Let's say you want to track your citizens by creating a national ID. Now, you know that every time you've brought this up in Congress, it's been shot down by members of both parties. So, how do you get it passed? Why, you attach it to a funding bill! Screw democracy. Screw debate. Screw privacy concerns.

Thank you, US Congress, for feeding our cyncism.

Per CNN: LexisNexis, which compiles and sells personal and financial data on U.S. consumers, said Tuesday that personal information on 310,000 people nationwide may have been stolen.

I keep wondering what it's going to take to force companies to treat our private data like HIPPA requires medical companies to treat our medical records. In this case, it wasn't that they were hacked. They were socially engineered into disclosing our private data. How many more leaked personal records will it take?

The TSA lied when they said that our personal information they stored was safe and not given to companies. We didn't believe them then and now we've been proven right.

REJOICE! A Federal judge has ruled against a key component of the unPatriot Act! Yeah!

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In an executive order issued on Friday night, President Bush responded to a key 9/11 commission recommendation by creating a civil liberties board composed of high-level government officials tasked with making sure their agencies' programs do not violate privacy and civil rights laws.

Yeah! So far so good. Well, not really. It's made up of the very people who need the oversight. From the article, Civil liberties advocates blasted the board, comparing it to the proverbial "fox guarding the hen house," and questioned how it could be effective without outside appointees and independent investigative powers.

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I think it as a given that news organizations are inherently biased. Some try to be more impartial than others, but you can just tell. For instance, my Dad says that CNN should be called the "Clinton News Network." I know that CNN's editorial staff is more liberal than he is. (Hell, Rush Limbaugh is more liberal than he is.) But, I seemed to remember CNN giving Clinton a thrashing during the Monica scandal. I guess I naively try to the think the best of our media institutions.

Recently, 33 memos were leaked from FOX News' offices that changed my view. They show how FOX News Senior Vice President, News Editorial John Moody and Los Angeles Bureau Chief Ken LaCoste purposely slant the news to a conservative agenda by dictating how to phrase things, which things to emphasize, and on which candidates the news should be concentrating. Read the memos. Judge for yourself. (Note that this site is a liberal site. Read at your own risk.)

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Not content with just giving away our freedoms, Congress has a new bill that would not allow anyone ordered to give documents to the FBI to even talk about it. From the article, The bill would strengthen laws that let the FBI demand that businesses hand over confidential records about patrons by assigning stiff penalties (up to five years in prison) to anyone who discloses that the FBI made the demand. The bill would also let the FBI compel businesses to cooperate with record requests, and it would expand the government's secret surveillance powers over noncitizens in the United States

My God. What are we doing?! This reminds me of why our forefathers rebelled against the British: illegal search and seizure. Now, though, we can't even protest it!

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Can your brain waves betray you? Police are considering using a brain scanner that detects whether your lying.

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The FBI is trying to get the FCC to expand its powers, instead of Congress. It's wants expanded powers to force all ISP's to allow for the FBI to intercept Instant Messages, IP Telephony, and other IP services. Boy, oh boy. I feel more secure already.

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A driver's car's black box provided the evidence that convicted him for dangerous driving causing death. I know this is in Canada, but this scares me. The government is watching!

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