Heather Mills, the former model and ex-wife of music legend, Paul McCartney may be jumping on the hacking bandwagon and Piers Morgan is not a gentleman.

Noticeably absent from the news coverage of this crackdown. At no point in the coverage is there mention of law enforcement having difficulty doing their job. None of the stories from major news organizations include anything about a bill called the “Protecting Children from Internet Pornographers Act,” which just passed through the House Judiciary Committee.

The ACLU has launched a massive effort with more than thirty of its state affiliates to uncover just how law enforcement agencies, large and small, are using cell phone location data to track Americans. The national organization and its affiliates submitted 379 requests through state Freedom of Information (FOI) laws and hope to unearth documentary evidence to show just how law enforcement is using new technology to invade Americans’ privacy.

Make no mistake, not only did Sen. Wyden get this colloquy into the Senate record, but there appear to have been several threats hiding behind the Senate blather. DiFi has said she thinks the way to fix a secret law is to change it in a secret committee meeting. But Wyden et al have made it clear that if she doesn’t agree to fix it in her secret committee meeting, he will try to do so on the Senate floor.

That, as much as the skeptical comments from true experts like Philip Mudd and Charles Allen included in the story, really lays the stark inefficiency of this entire network: Less then .1% of the Suspicious Activity Reports have resulted in any real investigation, and just 5% of those investigations–a teeny fraction of the total–have resulted in any arrest.

So I hope no one actually believes this effort is an effective means to root out terrorism, however that gets defined.

According to DHS’ John Pistole, it’s up to him–his responsibility–to determine what the appropriate balance between privacy and security.

Now, I appreciate that, at some level, it is up to him. He’s in charge of TSA and he’s got to make the final decision whether to implement (or discontinue) a controversial scanning technology.

But it’s not up to him.

For Ruth Marcus mass transportation is no more invasive than getting checked for cancer, so stop whining and spread ‘em.

Yet another comparative nightmare of the TSA.

America has a Credulity Crisis. It’s not that we have too little of it, it’s that we have way too much, and a credulity glut is the last thing a democracy needs.

Today is the 154th birthday of SCOTUS Justice Louis Brandeis, one of the Court’s most forceful voices for freedom of speech and the right to privacy. Today, as AG Eric Holder deals with cases involving torture, wiretapping, state secrets, GQ paints a picture of an AG filled with angst, as Marcy Wheeler summed it up yesterday. But maybe it’s not angst, but that Holder is being haunted by SCOTUS Justices past, like Brandeis, Holmes, Robert Jackson, and Potter Stewart.

Happy birthday, Justice Brandeis, and keep up the good work.