A friend in the UK pointed this out to me. Over there, you pay a tax in order to receive TV signals via cable or aerial. The money goes to the BBC (which admittedly has received international recognition for its programming, so those of us in other countries who are enjoying it, even with the international rebroadcast fees, are getting some kind of indirect benefit from the British taxpayers).
http://www.taith.org.uk/tv/faq.htmThey can figure out who has paid their tax, by monitoring records to see who's paid -- and by going up and down the street in vans with detectors which can pick up signals from TVs.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2003/06_june/24/licensing_detector_vans.shtmlNot surprisingly this is controversial, and a number of people feel this is rather intrusive (even if, as some claim, that the vans actually do not work and are only a deterrent). In any case it seems that list-keeping would be more cost efficient, since database searches can be done for entire cities in only a few minutes.
http://www.turnoffyourtv.com/international/bbc.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licensing_in_the_United_KingdomThe "V for Vendetta" twist is that the new regime is using vans for eavesdropping on people's conversations, not checking for tax dodgers. So it's rather clever, tweaking an existing situation which irritates some Britons, and would likely freak out a lot of North Americans who aren't familiar with the TV tax.