CBS News: Blog Public Eye

NSA Story Old News? Yes…And No. It sounds very dumb too. Let's collect all the numbers, times, and dates and if a terrorist reveals a phone number, we got them. Meanwhile, you can make free calls on the Internet which as far as I know cannot be monitored, traced or recorded, to anywhere in the world with an Internet connection. So what was the point of this exercise one might wonder? I have a colleague who got a job with the US Census Bureau and they are gathering hospital records, perhaps, over the "terrorists" and the Emergency War Powers Act, that from my view, Republicans complain about Democrats using in office, swear to reform those laws, get into office and become the biggest egregious users of them. Once upon a time a Seattle native had an American flag with the "Peace" sign on it (semaphore for ND "nuclear disarmament" I read the symbol) placed there in black tape. He was fined after a demonstration stopped below his window, and the case went all the way to the Supreme Court over $75. In the Washington Appellate Court vs. the defendant, the court found that the defendant had been within his rights, having not desecrated the flag materially and had a right to an opinion of the First Amendment. Perhaps, it should be taught in school.