(Rodents are allergic to it)

It all makes sense now, of course: prototype went missing.

Hey, I know. The people who blew up the WTC were *humans*, so that makes it perfectly fair for us to kill *humans* in response.

If your argument is that "One random act of violence deserves another one," then your reasoning is sound but your point is kind of random. "The people in the WTC didn't deserve to die, so let's murder some other random people who don't deserve to die" is kind of senseless.

Also, the fact that you're advocating violence and hatred toward people at all means you're *not* a "good old fashioned" Christian, and the fact that you seem to think that the fact that Bahrain is a country in that region of the world means that they somehow merit retribution for what a group of people who have nothing in common with them other than religion and skin tone means that you *are* a bigot.

And claiming that there are more republicans than democrats in the USA is unprovable at best, while claiming that this is the reason Bush rose to power is a view that requires you to either be lying or deluded.

That said, you're welcome to your opinion. But since it's a hateful, deluded, and bigoted opinion, we're equally entitled to point that out.

A Modest Proposal, anyone>

I think that for something as little as $5 a month, most people are not going to raise too much of a fuss

Except for one little thing:

They have shown callous disregard for the laws of this nation. How am I supposed to trust them to do the right thing when they systematically take actions that are *against the law*?

Our country already has a mechanism for the government to make such a promise. We call it "the rule of law".

It doesn't mater if what they did is "for our own good": what they did is *illegal* How can you insist that we should trust the government to do the right thing when this very act is an act of *breaking the law*. It's insane to say "The government doesn't need to keep its promises because the government is trustworthy"

*First* we send the return vehicle, unmanned. Because it's not a manned flight, we can send it by a much longer orbit that requires much less fuel and is cheaper, but wouldn't be feasible for a human crew. Also, we can use one of the numerous "smash it into the planet without breaking it" landing methods NASA has been working on for years, which also require less fuel, but would smash a squishy human to bits. THen, once the return vehicle lands, *after you do a remote-controlled check to make sure it's working properly*, you launch your human cred in a one-way one-time use vehichle, which, as mentioned in the article, requires less fuel, less food, and doesn't need as much complicated and breakage-prone flying-machine technology.

It's not about freedom, it's about security. This makes us *less* secure, not more. I can't imagine why Gizmodo readers, people who are interested in technology, would be so willing to drink the kool-aid on this one. You're right that the federal government doesn't care about my personal secrets or stealing my credit card number or what my girlfriend is wearing -- but that makes it *worse*: They don't care about that information ,so what possible reason would they have to protect it? I bet terrorists are *overjoyed* at warrantless wiretapping --they know it won't do a DAMNED THING to stop *them*, but it (a) means that america is running scared, and it means a big, juicy, poorly-protected target for them to use against us. It used to be hard for them to get all the information they needed to plot their evil acts. Now, they just have to send one of their sleeper agents to get a job at the phone company,and there's a big convenient "plug in here to listen to the conversations of any random american so you can steal his credit card information or overhear information you can use to choose your targets".

Giving up your freedom *doesn't* make you more secure. I think it's kind of ironic that those of you who think the government should be allowed to wiretap people without a warrant are probasly the same people who would go stark raving mad if the government said "Oh, and we'we need to track all your guns too, so that we can protect you from terrorists".

But this is plainly impossible, for the reasons I originally gave: when the data is that valuable, there is no security in the world that could protect it.

You might as well say that if we had a magic crystal ball that was *guaranteed* to detect terrorists with 100% accuracy and would NEVER EVER accuse someone incorrectly, I suppose I'd have no problem with dispensing with trial by jury. Sure. And if magical faeries promise to protect the country from all attackers, we can get rid of the army.

The problem that you can't reduce away as one of moral philosophy is that, at some point, we've got a system with humans in it. No matter how honorable the intentions of the government are, no matter how dilligent they are, it only takes *one* low-level government employee to decide that Jesus has given him his job in order that he can compile a list of all the "sinners" in America from wiretaps, and before you know it, all your personal information is on the internet, because one guy (who is probably in jail by now, but that's a small consolation) decided that you oughtn't to have renewed your Playboy subscription over the phone.

I *do* trust that my government isn't going to go after me and ruin my life just for kicks or use their amazing powers of spying to go after me for saying things they don't like. There's too much stuff to spy on, and too many people to spy on, and, frankly, the government is just too darned incompetent to start a systematically repressive system of that sort. Totalitarianism is just too high-maintenance for us.

And yet, I find this whole warranrtless wiretapping thing abhorent, and not simply for my abstract moral reasons.

It's this: I am an information security expert; it's what I was trained in. One of the fundamental tenants of information security is this: the amount of protection you need is a function of the value of the data you have. I do trust the government not to use this data against me. I do *not* trust the government to protect my data from those who *would* use it against me -- especially as it's data that has bvery little value to the government per se.

It's nothing personal against the government:I wouldn't trust *anyone* with that much data. Becuase once the government has access to *all* my information, and *all* the information of *everyone*, there is NO SECURITY MEASURE ON EARTH that isn't worth breaking. I might trust the government not to arrest me for saying uncharitable things about the leadership. I do *not* trust the underpaid civil servant who spends his days listening to taped phone calls to not make a note of my credit card number. I trust the government not to haul my ass into jail for downloading a CD. I do not trust the government contractor who was hired to write the surveilance software to not sell a backdoor code to the RIAA. I tust the government not to send jackbooted thugs to kidnap me in the night for not being patriotic enough. I do not trust my health insurance company not to hire a russian hacker and give him one billion dollars to hack into the the government All-The-Information-Database so they can find out things about my lifestyle and deny me medical treatment accordingly.

"If you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide," hide from who? I have no objection to the government gathering information to fight terrorism. But any information they gather *beyond* that may not be something I'm worried about *the government* having, but it's certainly something I can't rely on the government to protect adequately.

I can feel the cold, icy fingers of RIAAand MPAA goons at the focus meeting designing that one.