So, a few weeks ago Google announced a new webmail system people could sign up for called Gmail. It is free, web-based, and has 2 features that make it unique:
1) You get a full Gigabyte of storage space
2) They scan your e-mail for keywords so they can target ads in the browser.

Naturally this has become controversial… even the stupid government is excited about it.

“We think it’s an absolute invasion of privacy. It’s like having a massive billboard in the middle of your home,” said Sen. Liz Figueroa, a Democrat from Fremont, Calif.

Let me save the government a whole lot of time and taxpayer dollars – shut up and go away. If people don’t want advertisements based on the contents of their e-mail, they won’t sign up. I guess they’ll have to live with Hotmail, or Yahoo!, or the mail account that comes with their ISP, or work, or one of hundreds of other places you can get a free e-mail account.

Of course, since those have ads too (albeit not targeted based on e-mail contents) I guess that would be considered like having a massive billboard in my home. The difference being, I might actually be interested in the billboard from GMail. Let me tell you, if word got out that -based on the contents of my e-mails- I was interested in computers, and I got advertisements for products I might be interested in buying, I would feel totally violated. Particularly when I voluntarily signed up.

I must be in the minority, because based on the two candidates we have to choose from for president, it looks like no one in America is really interested in smaller government.