That's the beauty of the security partnership between the government and the companies running the surveillance state infrastructure: they can charge us for it indirectly. No new taxes, just pay your cellphone provider, satellite TV provider and internet service provider a third of your salary, and get spied on for free. Not only that, but the same system provides Safeway with inventory control, Blue Cross with a list of your pre-existing conditions whenever they want to escape paying a claim, and your employer with a virtually cost-free way to count your keystrokes per hour, check for excessive liquor purchases, and find out where you are without hiring a foreman to check all the john stalls.

Whoopee! Shooter is small potatoes; all he wants is an armband, a set of earphones, and a pat on the head every now and then. If he had the slightest bit of imagination, he could be building temples to Thanatos on every other streetcorner, and really raking it in.

I've seen that abbreviation used here and there, but couldn't be sure I knew what the writer meant when they wrote it. Thanks for putting it in a board enough context to give it meaning. I also, then, assume it's a slur. Got it.

I still think that rather waiting for or in concerted effort with Congress-all state Govs. and people forming efforts for violations of freespeech-be it in the form of lawsuits by individual states to challenge any amnesty or in petition form by state collected signatures for states to override Bush's law. They could do so I still think by looking into inter-intra state commerce laws which threaten the individual security of each state.

States could also ban the use of any of secondary companies like Comvers, Amdoc, or any other company telcos are using that THEY themselves contracted out without considering state security/state commerce secrets violations. States could also allow more competition of thier own homegrown Telcos that keeps the Federal govt. out of the violations of the 4th Amendment. This would give consumers the right to choose those over those telcos violating rights.

States could also lobby to have these companies booted from thier states.States could also demand all Telcos have had tested their software programs and test them themselves, along with all subsidiary companies for leaks in security. Perhaps legal eagles here could offer more suggestions at a state level.

tooter242 ran up to Glenn and placed his ear up against his chest. A heartbeat!

tootsy242 ponded on the keyboard a message filled with fond affection.

And typed.

The neocons are full of acorn nuts.

The "lberals" have a heart just like neocon critters. Peace.

The GOP crowd gazed with amazement and weeped with serious crying Shame.

O, Heartbeats.

Ah! same-same.

I have an angle that I’ve never heard brought up, or thought up, about the illegal eavesdropping that has been banging around in my head from the very beginning of the revelations of the Bush administration’s illegal spying back in 2005 when the NY Times broke the story. With the continuing revelations that they were spying domestically, without a warrant and even pre-911; with the absolutely ruthless, limitless and immoral political games that Karl Rove plays; and the continuing acquiescence of the democratic party to anything that the Bush administration wants despite the fact that they are blatantly betraying their base and constituents, I am surprised that I haven’t heard anyone ever put forth the possibility that the Bush administration was, and probably still is, using the warrant less eavesdropping to spy on their political opponents. Would you put that past Rove who politicized the “Justice” Department and apparently had cases brought up against politicians purely based upon their political affiliation? If so, see Seigelman, Don. And why is it that there is such a discrepancy between the amount of local and state democrats that have been prosecuted over the past 7 years compared to republicans, and yet on the federal level, republicans have been prosecuted much more than democrats? The only democrat that I’ve heard of being prosecuted at the federal level has been William Jefferson. Why? Because the carrot always tastes better than the stick. The corrupted and hence compromised democrats in the Senate and House are of some use to Rove and company while the local and state democrats are not. Why did the Bush administration, as the latest NY Times article states, do domestic warrant less eavesdropping almost immediately upon coming into office and pre-911? They didn’t care about terrorism back then … hell, Bush pretty much ripped up the intelligence memo the he got in August 2001 warning of a terrorist attack because he didn’t want his vacation interrupted. And they never ran on any major platform to go after drug dealers. But, compromising information on your political foes is useful to them in order to control the dems, especially when you combine that with the politicization of the Justice Department. Senator Feinstein, it has come to our attention that your husband has been involved in some dirty defense contract dealings, but we aren’t sure if we want to prosecute him because, as you know, defending our country is of the utmost importance right now and we can understand if he had to “cut corners” along the way. That is completely understandable as I’m sure you understand why we had to, in the interests of national security, cut corners with some of our surveillance techniques. And then would it not also be in the interests of the compromised dems to bury this whole thing by giving the telecoms retroactive immunity and allowing the Bush administration to hide behind Executive privilege so that none of this would ever come out? This makes a hell of a lot more sense to me than the tired “rationalizations” that I hear so much from the blind democratic sympathizers that keep making the excuse that the dems are afraid of being called soft on national security even though the republicans ran on and lost on that issue in the 2006 mid-term elections. The carrot and the stick … the carrot not only tastes better, it’s more easily digested.

Z