it could be worse

``According to the former head of Romania's secret police, Ion Mihai
Pacepa, there had been ten million microphones in a country of twenty-three
million people.  That would mean that nearly everyone had been listened to
and then blackmailed into listening and reporting on others.  A maze of
psychic tunnels led from one person to another.'' [Andrei Codrescu, "The
Hole In The Flag", pp. 21-22]