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When will everyone realize that the line between dissent and terrorism has been erased? Virtually everyone who has posted about this subject can (and eventually will) be called a terrorist under the new laws. Forums such as this are a necessary part of our society, but will draw much unwanted attention from the 'authorities'. The time to protect ourselves and our communications is now! EVERYONE should have a PGP key and should distribute it to the people they trust now. The 'web of trust' has to be built before communications are hindered. All email attachments should be encrypted. Everyone should make use of anonymized redirection sites (www.anonymizer.com), encrypted email (www.hushmail.com) and anonymous remailers (there are many). Redirection sites will protect you if someone is monitoring FreeRepublic traffic. Some of these services can even encrypt the URL strings before your browser sends them, so even someone 'listening' to your phone line cannot tell what site you are visiting. Logins used to post to boards like this should always be anonymous. Think you are posting anonymously and no one can know who/where you are? You are not using a cable modem are you? Many of them use fixed IP addresses. That means that the cable company, and hence, the gov't, can tie a particular piece of internet traffic to your physical address. All emails should always me anonymous. Just because a message and an attachment are encrypted, does not mean that a log cannot be kept of the number and frequency of your emails to an address that is under suspicion. And you should always assume that the gov't will, some day, request that the operators of sites like this one turn over their logs and patronage information (you do donate anonymously, don't you?) if they want to remain in operation. And if they do not want to remain in operation then they will just take the files anyway. The common argument that there is just too much traffic to monitor it all is true.... for now. My opinion is that any traffic to 'right wing', militia, weapons, freedom, libertarian, privacy or survivalist sites are, or will soon be, monitored. Don't worry about checking out pornography, radical environmentalism, anarchist or socialist/communist sites. They only pose a threat to our freedoms, not our government, and so will not be monitored too thoroughly. I know these precautions sound like a big hassle, but the tools to protect our communications are out there, we have but to avail ourselves of them.

"When will everyone realize that the line between dissent and terrorism has been erased? Virtually everyone who has posted about this subject can (and eventually will) be called a terrorist under the new laws. ... The time to protect ourselves and our communications is now! EVERYONE should have a PGP key and should distribute it to the people they trust now."

Suit yourself, but I suspect that you will find that mainstream America is not so paranoid that millions suddenly start worrying that their e-mails to their moms are going to get them arrested for terrorism. Likewise, I suspect that very few people resort to using encryption in their everyday transactions. More power to them if they are worried about their business secrets being compromised by corrupt government eavesdroppers, but I doubt we see much of that.