Well now. My friend who has been monitoring your comments here---no, she does not work for BoingBoing advertiser AT&T---told me it’s getting pretty ugly and that I should have a final look.

Good god, people. This all started when I suggested that the original poster of the AT&T piece should have add a little key background to the piece by indicating, for better of worse, that the taps were ordered to root out terrorists. I went on to say that although I did not like the fact that this was done, I supported it because right now there are people who really and truly hate all Americans and want to kill all of us.

(Besides, you don’t think they’re trolling for that data anyway, with or without AT&T’s help? Come on.)

And then, because people hate corporations and people hate the current administration (me included, by the way) and people hate their cell phone reception, or whatever, it quickly dissolves into a name-calling free for all where even my grandfather’s patriotism is called into question.

Nice.

I am truly out now. You all can continue on your little assault here.

Gee, aren’t you all so enlightened.

This is clearly not a forum for any sort of rational discussion. I wish the moderator had been doing her job.

Yeah, that’s what I was doing “cowering in fear of 'bad guys' for your own worthless, chumpy, trolling flesh”. You have no idea and if you knew you would be ashamed of yourself.

I'm out. I'm through getting crapped on here. All you knee-jerks can continue on in your little circle jerk here.

Sexyrobot,
And what YOU need to realize is that a bunch of random thoughts about how you are a modern-day Mother Theresa on rollerblades do not make for a compelling argument against the need to keep an eye on the bad guys and possibly give up some liberties in the process.

You give up liberties everyday. Are you allowed to rollerblade down the sidewalk? Hell no! You could kill someone.

Peter O.

I just noticed that AT&T has a big ad running on BoingBoing.

No comment.

Dear Teresa Nielsen Hayden,
Should moderators be name callers?

All I am doing is reminding people the reason the taps occur. That seems to get lost in the hysteria. Do I like it? No. Do I support it? Hell yeah, sort of.

If you and your ilk weren’t so concerned that you’d be caught illegally downloading Rage Against The Machine MP3s….or watchlisted by the authorities for hanging around subversive sites such as BoingBoing then you might feel differently.

Love,

Chump

What will the Discussion comments be on the following BoingBoing post, dated March 23, 2009:

"Terrorist Plan to Detonate Nuclear Bomb in San Francisco Thwarted at Last Minute Thanks to Intercepted E-Mail"

True, "AT&T took an active role in helping the NSA break the law by wiretapping the whole Internet..." but this post and the linked story should have added "to, for better or worse, help root out people trying to kill you." I am not thrilled with what they did but that does give a little perspective to the post.

numinous

Should come with a warning tag: DO NOT EAT CHILLI WHEN SITTING IN THIS CHAIR

"Remove wrenched numchuck."

Hope that upgrade goes better than mine with Vista.