The Bush is defending some of the new NSA wiretap programs, stating that this isn't about monitoring what you or I are doing. But in fact, that's what is happening. Everything which goes through the telecommunications structure is being intercepted and filtered. Email, web traffic, phone calls. There are back doors and monitors in every conceivable place.

It is particularly telling in that the Justice Department is not able to review the program. The Justice Department! Seems nobody there has an adequate security clearance. Don't you find that a bit alarming?

It's only a matter of time. The remote control channel changer on your TV already has a little window with an IR detector on it. You would never know if the TV manufacturers replaced this with a CCD through a government mandated covert program. Since it also covers the IR spectrum, it would work just like a channel changer. Just like you expect it to work. Except it's also a webcam, feeding what's happening in your living room back to a monitoring post through your cable system (which coincidentally is also a high-speed internet line these days). The technology to do all of this exists today. All the microchips required to make this a reality are available off the shelf. The monitoring posts are already in place.  

And you would never know...