A friend pointed me to a story in last week's NYTimes on the FBI's latest move to extend its reach (maybe it was feeling outdone by the Cartel?). The current scheme is to force libraries, universities, wireless providers in airports and ISPs to do expensive upgrades. Why? So that the FBI can tap your communications better, of course. Universities are threatening to band together in a lawsuit over what they say is the USD7 billion pricetag for this upgrade.

Pushing CALEA out still farther isn't likely to do anything more to catch crooks and terrorists, but since when has efficient use of time and resources been a requirement at DoJ. The ultimate payees, of course, will be the citizens, since the costs of these forced upgrades are inevitably going to be passed on to consumers in the form of higher tuition, additional fees, increased access charges and the like.