FRANKNOTE

You may think you have nothing to hide. You may think that the government will bug only the bad people. As residents of many, many police states can tell you, the government's definition of what constitutes a bad person shifts constantly and always expands. You can be wiretapped just because you were in the wrong place in the wrong time. Hell, you could be arrested for it. It's happened within this decade, right here in the USA.

Now, the wiretaps are something of a joke. They produce far more pages of transcript than anyone can read. If the people on the phone happen to be talking in a foreign language, then it's even worse, because the government is reluctant to hire people who speak foreign languages. Gay Arabic speakers - sorry, goodbye, we only want heterosexuals to stop the terrorists. The greatest protector of our freedoms has always been governmental incompetence.

A U.S. Senate vote that took place two hours ago reveals how much three of our leading presidential candidates are committed to electronic privacy and the rule of law.

Barack Obama passes the test. John McCain failed. Hillary Clinton gets an incomplete.

The vote was on an amendment to deny AT&T and other telecommunications companies legal immunity if they are proven in court to have violated federal privacy law by opening their networks to the National Security Agency.

Obama voted for the amendment. That's a vote for electronic privacy and for the rule of law. It means that AT&T and any other companies that may have violated the law would be held accountable for any illegal actions they committed. Conversely, if AT&T, et al, violated no laws, its lawyers have nothing to worry about.

McCain opposed the amendment. This is a flip-flop from his earlier statement to us that we published as part of our News.com voter's guide earlier this year.