Reply #58: Yes I do ....

[gleaner]

My husband and I had a peace blog opposing the war in Iraq while Bush was president. We had a site meter which told us who visited the blog, where they were and what time zone they were in. We had visitors from the CIA, DOJ, State Department, Army Intelligence in Virgina (which Obama plans to reopen), Halliburton and KBR. I printed screen caps of the site meter information and my husband made bitmaps which we posted on the blog. Then I answered each and every one and linked the blog with an explanation to Liberal talk forums so that they could see too. Other bloggers had similar experiences. We talked to each other because we were all we had. One blogger got an answer from his CIA visitor attempting to intimidate him from continuing. He posted the email. Then he responded and we all sent replies for him to post with his.

They were I suppose, looking to see who was dissenting and trying to scare them into silence. DU was one of the forums I linked to, and many DUers came over for a look and wrote responses for me to post. I was a regular poster here then too until my MS got so bad I could no longer function well anywhere. So my husband and I closed our blog, with apologies to our fellow bloggers and I had to silently leave DU. I returned here about the time Obama was elected.

I don't think it is important to monitor dissent. It is unconstitutional. If the monitoring is done with good intent maybe they keep a survey of opinions to see how their actions are viewed and how to conduct themselves to pull themselves out of the mud when they are deep into it. I have long ago become cynical about this administration. The lies, the broken promises, the continuation of the wars and the worst of the Bush war polices, the lack of promised transparency and the lack of adequate response or asserting of proper authority over the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. The trashing of our economy and the failure to provide jobs or promised relief. Make of it what you will. I still have copies of those screen caps though I no longer have any way to post to the internet. I show them to people who doubt that tyranny and injustice can live and flourish in this country.