Letters to the Editor
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Minor point - credit card information
I think the statement in the final paragraph about mining credit card information is a bit misleading.
Most credit card transactions nowadays are encrypted. Assuming the encryption holds, even someone sniffing both sides of the transaction would not be able to see the credit card information.
Same for any transaction taking place using an asymmetrical key (or keys obtained via key exchange using an asymmetrical key). You would have to have direct access to both machines involved to get at the private key(s).
The rest of the article sounds to me quite credible: all outward signs point to an administration which has no qualms about using whatever cruel vicious, or immoral means are available for gaining power (e.g. sleazy attack campaigns, torture camps, outright lies to the public). So it should be no big surprise that they're directed by the same twisted set of values in the technical realm.
I gotta laugh when I think of the multiple ironies...
The neocons don't want to listen to what anyone else has to say, unless it's by clandestine (probably illegal) means.
And, with all these megatons of information at their disposal, they still can't tell us who leaked Valerie Plame's identity, nor why they attacked Iraq in retaliation for 9/11 when the hijackers were mostly Saudi, nor why they twiddled their thumbs while New Orleans drowned...
Hey -- could it be that INFORMATION is different from INTELLIGENCE???
A band of extremist lunatic fanatics has locked themselves in the cockpit, and set our country on course for a suicide mission.