[ceejayoz]

Our Internet traffic is already heavily surveilled without this entirely hypothetical Internet tax you're proposing.

The phone system is a utility, and it's certainly not the fact that it's taxable that makes the TLAs interested in wiretapping it.

[thissideup]

Sorry, I did not mean to imply that taxation is necessary for surveillance.

What I'm proposing is that regulation is one way of legitimizing the role of surveillance. The government has a reason to be involved by virtue of the fact that it's made regulations.

I did a bad job in conveying that idea above. It's certainly possible my analysis is utterly incorrect as well.