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Do you have any evidence of social programs being "decimated" over the past four years? As part of my business, I read the Federal Register every day, and it contains billions of dollars in grant announcements, for everything from after school programming to job training to affordable housing to PE programs

Defense spending has been astronomical and does not need to get any bigger.

Have you read Empire by Niall Ferguson? In it, he writes about the British Empire and its huge expeditures when it was the world's top dog. The fact is that the United States today spends a lower proportionate amount of money on defense than any other sole world superpower in history. Even then, our power is constrained by our committments. One can argue if those committments are good or bad; but the fact is that the United States spends little relative to other superpowers through history.

Of course, those two items are red herrings compared to your main point, the the false-choice that the United States will either allow wire tapping and become an instant police state or disallow it and be free. I agree that wire tapping should only occur under order of a judge.

The civil libertarians realize what none of the tin-foil hat paranoiacs on /. do. This does nothing at all to expand the legal authority of the FBI or anyone else to tap communications. The same laws (and the same amendments to the U.S. Constitution) still make it a serious pain in the a$$ to get a wiretap order. This proposal simply would have the FCC impose standards on the infrastructure so that once the legal hurdles are overcome, technical ones don't halt an investigation.

Obviously, the first step in defending our rights and freedoms is vigilance. Everyone give yourself a pat on the back for vigilance.

The next and essential step is actually identifying the real problem. Here the problem is not that the proposal will "dramatically expand the scope of the agency's wiretap powers," because it can't. First, no law specifically authorizes the FBI's wiretap powers, but the gov'ts. Second, the FCC has NO AUTHORITY WHATSOEVER to define when law enforcement can or cannot tap someone's communications. Third, it it was such a realistic threat, it would have already happened, as such laws and regulations have been implemented in the past.

To protect your rights, you must know your rights and understand the system, so that you know when you're really threatened and how and where to direct your energy. Read before you (continue to) rant:

1. Things like this are already required as explained in this summary of this law (remember CALEA from 1994?)!

2. The authority to wiretap anyone's communication is governed not by the FCC but by this amendment to the Constitution (with informative analysis) and this statute.

This is a threat to your ISP service bill and the quality of the services and software, not your constitutional rights. I don't want to live in a market where all communications products have legally mandated back doors, either. But not because I'm afraid the FBI (or NSA or MS or anyone) will then be able to eavesdrop on everything I do. They lack the resources, the skills, and the authority to do that whether the FCC accepts this proposal or not.

Not to say it's necessarily a good idea, but contrary to the spin in the article (and here on /.), this proposal does nothing at all to expand the legal authority of the FBI or anyone else to tap communications. The same laws (and the same amendments to the U.S. Constitution) still make it a serious pain in the a$$ to get a wiretap order. This proposal simply would have the FCC impose standards on the infrastructure so that once the legal hurdles are overcome, technical ones don't halt an investigation. This has been done before without turning the US into a facist state. Obviously, the first step in defending our rights and freedoms is vigilance. Everyone (even C|Net) give yourself a pat on the back for vigilance, even if you've missed the real point and mis-stated the law in alarmist fashion (like C|Net). The next and essential step is actually identifying the real problem. Here the problem is not that the proposal will "dramatically expand the scope of the agency's wiretap powers," because it can't. First, no law specifically authorizes the FBI's wiretap powers, but the gov'ts. Second, the FCC has NO AUTHORITY WHATSOEVER to define when law enforcement can or cannot tap someone's communications. Third, it it was such a realistic threat, it would have already happened, as such laws and regulations have been implemented in the past. To protect our rights, we must know our rights and understand the system, so that we know when we're really threatened and how and where to direct our energy. Read before you (continue to) rant: 1. Things like this are already required as explained in of (remember CALEA from 1994?)! 2. The authority to wiretap anyone's communication is governed not by the FCC but by to the Constitution (with informative analysis) and . This is a threat to your ISP service bill and the quality of the services and software, not your constitutional rights. I don't want to live in a market where all communications products have legally mandated back doors, either. But not because I'm afraid the FBI (or NSA or MS or anyone) will then be able to eavesdrop on everything I do. They lack the resources, the skills, and the authority to do that whether the FCC accepts this proposal or not.

I think the Supremes may tend to have a different view than you... this text refers to marital privacy, but it does show that things that are not in the constitution can be "inferred":

The language and history of the Ninth Amendment reveal that the Framers of the Constitution believed that there are additional fundamental rights, protected from governmental infringement, which exist alongside those fundamental rights specifically mentioned in the first eight constitutional amendments

So yes, the Constitution does not explicitly declare Anonymity as a right, but I'm sure that there's a case to be made about it being inferred by the 4th amendment, especially when it comes to activities that are thought to be "one's own business".

This discussion occurred in the afternoon/evening after State of Play. It was very interesting to learn about the rulemaking process. For those who aren't familiar with it, rulemaking is when government agencies convert policy decisions passed by congress ("reduce automobile emissions") into actual federal statutes ("all light trucks lines will reduce their average emissions by 5% by 2007"). Part of the rulemaking process is posting the proposed rules and then soliciting public comment. In the old system, these periods of feedback were announced via the Federal Register and feedback was submitted via snail mail. The result was that a small number of lobbyists and individuals who scoured the Register would submit feedback. The agency in charge of the new statute would then publish a response, and eventually, the new law. The government doesn't have to follow the feedback but is often influenced by multiple submissions with similar viewpoints. The new system (partially implemented) allows for automated searching of proposed rules and electronic responses. A requirement is that posting be anonymous. As readers of /. can see, this is a very gamable system. The lobbyists now have a cheap and easy way to scan all proposed rules for ones that touch on their area and a undetectable way to submit massive numbers of similar viewpoints from apparently multiple sources. The new system is supposed to make the system more democratic but the actual result is to make it less democratic. Somehow not at all shocking that the Wired article missed that. Now, given that there were many smart game designers/developers in the room who've had experiences managing communities that are full of people who try to game systems, there were ideas put forth -- /. was even mentioned -- but the government folks who were there weren't particularly interested in hearing that there system was flawed. Instead they just wanted information on how to educate people about the new system. It was an enlightening and terrifying view into how senior government employees attack problems.

Then I say let the thing tumble. Yeah, deficit bad. But tax cuts are not the end-all, be-all culprit. When you really see what the taxes you do pay go into, you might reconsider your opinion on tax cuts. And don't even bother to reminisce about past surpluses. They're just as bad.

To all the Bush trolls, admit it. Any other dickwad in office would be running deficits all the same, just for different purposes. The difference is, if it were a Democrat, you'd be footing the bill right now.

No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince or foreign State.

Which I'd guess was aimed directly at the British crown. Does this mean if Gates accepts, he's breaking the law? (obviously, IANAL)

1. Always start with Thomas. Being the Library of Congress and all, it makes sense for them to maintain an up-to-date collection of all the legislation floating around on the floor. They keep track of bills from introduction until they die, are vetoed, or become law.
2. Make sure you have the right Congress. Even though it seems most members of Congress have been where they are for longer than many of us have been alive, a new "Congress" is considred to be formed the swearing in of the winners of a recent election. Our current Congress was sworn in after the last election, January '03. Since we know what we're looking for happened in '01, we have to go back to the 107th Congress.
3. Know what you're looking for. It sounds simple, but it isn't always. For example, if you're looking for a piece of pork-barrel spending slipped into a bill to complain about, good luck; they tend not to call bills "Act to Buy Votes in my Home District and Keep My Sorry Ass on the Hill" (Bitter? Who, me?). Luckily for us, we know the "proper" name of the bill ("USA PATRIOT Act"). You can also search by things like bill number (they begin with "HR" if they start in the House of Representatives and "S" if they start in the Senate), its status (check out the long list of bills President Bush has vetoed!) as well as other factors. In this example, we see that the USA PATRIOT Act was known as "HR 3162" in the 107th Congress
4. Make sure you have the right version. For better*cough* or for worse, the USA PATRIOT Act is one of those bills nobody bothered to look at before voting on, but that's a rarity. It's pretty common for the House and the Senate to dicker back and forth over the text before sending it off to the White House. (I hear the White House can even occasionally send it back for yet more revision, but I'm beginning to think that's just a myth.) Once you're looking at one version of the bill you're looking for, you can click on "Bill Summary & Status Info" for a breakdown of what the different versions are, where we ultimately learn that HR 3162 was signed into law as "public law 107-56" (107th Congress, 56th public law) and can view the text of the final version there.

Unfortunately, the response you get here doesn't have a URL you can easily cut-and-paste for others to look at, so I had to go to The Other Source on federal law: the GPO. It's their primary job to take all these silly laws numbered solely by Congress and law number and organize them into something that's more easily searched (relatively speaking), breaking it down into titles, chapters, sections and so forth. The USA PATRIOT Act doesn't exist in US Code as one monolithic chunk of text but as a whole mess of edits, addendums and footnotes sprinkled liberally throughout the whole thing (which is why you often want to start with Thomas even if it's already become a law). However, since they had to deal with the beast of "public law 107-56" in its original form before digesting it, and since they're in charge of all government publishing to begin with (what's in a name?), they should have the text available in its original form. Sure enough, go to their website, click on "Public and Private Laws," select the 107th Congress, type in "public law 107-56," and you get to see it in ASCII or PDF format with a (relatively) friendly URL. Now if only they can be convinced to use normal double quotes

Published by the Office of the Federal Register, National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), the Federal Register is the official daily publication for rules, proposed rules, and notices of Federal agencies and organizations, as well as executive orders and other presidential documents. It is updated daily by 6 a.m. and is published Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays. GPO Access contains Federal Register volumes from 59 (1994) to the present.

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Once it gets on the Federal Register, not much.