If this administration would be acting within the bounds of tne constitution and the laws. Everything else is an old shoe.

He also concludes that given how cash strapped AT&T was in 2002 and 2003 when the expensive changes and additions to the system were made, it is "exceedingly unlikely" that AT&T financed the project on its own. "I therefore conclude that it is highly probable that funding came from an outside source, and consider the U.S. Government to be the most likely source," he writes in the document.

...and aren't you morally sure right now that AT&T marked it up through the roof and made a tidy profit at the taxpayer's expense?

[spits] If everything came out there'd be a lot of rich men and politicians languishing in jail.

I am hardly of the alarmmist persuasion; you know: one of those people who thinks we are heading for a true police state. But these stories--and there seem to be more every day--make me feel that there is only one way to combat government intrusiveness. (And by the way, I thought conservatives were *against* the government intruding into private lives?)

The time has clearly come to encrypt email and other web traffic so that government sniffing and fishing expeditions get nothing more than pseudo-random nonsense. While I have nothing to hide, and nothing that I send out (or surf to) is very embarassing, it is simply not the government's business, and under this administration, I certainly don't trust in their good sense or good intentions to "do the right thing."

Encryption now; it's clearly the only way to spike the guns of these nosey bozos.

The disturbing aspect to all this for me is the increasing amount of secret infrastructure built up over the last several years, not just with staffing and personnel who are inclined to continue this kind of behavior for the forseable future, but all the actual construction that has been done, and undoubtedly still being done, of the myriad secret places and machines all over the country and beyond. These places, apparatus, devices, whatever, aren't just going to sit around un-used, even after this administration is gone - the lure to use them will always be there, like a siren's call, and as secretive and inquiring as most administrations are in their own ways, regardless of political persuasion, they will be used.

We have had a culture of the obsessive secretive forced down our throats, willy nilly, and with an obvious lack of responsibility to the succeeding administration's culpability in perpetuating, or not, this kind of intrusiveness. I'm not so sure we'll ever find out how low this administration has stooped to ensure its grip on power - after all, we have whatever's left of our country's reputation worldwide to think about - so my guess is this'll all stay hidden and buried for quite some time, with all power that state secret designations can muster. Sadly, today the bright, shining lie seems to suffice better than a bright, shining light for most folks in what passes for the United States Of America.

The only thing new about what’s going on, is that people are waking up and taking notice. Many organizations in the private sector have been data mining for years. Credit agencies, marketing research firms, insurance companies and other entities have large databases that they have collected, traded and sold to any one that wanted them. Have you ever noticed how many offers you receive for products similar to what you’ve recently purchased. For a price, all kinds of information are obtainable. Your purchase and credit history, driving record, the newspapers and magazines you subscribe to, etc. Everything about your life, from birth to death, is recorded somewhere and is available to anyone that is interested enough to pay. There have never been any legal constrictions on the private sector when it came to obtaining and disseminating their collected information. For many years, various arms of the government have contracted with assorted organizations for the information. The out-sourcing of data collection, has been a fact of life for years. The difference today is, due to provisions in the Patriot Act, the government can demand the work product without economic compensation to those who collected it. Companies, like AT&T and such, are now required, under the Patriot Act, to provide their records, without warrant, to the government. The real problem is the constitutional validity of the law. One may hope that the corporations would stand up and challenge the law, but that is unlikely to happen. Nor do I expect them to end their practices with the collection and use of personal information. Until the courts declare the Patriot Act unconstitutional and the congress makes private data collection itself illegal, our privacy will always be at risk.

Michael / Mendocino nailed it. People are just now waking up to what's been going on. There is absolutely no aspect of your personal life that isn't available and for sale.

Have you ever asked your HMO, like Kaiser Permanente, to give you paper copies of your entire medical history? If you've been in their system for four years, chances are, there is going to be paperwork on you three inches thick. They will charge you nearly $100 for copies of your records, but they give your same private medical history out to any insurance company that asks for it, free of charge, regardless of if you are insured by that company.

And what of your credit reports? Same. In fact, your HMO can request and get your credit history.

Ever been fingerprinted for a government job? Then your fingerprints are already in the national crime database, no matter that you have no criminal record.

Right now, as I type this, my ISP is keylogging my words and storing them for no less than six months. Every web site I visit is in there too.

Ever get mad and email your congressman? They keep those emails.

In fact, there is nothing that you can do to protect your privacy because you have no privacy! It's gone. Already. Gone.

And when it comes to the CIA, the FBI, the NSA or any of the spook outfits, they most certainly have created algorithms for seine netting all Internet traffic for keywords, suspicious patterns, possible codes etc. Type in anhydrous ammonia or ammonium nitrate, like I just did, and it's going to give your email account a little flag, just like mine just got.

You may as well just get used to it. Your rights went away years ago. You are somewhere on the grid at all times.

You know who's not on the grid, ironically enough?

Terrorists, and illegal aliens, that's who!