Every teacher in these college campus rooms should be armed just like all pilots should be armed. This would stop the mass killing crap in its tracks.

This is also something the government will fight to the death as the government wants the dumb sheeple to be as disarmed as they are asleep.

Who profits the most from this mass killing at V tech?

The police state of course.

I hope this president and the neo crazies are impeached before it is to late if it is not already.

With unending respect to the families who lost loved ones on 11 September... how does it honour their memories that we should become a nation of timorous sheep?

More people died of drowning in 2001 than died in the attacks. The reason there's no ban on swimming - or smoking cigarettes or driving a car, both much more lethal activities - is because there is no benefit to the Homeland Security State in so doing.

Hate to be cliche, but I don't think my grandfather escaped Fascist Italy so that I could be a slave...

>>Hate to be cliche, but I don't think my grandfather escaped Fascist Italy so that I could be a slave...<<

And I don't think my father left the Soviet Union so that I and my children would live in a country where doublethink is required and the Party controls all aspects of personal and public life.

GG:

The noxious idea has taken root in our country -- even before the Bush presidency, though certainly greatly bolstered during it -- that one of the functions of the federal government is to track the private lives of American citizens and maintain dossiers on what we do.

For all the good it did in this case, eh? Is anyone in the Government tracking the number of guns the men who stalk women are buying, and where these men live? Because that's a piece of information I could actually use.

it always fun to regurgitate the outrage that Republicans expressed over the Clipper Chip proposals during the Clinton years.

http://usinfo.state.gov/journals/itgic/1097/ijge/gj-7.htm

But doing so reminds us that the battle for personal privacy cuts across party lines and that there are no shortage of Democrats who are willing to sacrifice freedom if they think it will give them "law and order" or "war on terror" cred.

I've always assumed that every link I've ever clicked as well as every case of beer I've ever purchased was available as a data point for anyone willing to dig for it. And who even knows how many servers the photos we take with our cel-phones end up on.

One of the downsides of technological advancement is that anything that can be done will be done at some point. Does everyone remember the talk of internet-enabled refrigerators?

Needless to say, the more connected we all are, the more irresistable the urge to monitor and control will become. It's just plain human nature.

As someone who frequently contributes more than a few words to public forums, some of which offer personal experiences with anti-depressants, I am not afraid of being known for having chronic major depression. It is important that I speak openly of my experience, so that others will come to understand the physical characteristics of major depression and what constitute effective treatments for its symptoms and effects.

SIDEBAR: Major depression is treatable, though not actually curable. Although many forms of treatment exist and are being studied, antidepressants have proven to be the most safe and effective for most people, especially when taken in conjunction with talk-therapy. There is no reason to expect that major depression, treated or untreated, leads to criminal activity or any specific anti-social violent behavior. The greatest violence depressed people do is to themselves, and failing to seek early and effective treatment is the major reason for such self-inflicted harm.

Nevertheless, the implication noted by Glenn Greenwald, that our government is compiling information about citizens of the United States concerning the medications that they take is deeply troubling. There is great stigma attached to mental illness in our society, and nothing will deepen the consequences of that stigma more than the government collecting "intelligence" about people who seek treatment.

Simply put, if people believe that their medical records are open to government scrutiny and that their treatment regimens will be the subject of bureaucratic oversight, they will fail to seek treatment. When people who are suffering from an illness fail to seek necessary treatment for their illness, everyone in our society suffers. Minor illnesses become major, crippling diseases, and the possibility for effective treatment diminishes. The social and economic losses mount, and people suffer.

There is nothing to be gained by collecting such information. Under our judicial system, innocent people cannot be deprived of their freedom merely on a vague suspicion that they may be harmful. Unless we are willing to completely abolish the rights of due process and self-determination, there can be no reason to collect information on the use or prescription of medicines of any kind.

What's so frustratingly ironic is how tenaciously the Administration clings to its claims of privacy for the Executive Branch. Of course they frequently make "national security" arguments -- some bogus, some less so. But they also do this out of "principle" -- separation of powers and Executive Privilege.

Once again the Bush Administration and their enablers have it backwards. Citizens' private lives should remain private, and the machinations driving public policy should be public.

Really an excellent point - the most secretive administration ever is also the most prying and snooping. As you point out, that is exactly backwards.

At what point does this invasiveness approach a violation of the patient/doctor privilege? I know that there are privacy lawsuits against the communications corporations that provide(d) the government access to their client phone-record databases, couldn't the same be done to those companies(insurance, pharmacy) who must have been involved in providing personal prescription information to the government?

If the government has not violated the patient/doctore privilege, surely the companies that provided them the data have?

While I think it is a bad idea for the Federeal government to be maintaining records on all American's as matter of course, I don't see a problem with "Real IDs" in theorie. We all ready have for all intents and purposes mandatory unique Federal ID known as Social Security number. It is currently quite easy to steal someones ID and create huge problems for the victims. If I am going to be forced to own a Federal ID, the government should make it impossible or at least very difficult for someone else to use and pretend to be me. The current method is laughable and far more of a threat to my well-being then having a secure form of ID.

The one thing that does concern me is what provisions are there for a card that is lost or stolen? Will I still be able to vote if my purse is stole the day before an election? Will I be able to get on a plane or have my day in court if I misplaced it? I also fear that this could evolve into it being mandatory to always carry it on your person, and failure to produce it upon being asked by an Official will result in being arrested. That indeed would be a Police State.