Who do you want in your wallet?

So this is how it goes in the new world.

Microsoft is chosen not as the primary contractor, but the exclusive contractor for Homeland inSecurity. How typical. The folks from Redmond can make guarantees to the folks in D.C. that no one else has the capitol to match. Not simply money, but the control of the end product as well.

No other company in the software and operating systems industry has the clout that Microsoft can bring to the table.

At the same time, a federal contract of this stature is a big step for Microsoft. They've always let VARs handle this sort of thing before. Now, for many Americans (and a whole bunch of others), they are going to have nearly complete (and for some, perhaps total) end to end control. Microsoft is now the filter through which all government policing data must flow.

The paranoid side of me wonders what they had to agree to. Was there a side agreement at the end of the antitrust suit as many have speculated?

This much seems apparent. 'Passport' like identity exchange mechanisms will be employed to allow the various agencies the ability to correlate the bits and pieces of data that each gathers on all of us. I understand how and why we got here, I'm just not sure I want to be here. What worries me more is the step this makes toward nearly eliminating the barriers of melding private data (purchased of course) with government data. We're doing this at a time when it seems that citizens have lost nearly all ability to connect with elected officials.