Sincere apologies to Don

WA-a-a-ay back, around 2006, when the Patriot act was extended, Don went ballistic about it.

I disagreed and told him the US would never take wholesale citizen communications data, that it would be acquired selectively and not subject to later data mining to find out who was doing what, when.

I was wrong. When I'm wrong, I'll say I was wrong. And the first thing I thought of when this news was verified was what Don said.
Added:
And then, besides the call database, there's this, which is really worse from a Big Brother perspective:
U.S. intelligence mining data from nine U.S. Internet companies in broad secret program
Here's the thing.. besides the Marathon, there's been remarkably few actual terror incidents. That's good.
That database is never going away.. that's not good
There's NOW some journalism going on.. that's good.

***
Another example of best intentions' 'Slippery Slope':

Like surely this would never be abused:
{New York State} Senate Passes Bill Making the Harassment of a Police Officer a Crime

What could possibly go wrong!!

 

Dang, I have to admit I miss those threads, felt like I was ringside at a heavyweight title fight