BIG, ENORMOUS, HUMONGOUS GOVERNMENT

WASHINGTON - The nation's spy chief disclosed for the first time Thursday that the number of U.S. intelligence personnel worldwide totals nearly 100,000.

In a speech at the National Press Club marking his first year on the job, National Intelligence Director John Negroponte indicated his willingness to make some, normally classified information public.

Grover Norquist will have to be quick to drown all these spooks in the bath tub before he goes to federal prison.

Wish some feisty reporter - do we have those? - would ask Mr Death Squad, a name that is infinitely more accurate for Negroponte than the innocuous, rather cutesy "Spy Chief" which sounds like a couple of 10 year old boys hiding from each other in the back yard on a breezy, sun drenched, late summer day(COME ON TOMMY! Let's play Spy Chief), just how many of his spies are actually eavesdropping on Americans, gathering our data, screening our calls, reading our emails, violating our privacy while pretending, in that quaint way repiglikkkans have, that the Constitution affords no right to privacy or intrusion from a big government.