'Town Halls' a Chance for the President, Not the Public, to Vent

Congressman: Obama Could Use Pandemic To Declare Martial Law

Tracking Terrorists on the Internet: Bad

Tracking American Citizens on the Internet: Good

Fishism alert. The White House is reversing a nine-year-old policy forbidding the use of tracking cookies on those who visit federal websites.

Even the ACLU is alarmed.

Some agencies already track website visitors

Half a dozen federal agencies are paying a private company to track and analyze the behavior of visitors to their websites, taking advantage of technologies that could become more common on government sites if a White House proposal is approved.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Department of Defense are among the agencies that already have contracts with ComScore, a Reston, Va.-based firm that analyzes Web traffic, to profile Web audiences.

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