[ByteMercenary]

This is nothing more than a more clandestine way of spending. The money will go to certain ISPs (Google, etc), who will say they are spending it on monitoring technology. Then someone sues based on free speach issues. The ISP will be ordered by the court to stop their monitoring development (which they never really started) and the ISPs keep the money anyway. See?

[Smokin' Joe]

The ISP will be ordered by the court to stop their monitoring development (which they never really started)

It would be nice if it was just a rip-off, but Google was doing this sort of stuff in China, and ECHELON and CARNIVORE have been monitoring communications for years.

Now, they will be monitoring for 'counterrevolutionaries' here.

[KarlInOhio]

The various combined telephone/cable/internet companies have been itching for a legal way of examining every packet to shut down competitive services. They would love to kill web based phones (except for their own), movie rentals (except for their own) and television streaming (except for their own). If they are required by law to look inside the packets to figure if they are copyrighted or pornographic, then it is a small step to see if they are a competative service and just "happen to lose" half the packets.