Big Brother?

I got a survey in the mail the other day from the NCDOT asking me about my use of I-40/85. For those of you not familiar, I-40 is the main east-west artery through NC. The survey was essentially a piece of paper folded in half and stapled shut on one end. My address was obviously on one side and a note was on the other.

The note said “You are receiving this survey because you were driving on I-40/I-85 east of Greensboro on the morning of October 15, 2003.” What?! This is true, actually. I was on 40 on October 15th because I was doing some work for a client in Chapel Hill that day. That’s not really the point though.

How does the NCDOT know that I was on I-40 that day? Were they taking pictures of cars as they were driving by? Did they then pull the license plates off of those pictures, run the plates, and then send these surveys to the names associated with those plates? This seems to me about the only way that this could be happening, as no one pulled me over that day to ask if I’d like to take part in a survey.

This whole thing creeps me out a little bit. I’ve never been Conspiracy Theory Guy who thinks that the government is watching everything I do and is just waiting for the chance to take me down. I still don’t feel that way, but this incident does bother me a bit. I feel that my privacy has been somewhat violated.

What if I had been going to Chapel Hill to get treatment for a disease that I didn’t want anyone to know about? What if I had been going to Chapel Hill for any reason that I didn’t want anyone else to know about? Like getting my wife a big diamond from a jeweler there. Isn’t that my right to do so? What right does the NCDOT have to send what amounts to a postcard through the mail that tells anyone who cares to look at it where I was on the morning of October 15th.

Am I overreacting here, or would you not find this a bit creepy?