Paper Trail: My vote in the next election will be safe, even if I vote on an e-voting maching! Well it still needs to pass the State Senate, but its looking good... "With the 2006 elections, voting in North Carolina only will occur in the form of optical scan ballot machines, electronic recording machines or paper ballots counted by hand. Electronic machines would have to provide a paper copy of a voter's ballot, which could be corrected by the voter before they are recorded." As I mentioned before, I firmly believe in a paper trail for e-voting machines.

Flying Aliens: According to a Canadian article, foreign fliers have almost no rights in the US. I heard recently that the US has decided it can take people off planes and interrogate them, and then not reimburse the person for their ticket, even if they are completely innocent. I definitely understand that you would need to take people off planes, or hold them up to ask questions. But if the person turns out not to be a threat, you absolutely should have to reimburse them/arrange another flight/etcetera. I am appalled that anyone thinks this is acceptable.

Holding Bloggers Liable: According to sources that I'm not at all sure about, a new Ohio rep plans to introduce a Bloggers Reform Act of 2006, "that’ll require hosts to be personally criminally liable for all the lies published on their blogsites." Though I have no idea as to the veracity of this claim, I think it would be outrageous. Bloggers are generally like op-ed writers, who I don't see held to particularly high standards. Other times, bloggers have sketchy information that others investigate... that is the beauty of the web and the bloggosphere. It takes the power of what stories can be broken from a few sources and spreads it to much larger number of people. If something is found to be inaccurate, what generally happens is that the blogger loses credibility. Maybe others can point out some valid reasons for such an act, but I think it sounds like an intimidation tactic for personal reasons.