http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324299104578529112289298922?mg=reno64-wsj.html?dsk=y

WASHINGTON—The National Security Agency's monitoring of Americans includes customer records from the three major phone networks as well as emails and Web searches, and the agency also has cataloged credit-card transactions, said people familiar with the agency's activities.

So they know what I've searched for on the net, who I've called, and what I've purchased.

It's a wonderful idea. Too bad it will never catch on. The typical U.S. citizen is a nervous sniveling coward who can be persuaded to tolerate, even vote for, anything if the appear to fear is made.

And anyone who looks at the history of the U.S., at least over the last 75 years, will quickly see that the U.S. has simply moved from fear to fear, which permitted the very worst abuses the government ever inflicted on its citizenry.

For instance, fear of commies allowed the McCarthy acts to go on for as long as they did. Even if communism is no longer the threat it once was, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, we have plenty of phobias prepared to take it's place.

Or take the Japanese internment camps instituted by FDR. Which led to the most heinous unreversed decision SCOTUS ever made, specifically Korematsu v United States.

Please note, I said unreversed SCOTUS decision. As in not changed. This would disqualify Dred Scott v Sandford, which was reversed by a civil war and three amendments to the Constitution. This would also rule out Plessey v Ferguson, reversed by Brown v The Board of Education. This would even eliminate Minor v Happersett, which was reversed by the Nineteenth Amendment. So, please note, I said unreversed decision. Did I mention that I qualified worst Supreme Court decision with the word "unreversed." In addition, I'd like to point out that I didn't say Korematsu v United States was the worst decision that SCOTUS ever made. I said it was the worst decision that has never been reversed. And it hasn't been. No amendments to prevent such a horrible thing from happening again, and no subsequent decisions in which the Supreme Court was forced to admit they're wrong.

(You have to beat these points to death, otherwise mental giants such as luj and Feebie will have screeching hissy fits over what an appalling thing I supposedly said. "Oh, my God! How dare you say that Korematsu was more appalling than Dred Scott! You deserve to die for saying such a thing! Foam! Spit! Snarl! Snort! Gnash! Gnash!" Though in Feebie's case, she only makes an idiot of herself like this when spurred on by Crid.)

And more recent examples are the TSA, the grossly misnamed Patriot Act, and DOMA. All so blatantly unconstitutional, yet the Americans let them happen without a squeak of protest. Why? Because we let our fear buttons be pushed.

And I have no doubts whatsoever that the Islamophobia that prevails will soon produce another atrocity.

Oi.

I hope Rand means to stop the collection by NSA of calls that do not cross a US boundary - which appears to be new, circa 2005/6, at the specific behest of Congress.

But all calls? Part - most - of the NSA mission is collecting data about communications outside the US, or that cross the US national border - internal-only communication is supposed to be DOJ/FBI - and has been since the OSS was broken into separate groups shortly after WWII.

Yeah, it may be a problem. But it (with the CIA, and occasional FBI) sure beats the post-WWI closure of ALL non-military intelligence collection workers. At the time "Gentlemen do not read other gentlemen's mail" sounded high-minded, but I am sure France, Great Britain, and a host of other countries couldn't stop laughing for weeks.