I took the time to read some of the news reports about the rumored mileage tax. If you haven't heard about this yet, there are some people within our government who actually want to tax us for every mile we drive. When is it going to end? A lot of the price you pay to put gas in your car are taxes. A lot of states are making even more and more highways "turnpikes" or toll roads where you pay for the distance you drive on those roads. Part of the fees you pay to register your car is supposed to go to the state. There are additional fees added to traffic tickets besides the actual fine and court costs for the violation (something you don't have to worry about if you follow the law).
     What's it all about? Their explanation ... states need even more money to keep the roads repaired, add additional roads, maintain bridges and overpasses, etc, etc. I understand the costs for such things are going up, but the additional revenue wouldn't be needed if the state and federal government actually used the money as it's intended to be used. One explanation goes so far as to say that the money is needed to add roads because of the increase in the number of cars on the road. All I have to say is "keep on creating these crazy taxes and you won't need roads because normal people won't be able to afford to drive anywhere". And I don't have to think very hard about how this will effect the cost of merchandise and other things because trucking companies will have to pay more to transport goods, not to mention how many independent truckers or even companies will go out of business because they can't afford the taxes.
     So how will they monitor your mileage? Will they have the people who inspect you car file a mileage report and then the government send you a bill? Oh no. Read what they want to do (and you can verify this by typing "mileage tax" into a search engine):

     "The system would require all cars and trucks be equipped with global satellite positioning technology, a transponder, a clock and other equipment to record how many miles a vehicle was driven, whether it was driven on highways or secondary roads, and even whether it was driven during peak traffic periods or off-peak hours.
     The device would tally how much tax motorists owed depending upon their road use. Motorists would pay the amount owed when it was downloaded, probably at gas stations at first, but an alternative eventually would be needed.
     Rob Atkinson, chairman of the National Surface Transportation Infrastructure Financing Commission, the blue-ribbon group that is developing future transportation funding options, said moving to a national VMT would take about a decade.
     Privacy concerns are based more on perception than any actual risk, Atkinson said. The satellite information would be beamed one way to the car and driving information would be contained within the device on the car, with the amount of the tax due the only information that's downloaded, he said."

     Maybe I'm just being paranoid, but does this sound like an invasion of privacy to you? Why do they need to know how many hours I drive, when I drive, and where I drive in order to collect a tax that's supposedly only based on how far I drive? Why don't they just put one of those monitoring things on my ankle like they do criminals on house arrest and track my every move?
     Right now, Obama disagrees with the proposition and it may not go anywhere for a while. However, I don't see this going away any time soon. Why do I get the sick feeling the plan will go through and we're all going to watched by Big Brother? My privacy concerns aren't based on "perception rather than any actual risks". People hack into computers, piggy-back cell phone numbers, and can now even "steal" your code for the automatic door opener on your car and get in using that code (verified at snopes.com). Even if the government uses the information in a legitimate manner (which I doubt), there are other people out with less scruples.