I think it is time to review the late, unlamented cold war, and think about who actually won. As I remember, we were engaged in a struggle with a totalitarian regime which granted its subjects only those freedoms which were convenient at the moment. If you think that the freedom loving people of the United States won that "war", you need to think again.
Here is a lovely little report about how U.S. Agents Can Seize Laptops belonging to its citizenry without any particular reason at all. Not only can the government seize your laptops, PDA's, cell phones, digital cameras and just about anything else they feel like seizing, but they can keep the stuff pretty much indefinitely. Home of the free? I don't think so. Sovereign, independent citizens? Not any longer.
This is a huge slide down the slippery slope towards a totalitarian state. The next things we will be hearing about are internal passports and inplanted RFID chips in...oh, wait, those are already in the pipelines. Federal authorities (mostly of the Homeland Security subspecies) are already pushing for these as a way to "combat terrorism". Frankly, if this is what our response to our enemies is, then they have already won. However, I think that the fascists amongst us, while draping themselves in patriotism, are actually using the threat of terror as a cover for their reach for power. If we let them succeed, then we deserve what we get.
