Well there's a slight difference here, isn't there?

In most of the things in your list you are concerned in the things you list about what the government *might* do, I am talking about things the government claims it already has the right to do. It isn't a slippery slope if you're already halfway down the hill, after all.

One of the things that I think tends to get lost in these sorts of debates, is the extent to which contractors, the "Beltway Bandits" tend to profit from this sort of malarkey. They are the primary beneficiaries of this.

It is important to keep one eye on the fact that during most witchhunts, one of the stronger driving forces will be individuals who are sponsoring the hunts strictly as part of a power grab. During the inquisition, the inquisitors became more important. During McCarthyism, the anticommunists became more important. And in the so-called war on terror, police become more important. This guides the hands of the forces behind witchhunts more so than some people take into account.

It's not about keeping you safe. Building relationships with your neighbors keeps you safe. Drone strikes, surveillance programs and aggressive police or assassination policies creates more enemies.

YJ - NSA doesn't claim to have the right to record your conversations. They collect informaiton on phone calls that are made - what numbers connect to what numbers. No person views this information -- it is a database. They are only allowed to monitor your phone calls if they go to court and get permission. So what you are claiming can happen -- un-checked recording/listening to phone calls -- is not happening any more than the slippery slope items I have described.

So we are both paranoid and wrong. lol

Al --- uhhhh....really? You think that catching a terrorist before they set off a bomb doesn't keep you safer?

Let's take the example of the Boston bombers....they actually *had* enough information on those clowns to stop them...the Obama administration failed to "make the connection"....failed to listen to Russian intel that was given to them.

I wonder if the victoms of the Bostom bombing would agree with you, if they could go back in time and see the government do what it was *supposed* to do with the intelligence it had and had stopped the information.

Your assertion that police forces are not intended to keep you safe is assinine.

I will agree that the *primary* goal of the police is to clean up that mess after a crime....but believe it or not, they do stop some crime, and whether you are man enough to admit it or not, both the Bush and Obama adminstration have prevented further terrorist attacks...yes, at the cost of you having to take your shoes off at the airport and have the records of your phone calls collected....which is information that has *always* been collected since there were phones.