Even worse than a tax

Be afraid. Be very afraid. California is toying with the idea of taxing by the mile. This is the brainchild of a company in Oregon who wants to plant a GPS receiver in your car that talks to the gas pump. The social engineers are already salivating.

The system could also track how often you drive during rush hour and charge higher fees to discourage peak use. That's an idea that could break the bottleneck on California's freeways.

People who think that sort of intrusiveness is all fine and dandy simply cannot be trusted not to seriously abuse the ability to track every car in the State.

Bad, bad idea.