+++Axiom3+++

Where are the jobs? The government taxes the private sector, reducing the amount of money available to hire new workers. The government takes that money then, and gives themselves pay raises way larger than regular cost-of-living increases, again reducing the amount of money available to hire new government workers. - +++Axiom3+++

Would they even know if she was a terrorist gathering data from the DHS? - +++Axiom3+++

This just in: government "expert" witnesses sometimes lie, fabricate evidence against innocent people, ruining lives in the process. Good God, if the government imprisoned me and took my kid away for good, I'd be out for blood. Balko's point at the end is the most important. The real fear is not that some individual will lie on the stand, but that the entire system will support that lie even once it's become apparent to them. It's the whole "protecting their own" thing gone terribly wrong. - +++Axiom3+++

Take a minute to go through the PDF report attached. $5.7 million to create 3 jobs advertising for the government. $943K to a (private) cruise company to "combat terrorism". $5 million to a dying mall for energy renovations (isn't that a private matter by the privately-owned mall?). This PDF will come in handy when my kids ask why everyone is so poor in America. "That's because the people don't have any of their own money left to make their lives better. The government takes it from them and gives it to corporations or wastes it on their own worthless projects." - +++Axiom3+++

Childhood obesity problems? Could be because of the government approved food your kids are eating in schools. But, it's so much easier to blame Coca-Cola and McDonalds! The fact that we have a Child Nutrition Act, and we pay all this money to the USDA and FDA and HHS, and we still have these problems where the food is lower quality than what's available on the private market should be disheartening to believers in big government. Of course, their answers are typical - either we're not spending enough taxpayer dollars or we don't have "the right people" doing the job. It's never a failure of government itself, only our failure in not making it bigger. - +++Axiom3+++

This is significant - if government really is by the people, for the people, then the data needs to be free. Unlike private corporations, the people fund the government and therefore should be allowed access to it's creations and it's information. We don't need secret meetings about how to be open in government. We don't need to restrict information about who the President meets with. And we don't need our government negotiating secret treaties like ACTA behind our backs. - +++Axiom3+++