Focus In Focus Out

A very unfocused day today, and I haven't been able to pin down any subjects in my mind enough to write coherently about them. I also realized after I signed off last night that I'd neglected to mention another aspect of the whole issue of the phone companies feeding yours and my information to the government to do with as they will. I was thrown for a loop when, ironically enough, a Qwest pop up on the Rocky Mountain News story about Qwest refusing to knuckle under to government pressure disabled my computer for several minutes, and I lost my train of thought. But this whole controversy made me think back to the conversations we've been having about net neutrality (and there are more than I'd thought: here, here, here, and here). These companies that have shown they'll sell us out as soon as the government questions their patriotism are the same companies that want us to hand over control of the Internet to them. We can trust them, they insist. They'd never do anything to undermine our access. While I still don't believe that, I now have no doubt that they'll track our surfing activity as well as our phone calls. Google fought the Justice Department's requests for search data a few months ago and was forced to compromise on the issue. But what happens when we give more power to ISPs who've proven they'll roll right over at the slightest pretext from Justice or the NSA? If those or any other government agencies want any Web data from AT&T, we now know they'll pass it right along without thinking twice. Locking in net neutrality seems more important now than ever.

Of course, if we just want to sit and get depressed over the whole matter, we can take a look at this ABC News/Washington Post poll that found almost two-thirds of people polled thought that if the NSA needed to keep track of every telephone call made in the US to keep us safe from the terrorist menace, then that's just the price that needs to be paid. On an optimistic note, the Post pointed out: "The survey results reflect initial public reaction to the NSA program. Those views that could change or deepen as more details about the effort become known over the next few days." I'm not sure I buy that. If the Rove fear-mongering machine fires up, there's no telling what most of us might be willing to accept. The fall campaign when Rove and/or his minions will be sowing frights and scares hasn't even started yet. If we keep seeing numbers like these, I wouldn't be shocked to see the Repubs pick up a couple of seats.