[bediger4000]

I, too, am skeptical. I theorize that the massive data collection is for control purposes. But watch out - the first people to come under surveillance are those who object to surveillance.

More seriously, if you google "jane harmon alberto gonzalez" you'll find a nice, complicated scandal from GW Bush years that never got the play it should have. Sure, Representative Harmon seems to have done some things wrong, but the real issue is "...Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez later quashed a DOJ investigation into this incident in order to secure Harman’s support for the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping program."

That's right, the Attorney General of the US might have (probably did) blackmail a US Representative, using surveillance data. We're all accustomed to autocratic executive branches now, but that's a bridge too far, if you ask me.

[tomjakubowski]

When I googled "jane harmon alberto gonzalez" I found a lot of blog spam linking to Jeff Stein's original reporting on that, but Stein's article 404ed.

Here it is, for the interested: http://web.archive.org/web/20090421090444/http://static.cqpo...

[bellerose]

I have no objection to surveillance if people are open about it and the information is accessible if reasonably needed. I honestly would rather live in a world that had cameras everywhere, including the rooms of my apartment and making victims actually have an opportunity to receive justice instead of the reality we live in today. Of course what I'm writing will be attacked because such a system is hard to design but it's not impossible and if it was made it could make it so the abused no longer be abused. Anyway I'm now in Canada because United States is only where the financially privileged get justice & healthcare.