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Sure the democrats and republicans are all complicit in undermining our constitutional liberties. Big intelligence operations aren't run by any one person or agency. That's part of the problem - how do you ascertain any kind of accountability for something so amorphous? And who is the knight in shining armor who hasn't been compromised by the information collected, either personally or indirectly (close family, etc.)?
This article smacks of X-Files conspiracy idiocy. Just look at the scary cover image! Boo! There is no database uber alles; there are many databases, all interconnected using various ever evolving interfaces. Vast databases of information on ordinary Americans? You bet. An evil mastermind behind it all? Ridiculous. Public contempt for bureaucratic malfeasance? Not anytime soon. The President is not in charge of this. The VP is not in charge of this. Career unelected bureaucrats are in charge of this. The information collected is backed up, distributed, and all but indestructible, bet on it.
You don't have to break into someone's office to steal the files anymore, the files are all electronic. It's ever so much easier to be surreptitious these days. Breaking and entering is something ordinary Americans can sink their teeth into. Data mining and data warehousing not so much, even though the magnitude of what's happening is so much greater.
The big story here is one of mass technological illiteracy and a consequent apathy toward government run data mining programs; not that a small cadre of evil puppeteers runs a sooper sekret domestic surveillance program.
