - notahacker 10y ago
      I can't imagine Obama suing somebody insignificant for defamation but Trump has a track record of doing just that... I think you're right that politicians in the West generally refrain from doing so not least because they're concerned about looking ridiculous or overbearing. Legally they can though, and more minor politicians often do if the claim is sufficiently incendiary and well publicised. Here's a British member of the House of Lords suing a politician's wife simply for implying something over Twitter http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/lord-mcalpine-libel-row-with-sally-bercow-settled-in-high-court-8896773.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/lord-mcalpine-lib... And the UK of course also has a fine tradition of MPs losing their libel lawsuits and sometimes even ending up in jail for perjury as a result of the original claims turning out to be largely true.

mediumdeviation 10y ago

> I have never heard a single Singaporean show strong confidence or trust in their government In the last general election the ruling People's Action Party was voted in with a 70% popular vote. > and the lack of free speech is not insignificant to many It is not insignificant to many, but it's also not a major issue to most, again not at least if you look at the elections. I should mention at this point that I don't look upon the ruling party favorably. But these are the facts. > but most can't say too much about it publicly because of the punishment imposed. [citation needed]. The government doesn't take too kindly to certain types of speech, but critiques of its policies are generally not suppressed, and certainly not to the degree which you make it out to be (people fearing punishment for expression opinion out loud? Really?) I'm going to say that I don't have too much doubts about the government's motives, but rather its competency - the government, like most governments doesn't have the best track records in terms of its IT infrastructure, and a breech into a system that collects that much data will be incredibly damaging.

TheCoelacanth 10y ago
> In the last general election the ruling People's Action Party was voted in with a 70% popular vote. The lack of a significant opposition party kind of screams not-really-democratic to me. Even if all the voters had nearly identical views, you would expect there to be multiple parties competing over the few differences that do exist.
- mediumdeviation 10y ago
  Your statement would have been true for every election other than the last. In the last election the opposition parties fielded candidates in all but one of the constituencies. The 70% popular vote in what is the most hotly contested election in recent history after the dismal 60% the ruling party got in the previous election is widely seen as an affirmation of the party's mandate.
  - TheCoelacanth 10y ago
    In a real democracy, 60% is not dismal; it is a landslide victory.

ArchD 10y ago

I think they need to monitor vehicles to charge for road usage. There's already an ERP system but these sensors will probably allow finer granularity. So, it's a valid use case. However, I'm not saying it's all good or all bad. It's what it is and people who manage to compromise the system may put the data treasure trove to some creative use and cause serious harm. This is the big elephant in the room.

hellofunk 10y ago
There are plenty of ways to monitor traffic on roads than to follow individual, specific cars.

nicolas_t 10y ago

The funny thing about Singapore is that I know a lot of Malaysians who think very highly about the Singaporean Government but the Singaporeans that are know are usually much more critical.

throwanem 10y ago

> I have never heard a single Singaporean show strong confidence or trust in their government This is oddly phrased. Have you ever heard a single Singaporean express the converse?

hellofunk 10y ago
I sure have. Ask a taxi driver in Singapore some time, they will gladly vent until you arrive at your destination about how much they don't like the government. This was a guarantee for any cab ride in which it came up. It's possible they were only willing to talk to a foreigner, however. They might not be so loud on the subject to a fellow Singaporean if they don't know who the person is.