Scott's eyes suddenly lit up. "How much did you tell them?" "That I knew you and you were writing an article. That's it." "Then how did they know what I had written? It was pretty damned close. I assumed that you had . . ." "No way, man," Tyrone held his hands up. "Then how did . . .Ty? What if they're using CMR on my computers? Could they . . ." Tyrone's predicament was to decide whether or not to tell Scott that he knew the NSA and others spied on Americans and gathered intelligence through remote control means. "I assume they're capable of anything." "Shit!" Scott exclaimed. "Privacy goes right out the window. Damn." Scott rapidly spun in his chair and vacantly stared off in space. "Is that legal?" "What? CMR? I looked into that briefly, and there's nothing on the books yet, but I did find out that tapping cellular phone conversations is legal." "Phone tapping, legal?" Scott couldn't believe his ears. "Cellular phones, yeah. The FCC treats them like TV sets, radi- os, satellites. Anyone can listen to any station." "That's incredible," Scott said, mouth gaping. "I wonder how they'll handle RF LAN's." "RF LAN's," asked Ty. "What are those?" "A bunch of computers tied together with radios. They replace the wires that connect computers now. Can you imagine?" Scott saw the irony in it. "Broadcasting your private secrets like that? Hah! Or if you have your own RF network, all you have to do is dial up another one and all the information ends up right in your computer! Legal robbery. Is this a great country or what?" "Now you know why I'm leaving. The NSA cannot be permitted to keep the public uninformed about vulnerabilities to their person- al freedom. And hiding under the umbrella of national security gets old. A handful of paranoid un-elected, un-budgeted, non-ac- countable, mid-level bureaucrats are deciding the future of privacy and freedom in this country. They are the ones who are saying, 'no, no problem,' when they know damn well it is a prob- lem. What they say privately is in diametric opposition to their public statements and positions." Scott stifled a nervous laugh. Who wound Tyrone up? A conspira- cy theory. Tyrone was drunk. "Don't you think that maybe you're taking this a little far," he suggested. For the first time in years the shoe was on the other foot. Scott was tempering some- body elses extremes.