The US is now set up for a total police state, and the only thing lacking is the Bush-office order to make it happen.

Read and weep. We have:
1) the Patriot Act, of which Section 106 gives the president the ability to identify any citizen as a suspect without providing any evidence whatsoever, to have that person detained in SECRET detention, with no access to legal representation or family, to confiscate any and all of that person's property, and to dispose of that property in any way and to whomever the president designates. In other words, he can have you disappear for opposing his policies (no evidence, remember) and sell everything you own out from under your family, and give the money to Jenna and Barbara - or to bin Laden if he so chooses.

2) The new 'Torture Act' passing Congress now that says that once you're detained you may be tortured, and then tried for crimes you weren't charged with when you were detained based on whatever you or anyone else in that prison say under torture. the only things they exempted are those that would leave evidence on your body that would show up in a photo. We already have the secret prisons and secret renditions too, to get our dirty work done outside the boundaries in order to protect the administration.

3) We have the Pentagon watching every dime you spend that isn't cash - a program called DARPA - that will tell them in minutes where you used your credit card, and what you bought. Store number, date / time and SKU will give that all away. Pay by check? Takes until the check clears to tie you to the sale, but they already know what you bought. It's an enforcement tool as well as a spying tool.

4) General Hayden has the NSA recording your phone calls (which several software tools can transcribe from voice to text for scanning, and which do context scanning) and reading your e-mails, and maybe even reading snail mail too for all we know. Another spying and enforcement tool.

5) We have most of the Republican controlled elections boards across the country using Diebold voting machines, produced by a guy who promised to put Bush in the White House, and with software that cannot be audited. So our elections are still free, but the results are now capable of being pre-determined by the ruling party - with no ability to audit them.

6) We have a courts and justice system packed with gang appointees who support not only the torture, and the protection of the voting software (Intellectual property protection), but also the wholesale disregard of current law and the bogus interpretations of most standing law in a fashion which supports the Police State Agenda.

7) Last, we have the law Congress enacted last year that gives the president the power to declare Martial Law (ostensibly in the event of the Bird Flu non-event) to control the public in the event of panic or protests or riots.

Got it? It's a police state pure and simple. Just like Stalinist Russia,