So now Bush's Justice Department is invading our privacy in an attempt to resurrect a law that's already been overturned by the Supreme Court. With that kind of flimsy justification and given the number of laws that the Supreme Court has overturned, this administration could come up with virtually any rationale you could possibly imagine to invade our privacy. (Certainly "abortion" searches come to mind!) This is especially disturbing since Google apparently keeps records of every search in a way that can be traceable to individuals, Google's "cookies" don't expire until 2038 and heaven only knows how long they keep all of this information in their databases. (Google's cookie places a unique ID number on your hard disk. Anytime you land on a Google page, you get a Google cookie unless you already have one. That's how they read and record your unique ID number!) One would have to think that ALL of the other search engines (Yahoo, MSN, Ask Jeeves, etc.) may very well do exactly the same thing. It seems to me there's two issues here.

(1) Privacy statements and disclosures notwithstanding, do these search engine companies have the right to gather and maintain this kind of information and what, if anything, would prompt or cause them to divulge it. (If one can believe NPR, they said this morning that Yahoo has already complied with the DOJ's subpoena for a week's worth of their search engine records so I guess we know what Yahoo's criteria is.); and

(2) Does any government agency (Federal, state or local) have the right to access that information? If so, under what circumstances? Would they require a subpoena? a warrant? a nicely worded polite request?

Internet Explorer and Firefox both provide fairly simple and flexible ways to block cookies from all sites or just selected sites. (Opera's privacy options are not nearly as robust.) I think everyone would be wise to take advantage of whatever privacy measures your browser of choice offers! (And if it doesn't offer enough, start using another browser.) I, for one, have configured all 3 of the browsers I use to block all search engine-related cookies ... one of these fine days, when I'm in a really good mood, I'm going to delete every one of my cookies (or maybe just rename the directory!), configure Firefox to block ALL sites and then see just how tolerable or intolerable my browsing (and shopping) becomes. Of course, with the prospect of 3 more years of King George, maybe I'll just wrap my PC in duct tape ... I'm sure that'll keep all the bad stuff away.

I'm always a bit bemused whenever I hear Bush defending his warrantless wiretaps by declaring that "if somebody is talking to al Qaida, we want to know why." Either he's saying that the NSA already knows exactly who is and isn't a member of AQ and those phone calls are the only ones being monitored or he's implying that virtually any phone call could be a target for a wiretap because they DON'T know who is or isn't a member of AQ. Either way, isn't it time someone demanded that George Bush elaborate on this ridiculous explanation for spying on Americans?

(And small wonder the FBI was a bit miffed about having to follow up on all the terrorist "leads" that these wiretaps were coming up with ... they were already much too busy hunting down "domestic terrorists" by spying on countless U.S. advocacy groups engaged in antiwar, environmental, civil rights and other causes, such as the Catholic Relief Workers, Greenpeace, the ACLU and PETA!)

Yet another shining example of this administration's "compassionate conservatism". One gets the distinct impression that George Bush's attitude towards poor people is that if he ignores them or if he can make their life just a little more miserable then maybe they'll just go away. He was certainly in no rush to save them when they were sitting in the Super Dome or on a roof top, he's all for cutting back on their food stamps and Medicare and Medicaid benefits, the $5.15 Federal mimimum wage hasn't been raised since 1997, the number of people at or below the poverty level has increased by millions in the last 5 years, and now we find out that the IRS is withholding their refunds rather than targetting corporations and wealthy Americans. Next thing on the Bush/GOP agenda will probably be a push for National ID cards so fewer of them can vote!

I was struck by the sound byte NBC news chose last night, wherein Alito "took a swipe at the 60's" when he talked about all the protests going on at Princeton when he was there.

"I saw some very smart people and very privileged people behaving irresponsibly, and I couldn't help making a contrast between some of the worst of what I saw on the campus and the good sense and the decency of the people back in my own community."

Most say this was Alito's way of explaining his conservative views. Peace activists protesting the war in Viet Nam are what made Samuel Alito a conservative?? If this man is confirmed I shudder to think about how much power George Bush will grab and be allowed to keep and how few civil liberties will be left for the rest of us.