Funny how no one thought of this while they were sweeping up everyone's internet activity and stuffing their pockets on the way out the door

Remember back in the early years of the Bush Administration, when Americans believed that massive surveillance of all activities of everyone in the country was perfectly OK because it "made us safer"? Remember how Americans thought that taking off their shoes at airports, and invading countries that didn't attack us would "make us safer"? Remember when people thought pumping as much gasoline made from Saudi oil into a Hummer to take their kids to McDonald's was somehow patriotic? Those who felt we had to give up our freedom to protect us against people they told us hated our freedom never even thought of this:

The global economic crisis has become the biggest near-term U.S. security concern, sowing instability in a quarter of the world's countries and threatening destructive trade wars, U.S. intelligence agencies reported on Thursday.

The director of national intelligence's annual threat assessment also said al Qaeda's leadership had been weakened over the last year. But security in Afghanistan had deteriorated and Pakistan had to gain control over its border areas before the situation could improve.

"The financial crisis and global recession are likely to produce a wave of economic crises in emerging market nations over the next year," said the report. A wave of "destructive protectionism" was possible as countries find they cannot export their way out of the slump.

"Time is our greatest threat. The longer it takes for the recovery to begin, the greater the likelihood of serious damage to U.S. strategic interests," the report said.

The report represents the findings of all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies and serves as a leading security reference for policymakers and Congress. Besides reviewing adversaries, it also considered this year the security impact of issues including climate change and the economy.

It said a quarter of countries have already experienced at least "low-level" instability, such as government changes, linked to the economy.

There have been anti-government protests in Europe and the former Soviet Union, and growing economic strains in Africa and Latin America, the national intelligence director, Adm. Dennis Blair, told Congress in delivering the report.

Until January 20, when we had a president who was on the record as saying he'd rather be a dictator, a report like this which cited government protests in OTHER countries as a threat to our security would have had my Constitutional Spidey-Sense all a-tingle. But while it doesn't appear that Barack Obama has the same lust for absolute power as his predecessor, don't think that a breakdown of order can't happen here if economic conditions get bad enough. It's worth noting that if and when the Republic is destroyed, it won't have been the 9/11 terrorists who did it, or even entirely that of the Bush Administration which did whatever it could to eviscerate the Constitution and create the conditions under which our current economic meltdown took place. The blame will be shared by guys like the ones we saw on Capitol Hill the other day, still bewildered about why eight-figure compensation packages should make ordinary Americans who are losing their jobs so angry.