Not long ago a story about the Labor Party's secret plan to monitor and tax it's citizens garbage would have been an amusing anecdote about those wacky Brits and their far left government. In those happy days before our government was seized by Comrades Pelosi, Reid and Obama, we were secure in the knowledge that such things could never happen here.

The UK Daily Mail reports that.

More than 2.5 million homes now have wheelie bins fitted with microchips to weigh their contents.

[...]

The spread of chipped bins marks the revival of a tax idea that the Government appeared to have abandoned last year.

Gordon Brown promised to ditch trash bin taxes in the spring of 2008, at a point when the unpopularity among voters of fortnightly collections, strict bin rules, and the threat of pay-as-you-throw was at its height.

‘Councils are waiting until the public aren't watching to begin surveillance on our waste habits, intruding into people's private lives and introducing punitive taxes on what we throw away. The British public doesn't want this technology, these fines, or this intrusion.'

‘If local authorities have no intention to monitor our waste then they should end the surreptitious installation of these bin microchips.'

The campaign group complained that the bins allow councils to examine household rubbish and sell the information to commercial concerns as well as to impose taxes.

It also warned that collection of data from chipped bins could show when households were on holiday, opening the way to abuse by criminals.

[...]

Tory local government spokesman Caroline Spelman said: ‘Labour Ministers are secretly planning to roll out bin taxes across the country after the election if Gordon Brown can cling to power.