Does this creep you out?

The U.S. government is collecting electronic records on the travel habits of millions of Americans who fly, drive or take cruises abroad, retaining data on the persons with whom they travel or plan to stay, the personal items they carry on their journeys and even the books that travelers have carried, according to documents obtained by a group of civil liberties advocates and statements by government officials.

If so, then it shouldn't be policy. What a great new way we've developed to keep the government in check! We could do a much better job than Congress. That reminds me, do you old folks remember the days of checks and balances in government? Wasn't that neat?

Reading that the government is tracking where you go, who you stay with when you get there, what you take along to read and what personal items you took on the trip sounds to me like the Russia I grew up with in the cold war. We were scared shitless of Russia and and how oppressed their people were. Remember being afraid they'd send a nuclear bomb over and we'd all be forced into farm labor by Communists?

I'll be glad to send the government the title of the book I'm reading right now. It's called "You're an Asshole."