As I noted Wednesday, the Federal Government is already using intercepted emails between individuals as fodder for harassing law-abiding citizens. Another case of government's use of protected speech against citizens involves Tom Warner, a Seattle-based activist involved in attempts to normalize relations between the United States and Cuba (we will leave all debate over the Embargo and relations to another time). Warner is being accused of traveling to Cuba and organizing a conference there, which he had no involvement with. He did, post information about the conference on his website, though, and faces fines, with no way to appeal them if he doesn't satisfy the government that he didn't go to or organize the conference.
It would seem that simply telling people about a licensed (by the U.S. government) conference, would pose no problems, and that if it did, there would be some form of due process and hope of appeal, but this appears not to be the case. This is just another case where cictizens have no rights.
On the heels of this and previous monitoring, the President is proposing additional monitoring of Internet traffic (rolled into proposals to track viruses and Denial of Service attacks). Just one more way for the government to keep an eye on what you're doing, who you correspond with, and what you buy. I'm wondering what will happen to all of this data, and when more of us will be getting knocks at our doors questioning our activities.