Astroturfing the Constitution: Grassroots Grafters and Government Godfathers

Meanwhile, here's a photo (right), dug up by Lambert at Corrente (which we got from Firedoglake via a steer from Sadly, No!), that illustrates perfectly what Big Telcom is really up to. It's George W. Bush at the NSA, "standing in front of a photo that shows all the internet 'choke points' that a program reading our emails would tap into," as Ms Hamsher puts it. Big Telcom (with the exception of QWest; go thank them here) has just shown us how very tenderly they regard the privacy of America's phone calls; no doubt they are equally solicitious of email privacy, and will never allow Bush and his Creepy Peepers access to those chokeholds. Right?
And by the way: does the news that the Bush Administration offered to cough up some dough to the Big Telcoms in exchange for their betrayal of their customers' privacy [from t

Don Barzini: A refusal is not the act of a friend. Don Corleone had all the judges and the politicians in New York and he must share them...He must let us draw the water from the well. Certainly, he can present a bill for such services. After all, we are not Communists... ***