Well hay, Sweden is in the house! Welcome Sophies and I think this law is outrageous. Power to the people and I hope they get it overturned or at the very least changed to protect the people’s privacy rights.

Tom, this is why I didn’t want to go there…with the controversial FISA/Patriot Act. Perhaps you didn’t see what I wrote in the slightly lengthy post above. The parts where I said: “…I feel the good outweighs the bad when it comes to the security of our country”…”I’m not saying that these devices don’t need constant oversight and updating to further protect our citizen’s 4th amendment rights”…”The Patriot Act is an effort towards the improvement of that system which must continually evolve and be refined to do its job and protect our citizen’s welfare and constitutional rights”.

Since 9/11 this country hasn’t been attacked and that is in part because of this Act. Because it helped to plug a hole in our national security system which now allows for the transfer of data between law enforcement agencies vis a vis the FBI and CIA.

Most people have not read the legislation but regurgitate what the base political blogs feed them yet they can’t point to a privacy nor a freedom they have lost. They are quick to loosely quote out of context the words of Benjamin Franklin (e.g. "Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.") from the era of the revolutionary war and don’t realize that Benny wasn’t at the World Trade Center during the attack in a vastly different 21st century.

Well said mboncher, I totally agree. I will look for the Walter E. Williams story.