So let's take a step back and breathe for a second.

Personally, I would love to see all these authors, operators, cyber thieves, spammers, and scammers sent to the slammer. And if they're "state sponsored," even more so. But not at the expense of having my every online movement tracked, categorized, and placed into some data mining machine to determine whether I'm a threat to America's freedoms.

The big problem with intelligence is that it's not always used intelligently -- or for the noble purposes for which it was allegedly intended. Mistakes are made, .

Remember, the old Soviet Union had both an admirably low crime rate and impressively high density of intellectuals and other dissidents eating air biscuits in Siberian gulags. Sometimes high security comes at too high a price.

The next time somebody starts raving about cyber war, make sure they're not trying to pick your pocket at the same time.