No, most stores don't do what you suggest. What they do is to compare the list of items you purchase with the lists of your previous purchases and then compare that information with the "lists" of other customers. By placing the staples (such as milk) in certain sections of the store they force you to take certain paths through the store that will lead you by the items that you are most likely to purchase as a result of your milk purchase. By placing high margin specialty items in other sections (bakery and deli) they set you up for related purchases in condiments and beverages. By tracking special event purchases (are you there for a party, a dinner, baby items, pet items, staples, etc.?) they learn your shopping patterns and learn how to cross-market other items in relation to these types of purchases. Over time, as all of this information is aggregated and analyzed, each item in the store finds its place in relation to every other item, all the way down to the level of the aisle, shelf, and number of items on each shelf.

To your point, RFID "chips" are increasingly being used to track in store item level shopping patterns. RFID in retail is most often used to prevent theft of high value inventory, but is increasingly being used to track the physical movement of inventory within the store.

Everthing you touch and everything you do provides information. The next time you check out at the store look at the back of your receipt. The coupons are (or should be) custom printed based on your shopping patterns.

Without transparency in government, I don't see how America can maintain any vestige of democracy over time. It is obvious that this administration has engaged in numerous illegal activities under cover of national security. Even now, with all of the breaking scandals, the Bush White House remains unrelenting in its efforts to establish a unitary executive, whatever the cost in individual freedoms and national security.

We don't have transparency in government. We don't have a clue as to what's going on. All we have are these occasional "bubbles" of disclosure rising to the surface of the pond while who knows what goes on underneath. It is a good rule of thumb to think of the things you know as the tip of the iceberg when compared to the things you don't know, especially where the government is concerned.

Our lives are transparent to our government, but our government is not transparent to us. Some will argue that if you are not doing anything wrong you have nothing to worry about. I don't see it that way. It is the public who should be telling the government that if the government is not doing anything wrong then it has nothing to worry about.

BTW, I have noticed the term "drift net" popping up on TV and the news. Each time the term comes up, there are adamant denials. When the head of NSA says that they are absolutely, positively not using drift nets, have no doubt. They most assuredly are.

One way to approach this would be to use the example of USPS snail mail. If the means existed to open every personal letter, personal bill or personal package, look inside, determine whether or not the contents were of interest and then seal it back up as if it had not been opened, would that be OK with the majority of Americans?

If the means existed to observe and record your every movement, both at home and in public, and to use that information to determine whether or not you were a security threat, would that be OK with the majority of Americans?

That's 1984. Is that world OK with the majority of Americans? Does it make a difference if, instead of presenting itself as a post-apocalyptic hell, it wears smiley face and comes with fries?

I thought the idea was that a person was presumed innocent. I thought there was a requirement to provide probable cause before you invaded a person's privacy. I thought that's what search warrants were for.

I contend that this has nothing to do with technology, but is all about policy. Do we have a right to privacy or not? Are we considered guilty before the fact for insisting that we as individuals have the right to act as the arbiters of our personal communications? I contend that we do have that right and that it does not infringe upon our national security.

If you strip everything else away and just look at higher education as a gene pool, the social and intellectual results of higher education make a lot more sense. The bigger the gene pool, the better the result.

Those who think that America's higher education gene pool is the result of Social Darwinism, well, I guess that's what they think. The proof's in the pudding and right now that proof's name is George Bush.

A society without memory, driven by ephemeral emotions, which demands no consistency from its leaders but only gusty patriotism, is a society that is not about to engage in the painful self-examination that impeachment would mean.

That is also the society that people like George Orwell warned us so strongly against. I guess we are there now. It doesn't look like I thought it would. It's full of SUVs, malls, cell phones, exurban gated communities and a separate security line for first class air travelers.

Judging by the 2004 election, Orwell was off by 20 years.