It's happening faster than I thought. The American slide into despotism is well on its way, if the statements of a US Justice Department lawyer are taken into account. The lawyer, arguing in the Maher Arar case, has stated that foreigners on US soil have no rights. No right to due process, no rights under the US constitution and certainly no right to not be tortured by the US or any other country. I can see the US tourism adverts now: Come for a week, stay detained for a lifetime without charge.

I like trains. The reason I bring this up is that the precipitating event that caused me to put finger to keyboard in this instance was the editorial article in a copy of Trains Magazine. Now Trains Magazine is aimed at people who like railroads and railroading, railfanning as it\'s called here in North America. What railfans do is seek out places were trains congregate (easy to find, since the trains leave their tracks behind) and watch the trains go by or take pictures of the trains as they go by.

The editorial was mentioning an incident where local law enforcement in the United States was accosting some railfans who were standing on public property, taking photographs of trains. The police accused them of terrorist activities. When the railfans complained that they (the railfans) were merely engaging in their constitutional rights, the police responded that “new legislation has superseded the constitution”.

The Utah senator, know for his rather bizzare ideas, apparently has included in an intelectual property protection act a clause that would make it illegal to skip past commercials.