Just what this country doesn't need: putting even more power in the hands of Ashcroft.

And wait, it gets worse: Even more sinister, the Bush administration has jump-started a "virtual, centralized grand database" that can track our private lives from both government and commercial electronic sources. John M. Poindexter is heading up this research project, which goes by the Orwellian name of "Total Information Awareness."
Poindexter, you may remember, helped mastermind the Iran-Contra arms-for- hostages scam with Ollie North in the 1980s. Convicted of lying to Congress... [he] is not the man you want controlling Big Brother's electronic surveillance.

So, um, what happened while I was away?!?