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mr. fiction, what you're talking about is actually a fairly limited part of the original proposed specification for OBD IV, several years ago.
OBD stands for "on board diagnostics", basically the computer control system for the entire vehicle. obd has been around for quite some time, and i'm sure current vehicles are using the 4th generation systems. i don't recall the timelines of the obd generations, but i'm sure you could find out easily which one your vehicle has (it's been around for probably over a decade, maybe even two, it's nothing new).
the police would not only be able to shut down the vehicle, but they would essentially know real-time just about anything about the car, including its position (via gps). they would have full readouts on the vehicles speed, etc. even a real-time readout of the car's emissions. this was proposed for california, so violators of the 'clean air acts' or whatever would be instantly recognized, and could be dealt with for violating emissions requirements. it was essentially an all-encompassing information system that would go strait to the feds.
it was even presumed that you could be driving around, speeding, and a week later get a ticket in your mailbox for violating a speed limit law. or again, with emissions laws (pure speculation based on the data provided by the system).
it also allowed law enforcement to track the vehicle however they pleased.
the shutdown device proposed in the vehicles is not instantaneous like some of you thought. it was built to gradually reduce fuel to the motor until the car stopped, not a sudden shutdown to prevent damage to vehicle or people, and create a controllable stop.
i do not know how much of these proposed specifications actually made it into the OBD IV system, but with growing items such as onstar and the like, i'm sure there are more than we'd like to think included. i haven't really tracked this info since i did research on it in its proposal stages several years ago. but i'm sure you can find more info on the net about it.
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