And if they do, I'm sure the Democrats would never grant them retroactive immunity for them anyhow. Sure, Bush, Reid, Pelosi, and Obama did just that for the telcos with FISA [cough] reform, but the two situations are completely different. For some reason. But isn't technology swell? The great Walter Pincus:

[S]ome insights into the capabilities of the Predator and other aircraft can be drawn from a DARPA paper that describes the tasks of a contractor that will develop a method of indexing and rapidly finding video from archived aerial surveillance tapes collected over past years.

"The U.S. military and intelligence communities have an ever increasing need to monitor live video feeds and search large volumes of archived video data for activities of interest due to the rapid growth in development and fielding of motion video systems," according to the DARPA paper, which was written in March but released last month.

During the Cold War, satellites and aircraft took still pictures that intelligence analysts reviewed one frame at a time to identify the locations of missile silos, airplane hangars, submarine pens and factories, said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, an expert in space and intelligence matters.

"Now with new full-motion video intelligence techniques, we are looking at people and their behavior in public," he said.

Systems also exist that allow tracking, moving-target detection of objects under forest or other cover and determination of exact geographic location. Development is underway of systems that allow recognition of faces and gait -- in other words, human identification.

Of course, the volume of data is so great that it's hard to analyze -- hence the contract for working out how to index it.

Because if the security situation were improving, we wouldn't have to do this! Right? The great Walter Pincus:

'Help Wanted' Ad Belies Report on Iraq Security
A week ago today, Gen. David H. Petraeus started his rounds on Capitol Hill, reporting that security in Iraq was improving to the point that a small number of troops could begin coming home by year's end.

But 10 days ago, [that is, before the ponies for everybody speech] his commanders in Baghdad began advertising for private contractors to work in combat-supply warehouses on U.S. bases throughout Iraq because half the soldiers who had been working in the warehouses were needed for patrols, combat and protection of U.S. forces.

"With the increased insurgent activity, unit supply personnel must continue to pull force protection along with convoy escort and patrol duties," according to a statement of work that accompanied the Sept. 7 request for bidders [before the speech] from Multi-National Force-Iraq.

Listen to what they say only to decode their lies. Watch what they do.

But let's not be negative! There's a bright side:

Why is Pravda on the Potomac putting its best intelligence reporter, the great Walter Pincus, on a 40-year-old story? That would be like Izvestia on the Hudson using Seymour Hersh to cover the New York Fire Department rescuing a kitten from a tree (if Hersh, a real reporter, could still stand to work there).

The answer can only be: