I just came across a Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/05/AR2008030503656.html) story about the expansion of N-DEx - the National Data Exchange. It was setup by Raytheon for a $85 million ( a drop in the bucket.) N-DEx is hailed as a unified intelligence sharing system, which will allow agencies to share and analyze data from all levels of law enforcement. From the Post:

"Three decades ago, Congress imposed limits on domestic intelligence activity after revelations that the FBI, Army, local police and others had misused their authority for years to build troves of personal dossiers and monitor political activists and other law-abiding Americans. Since those reforms, police and federal authorities have observed a wall between law enforcement information-gathering, relating to crimes and prosecutions, and more open-ended intelligence that relates to national security and counterterrorism. That wall is fast eroding following the passage of laws expanding surveillance authorities, the push for information-sharing networks, and the expectation that local and state police will play larger roles as national security sentinels."

It may be cliche, but if the government is allowed to get away with this, the terrorists have won.  It's extremely difficult to take over a country where everything is decentralized and/or chaotic. You might inflict damage on one spot, but all the others just keep cooking along. US problems in Iraq are a good example of this. Conversely, a society where every detail of every citizen's life is available in a centralized database (which is conveniently located in the same place as a strong central government) virtually begs to be taken over. You have only to take over the brain, and the rest of the body politic just keeps obliviously going about its business. The only difference is that there's a new boss raking in the profits.

And to all those jackasses who like to say, "If you have nothing to hide, what are you afraid of", I'd simply ask in return, "Are you really stupid enough to believe the information a government collects on you is always accurate?" The government can't locate 10 million illegal aliens, and they found out the Berlin Wall was coming down on the evening news. But you trust them to notice you're not the same guy as the one with a similar name and SNN who likes to rob banks half way across the country? If somebody doesn't put some reins on these bastards right quick, we're going to find out there's worse things than losing a city or two to terrorist action.