This is a very obvious observation, but bear with me. I haven't seen anyone enunciate it, but maybe I haven't been paying close attention. If Republican ex-CIA director George Bush had publicly proposed the Cripple system developed during his administration, then the whole concept would have been "dead on arrival". In fact, the quite-similar FBI telephony proposals were originally floated on his watch, and went absolutely nowhere in Congress. Can anyone imagine the Democrats accepting something like this while a Republican President was in power? Can anyone imagine any left-wing special interest groups not immediately and loudly foaming at the mouth about this? But both of these groups accept Slick Willie as "one of their own", and Cripple is being seriously debated in Congress. Too bad George didn't win the election.