Lord of the Rings - I'm sorry you're so un-informed as to what's actually occurring in the United States these days, Constitution and Bill of Rights-wise.

I suggest you go to both of these sites:

http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFreemain.cfm

http://action.eff.org/action/index.asp

and find out.

What this has to do with LW is this: Anything that impacts the developement/deployment of new technology, limits freedom or destroys any modicum of privacy we have left should not only concern you as an individual - but should be of serious concern to anyone who produces a program for communication of any type - because they will be affected by it - either through increased government regulation or requirements to build in back-doors or monitoring features before they're even allowed to distribute or keep the program flying.

Are you starting to "get" it now? Pete