Its interesting that Catscradle's opinion of Mudcatters somehow evolved from "anti-terrorist fascists" to "lobotomized libertarians" over 24 hours. Having taken some economics and political science classes at various times in my life, I seem to recall that fascism involves private enterprise with strict government control and that libertarianism involves an absolute minimum of government control. Oh, golly, "Webster" agrees. Either he has been significantly educated in a day, or else he has no idea what the hell he's talking about...
Having met Russ FEINGOLD, I'm sure that he is comfortable with his position as the only voice of principle in the Senate. Personally, I agree with his principles in the abstract, but I agree with the others who have said (one way or another) that extraordinary circumstances require extraordinary measures. Both the Al Qaida terrorists and the assholes spreading anthrax (who may or may not be the same people) are submerged in our population. Are we supposed to tell the law enforcement people that they aren't allowed to use available means to look for them? Yes, many of these "new" rules can be used in ways that are outside the current intent. Unlike many, I don't distrust everything "the government" (whatever that means) says or does. I worked for the Federal government for 31 years, and experienced the absolute mania that Federal agencies have for protecting private information. Our county is far from perfect, but it DOES learn from its past mistakes, such as those of the McCarthy era and Roosevelt's/Earl Warren's internment of Americans of Japanese descent.