This is not the first time we have encountered the government’s desire to compile data on all of us, although people seem to have forgotten about the omniously-titled Total Information Awareness program. Once it started under Bush, it never really went away. Cue that Lord Acton quote about “absolute power,” ya-ta ya-ta ya-ta.

Way back in the early days of TIA, i.e. 2002, my friend Todd conceived of a patriotic means of helping the government keep tabs on all of us law-abiding folk. See, sifting through peta-, exa-, or even yottabytes of data takes a substantial investment of resources, and is likely to yield quite a few false leads. Besides that, they might miss a few emails in the process. In order to ensure that the government knows we are on the level, Todd proposed this:

I recently sent the following e-mail to President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and Attorney General Ashcroft to inform them of my plan to do my part as a patriotic American in these fearful times:

Esteemed Sirs:

I have recently become aware of your administration’s plan to gather more information on American citizens than was previously legally possible, including, but obviously not limited to collecting private e-mails.

I cannot applaud this move loudly enough. It seems like every new day brings with it a new warning of imminent terrorist attacks and, while nothing has yet come of those, I find myself living in constant fear.

Obviously, something must be done about this, and you have made the obvious deduction that we can no longer afford to simply collect information on suspected terrorists.

In an effort to support this bold new initiative, I am doing my part as an American to let you know I have nothing to hide, as I am not a terrorist.

Accordingly, I will henceforth forward to you all of the e-mails that I write, that my non-terroristic intent may be laid bare for all to see. I have done nothing wrong, so I have nothing to fear.

Although I must admit to my confusion as to how this will help us catch the terrorists, I nonetheless trust that my elected officials obviously know better and will use this data for good.

I thank you for continuing to fight for democracy here and all over the world.

Naturally, I urge all who read this to also join me in our fight for freedom and also forward all your e-mails to president@whitehouse.gov, vice.president@whitehouse.gov, and AskDOJ@usdoj.gov.

It is my hope that our efforts will lead America to an unqualified victory in this war on terror much as it has enjoyed similar successes in its past wars against drugs, Vietnam, poverty, and Iraq (the first time).

I think it is a brilliant idea. I bet you could configure your email to include the above three addresses in the bcc line of every email you send, thus doing your part to pave the way to freedom and liberty.