You are being watched.

What kind of oppressive asshole government spies on it's own people? Why the US of course! I'll probably have lots to say on this, but it's too much to get into at the moment.

I'll start with the obvious. Everyone who argued that the government was only monitoring international calls turns out to be full of it. While there's no evidence that the US was actually intercepting or recording domestic calls, they've been caught twice in sucessively worse situations...what do you think? Furthermore, it's obvious that electronic media is more easily screened and filtered. Some program is probably filtering all your e-mail for code words, and another is recording every web site you visit.

Think that's a paranoid delusion? Would you have said I was paranoid 2 days ago if I told you the government was tracking all of our phone calls and feeding them into a giant database?

For anyone who hasn't thought about this enough, and it seems to be most of the country, here's the reason it's bad for democracy.

When politicians have access to people's phone records, they're likely to use that to advance their personal causes. Maybe they keep tabs on their political opposition... who just might be on the phone with mistresses or stock brokers. Maybe they specifically keep tabs on who journalists are talking to. Maybe they cross correlate their list of direct mail respondants with all the people they communicate with for more effective mail campaigns.

It is additional power consolidated in the single most partisan bracnch of the government, and that is dangerous. It's dangerous when Republicans are in office and it's dangerous when Democrats are in office. This administration has already proven that they're willing to leak the idenity of a US spy for polotical gain. You think there are lines they won't cross? Don't bet on it.