Is your email private? You may think it is, but you may also be surprised how easy it is for law enforcement to access it without a warrant. For instance, any email you write today requires a warrant before the police can take a look at it. But 180 days from now, that same email that you just sent can be accessed without a warrant.

The problem stems from technology moving faster than the legislative process. Much faster. On the order of comparing a cheetah to a snail, in fact. The main law for digital privacy is the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986. Think about that for a moment -- 1986. For those not old enough to remember, at this point in computer history the World Wide Web did not exist (nor did the browsers to access it), email itself was in its infancy, and computer "networks" were (for the most part) local groups of computers tied together (as in a single office). The Macintosh was two years old. The computer of choice in the business world was the IBM PC. Diskettes held around 800 kilobytes, and a hard drive that was 20 megabytes was considered so big it would be hard to fill it up. Today, a single file can top 20 megabytes in size.

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You can call it his groove, or you can call it his mojo, or (if you're less Austin Powers-minded), you can call it his political momentum. But whatever you choose to call it, Barack Obama has emerged, phoenix-like, from the ashes of the healthcare debate rancor and is now forging ahead on many fronts. This political rebirth is not guaranteed of success in any way, but it certainly is refreshing to see, I have to say.

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A question which is causing no small degree of fear among Republican leaders in Washington right now is whether the Tea Parties are going to turn out to be a good thing or a bad thing for the Republican Party. Republican party wonks are torn between welcoming the enthusiasm the Tea Party folks bring into their "big tent," all the while worrying that this very vocal group is going to be dictating what is and what is not acceptable in Republicanism from this point on. Which, the seasoned politicians and party hacks know, may prove to provoke a backlash among independent voters, and lead to losing elections Republicans should have won.

Call it the old "you sow the wind, you reap the whirlwind" problem. So far, Republicans appear willing to walk this tightrope, in anticipation of gaining all those lovely motivated voters -- but the saner heads among Republican officeholders are privately planning to give the Tea Parties only early lip service (in hopes of winning the primaries), and then quickly tacking away from them after the primaries are over (in hopes of winning the general elections). How this strategy plays out will be the most interesting dynamic in this year's midterms. And Democrats should do everything they can to exploit this schism in Republicanland.

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What a week!

Into the cake mix that was this week went triumphant House votes, Senate votes, and then even another House vote, just for good luck. Well whipped, it went into the oven of overheated Republican rhetoric, but came out just fine in the end when the buzzer dinged (or the dinger buzzed?). It was finally served up to President Obama for his signature, complete with the tasty, tasty frosting of Democratic schadenfreude (from watching the Republicans have such a public hissy fit).

Heh. More on cake in a moment.

No matter how you slice it, President Obama and the Democrats in Congress have achieved a stunning legislative accomplishment -- one which had been pronounced dead over and over again for the past year by the punditocracy. Obama has now delivered upon one of his signature campaign issues, and (by doing so) dramatically improved his party's chances in the upcoming midterm elections.

Personally, I spent much of the week wandering around in a daze, mumbling "I can't believe they actually did it." After all, these are Democrats we're talking about. And Democrats simply haven't been known (for quite a while) for such cohesion and legislative muscle.

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[Program Note: This is a repeat of a column I wrote last November (originally published on November 16, 2009). I felt it needed another look, no matter where you stand on the healthcare reform debate. Because the job is simply not over yet, no matter what perspective you're coming from. We may be on a new path, but we have in no way reached the end of the road on this particular debate. While getting to this point has been politically exhausting for just about everyone concerned, always keep in mind that the journey's not over yet. In any case, I thought this would be a good time to remind everyone that this will likely be a hot-button issue for years to come in American politics.]

The struggle for healthcare reform is not going to end this year. By saying that, I am not breaking any news about Harry Reid or the Senate, or even about the chances for passage of any particular bill or healthcare reform scheme before New Year's Eve -- rather, I am urging people to take a step back and view healthcare reform from a much bigger-picture point of view. Because whatever passes is not going to be the final word on the subject. As with almost any sweeping social legislation, it's going to take a few revisions before we get it right. Perfect bills almost never pass. The more normal course of events in Washington is that compromises pass, and then are strengthened later on. Healthcare reform should be viewed in the same way.

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The Republican Party has, up until recently, tried to distance itself from the "Party of No" label which Democrats are fond of using against them. "It's all the Democrats' fault that we can't bask in the sunshine of bipartisanship," they used to say. But since Barack Obama's signature health reform legislation passed, the Republicans seem to actually be embracing the "Party of No" concept.

This is going to make the midterm elections much easier for Democrats, if they can manage to point it out every time it happens from now until November. That's a big "if," though, since Democrats have muffed such chances in the past. A few years ago, Republicans voted en masse against honoring Mother's Day, for instance (you just can't make this stuff up), but not much political hay was made of this golden opportunity by Democrats at the time. More recently, last December Republicans tried to make the Pentagon's checks start bouncing -- in the middle of two wars -- and Democrats barely mentioned it. So it's not a "given" that Democrats can capitalize on such Republican mistakes.

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Examining the politics of the recently-passed healthcare reform legislation is tough, at this point, because the game is in the immediate process of changing. President Obama's team likes the term "game-changer," and it is rare indeed to be able to identify such game-changing while it is still in process. Usually these things are only apparent after the fact, when viewed in retrospect. But, for better or worse, passing healthcare reform has indeed changed the political game for this year's midterm elections.

If the bill had failed to pass, the entire Republican campaign strategy would have been completely different -- by definition, changing the political game. Their emerging strategy is mostly comprised of knee-jerk-ism ("Repeal!") right now, but could gel into a coherent political strategy soon.

Democrats, for once, may not wait for the Republican talking points, but instead charge onto the field and come out swinging with their own campaign strategy. For better or worse, it is actually refreshing to see Democrats go on the offense in this fashion.

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A post-mortem, in the medical sense, is when you carve up a body to figure out why it died. But the term has migrated into the patois of American business, where (in corporate terms) a post-mortem is a meeting held after the completion of a project, where you review the course of the project from beginning to end. You look at what went right, and what went wrong, and then you try to improve the procedure for future projects, in an effort to avoid making the same mistakes over again. Now that fight for health reform legislation (in one form or another) is just about over, I feel it's time to take a look back, and identify some areas for improvement for the future Democratic legislation.

So, in no particular order (I jotted most of these down while waiting for the vote to be announced last night), here are a few problem areas Democrats need to work on so that (in future) we won't have to go through the same tortuous process health reform just did. I offer these up as constructive criticism, to strengthen the Democratic Party, President Obama, and the chances for enacting more of the "change" we were promised.

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One year ago I wrote about my experience becoming an American citizen. Yesterday, I celebrated my first anniversary as an American. When I became a citizen, I felt that I now "belonged." I felt that I had made a commitment to this country. I felt that I had a responsibility to be a participant in the political process and an active member of my community.

Now, a year later, I am wondering if becoming a citizen really made any difference in my life. The answer is a resounding: "Yes!" For the first time, I was able to exercise my right to vote, and I am looking forward to doing so again every time there is an election. This has been an interesting year politically both at the state and national level. I think it is very important to be an informed citizen, because everything the government does affects our lives in some way.

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If nothing else comes of it, you've got to admit that the health reform movement has given a lot of people a very detailed education about the sausage-making process in Washington. Remember when the word "reconciliation" was universally understood to mean "getting back together" instead of "open partisan warfare," for instance? The tortuous process health reform has wound in its progress from where we were a year ago to where we stand today at least provided many "teachable moments" on how things actually happen in Washington. And -- as the term "sausage making" implies -- some of it ain't pretty.

This weekend, we may get at least half a sausage from Congress, of course, as a very historic vote nears in the House. The Washington pundit class is currently channeling "The Count" from Sesame Street, as everyone throws darts at the wall, trying to fathom whether Nancy's got the 216 votes or not.

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