THE ELECTRONIC POLICE STATE
Perhaps you saw the story headlined on Drudge (2/11) about the Obama Administration asserting that Americans have "no reasonable expectation of privacy" regarding their cell phone conversations.
It's yet another sign of the emerging Electronic Police State.
When we think of a "police state," most of us summon images of Nazi storm troopers or Stalin's henchmen dragging people out of their houses in the middle of the night. These images are accurate enough, but they reflect the conditions of the world over a half-century ago, and they really do not very well reflect what is happening in the world today.
In other words, these images are mostly out of date. The modern police state is generally silent and transparent. It is electronic.
I want you to think very hard and long on this: any email you have ever sent can be grounds for felony federal wire fraud prosecution threatening you with 20 years in prison. The email, or "electronic transmission," does not itself have to be fraudulent. It can still be "wire fraud" if it is only somehow "involved" in what the government deems to be a "fraudulent scheme." Nervous now?
