EagleTribune.com : Blogs : The Soapbox

I’m listening, but I’m not hearing much outrage from Democrats about a Big Brother proposal that is way worse than the Bush administration wanting to listen to international phone calls from suspected terrorists. Yeah, I’ve seen the anti-Bush bumper sticker suggesting that we give our Constitution to various other countries “since we’re not using it.” But so far, the overwhelmingly Democratic Legislature and its overwhelming constituency in Massachusetts has been relatively silent about the recent recommendation from the state’s Transportation Finance Commission that the government track your every move on state highways.
This, we are told, is just so that the state can assess us 5 cents for every mile we drive, to help fix our crumbling infrastructure. Sure. There’s not a chance that government would use that information for anything else, is there? You know, just like they never use information from FastLane or EZPass transponders in criminal investigations.
Our governor, Deval “Together We Can” Patrick, doesn’t seem worried about our privacy. He says it’s got to be either those invasive tolls plus higher gas taxes, or three major resort casinos - the most effective way to suck more money from the “less fortunate.” Sounds a bit like the choice the Thomson family was offering in North Andover a few years ago: Would you like a trash recycling plant, or a strip club?