Again, Big Brother Is Here

First, your car is chipped.

Someday, you will be chipped.

Answerable with information stored by your local, state and federal governments.

Think that's fantasy? It's already starting in the state just north of Fornicalia. Read on:

A year ago, the Oregon Department of Transportation announced it had demonstrated that a new way to pay for roads — via a mileage tax and satellite technology — could work.

Now Gov. Ted Kulongoski says he’d like the legislature to take the next step.

As part of a transportation-related bill he has filed for the 2009 legislative session, the governor says he plans to recommend “a path to transition away from the gas tax as the central funding source for transportation.”

What that means is explained on the governor’s website:

“As Oregonians drive less and demand more fuel-efficient vehicles, it is increasingly important that the state find a new way, other than the gas tax, to finance our transportation system.”

According to the policies he has outlined online, Kulongoski proposes to continue the work of the special task force that came up with and tested the idea of a mileage tax to replace the gas tax.

The governor wants the task force “to partner with auto manufacturers to refine technology that would enable Oregonians to pay for the transportation system based on how many miles they drive.”

The online outline adds: “The governor is committed to ensuring that rural Oregon is not adversely affected and that privacy concerns are addressed.”

When the task force’s study and test were in the news in 2006 and 2007, critics worried that the technology could be used to track where vehicles go, not just how far they travel, and that this information would somehow be stored by the
government [of course those are valid concerns; it's a small box affixed to the vehicle's electronic system: how would you know?]

Here's the long and short of it: because, as a good driver, you're doing as you're told -- that is to say, driving less and using less fuel, producing less carbon -- you're also strangling a governmental source of revenue. So, to make up for this shortfall because you, the citizen, are doing the so-called "right thing," it's time to remove more of your privacy and liberties by chipping your car, so that you can be taxed further.

I should like to point to another example: back east, when citizens used less power in a community, as the government has been asking via public service announcements for years, the local power generation utility began losing revenue. Therefore, though the citizens were using less power their rates went up.

Further, if Oregon is thinking of this strategy, you know other states are also. Let's also do what I call the Logical Extension: if the government is monitoring you via electronic nanny for mileage, the insurance companies will demand access to whatever information is collected as well, and the states will take their cut of cash for providing this information, against you, to your insurer.

And what if your car is hacked by someone wishing to have less mileage? What happens if, when a person is chipped, your entire life is hacked?

Big, Big Brother.

BZ