RFIDs embedded in your U.S. passport, encoded with your identity, and able to be read at a distance?

GPS devices mandated by law, installed in every single new car, so that the state can monitor your every movement and tax you based on the mileage you drive?

It’s not 1984, the Sequel. It’s 2004, the Reality. Both of these measures seem likely before the end of 2005.

California is seriously considering requiring that every single new car in California be fitted with a GPS device that will enable the state to track where the car goes, and how many miles the car has driven between gas fill-ups. This will allow the state, which is seeing gasoline tax revenues fall as trendy, green Californians keep snapping up hybrid cars, to tax each and every motorist - at the gas pump - based on how many miles they have driven from the last gas pump.

And if you think that this is some bizarre totalitarian scheme which could only come from the mind of an Austrian who plans to change the United States Constitution so that he can run for president, the prototype for this GPS tracking model is already in the works in Oregon, where Utah, New York, and the U.S. Department of Transportation… [Continued]