While it is doubtful that a full takeover of any private sector entity would be necessary by the government in order to use it "against" the people it "serves" this is of course not to be dismissed as a possibility.

On Star and other services of it's kind are already able to be co-opted under laws such as the Patriot Act. These laws have been sold to the American people as being in the interest of National security. Wire tapping is allowed and personal freedoms keep falling by the wayside with each new proclamation from the Bush Regime. Since the public utilities can be co-opted to spy upon our own citizenry, it is unlikely that any laws designed to protect civil liberties and rights to privacy will have any hold should the current regime decide it is time to make their move to dictatorial power.

This is of course not the first time in history such a thing has happened. In Germany, a released convict gained political power via the Nazi political party winning 288 seats in the " Reichstag" and with support of their allies, the nationalist conservatives controlled the Reichstag. The communist members were never allowed to take their seats. (remember Hitler and Nazi's were anti-communist) In March of 1933 the Reichstag passed the "Enabling Act" (does this sound something like the Patriot Act to you?) which basically gave dictatorial power to Hitler's cabinet for four years.

No doubt this was in the interest of National Security just as the Patriot act is supposed to be. It is always dangerous to take away the civil liberties and freedoms of a people.

Papers in the National Archives have shown a link between the Nazi's and our own Bush regime even as far back as the 1920's. George Bush's grandfather Prescott Bush was a director and shareholder in companies that profited from helping put Hitler in power. Now I agree one cannot blame the offspring for the actions of their parents and grandparents, but have noticed similarities between Hitler's rise to power and much of what the Bush regime has done in current times and quite frankly it scares me.

"...on October 20 1942 the alien property custodian seized the assets of the UBC, of which Prescott Bush was a director. Having gone through the books of the bank, further seizures were made against two affiliates, the Holland-American Trading Corporation and the Seamless Steel Equipment Corporation. By November, the Silesian-American Company, another of Prescott Bush's ventures, had also been seized."

Hitler claimed Jews and communists were the cause of all the ills of 1930's Germany. Bush claims terrorists are the true enemy and has violated most of the agreements made with other countries in the name of "national security" in a fabricated war on terror when he has contributed to the making of more terrorists than anyone in history.

The United States lost probably the most politically astute writer when Molly Ivens died in 2007 of breast cancer and we have not seen anyone of her caliber rise to take the reins of a much needed information disseminator since. This in some part is owing to the need to understand the codified complex language used in the wording of laws that mask the real purpose of the laws.

You now get RFID chips in your passport if you want to travel (a tracking device) and there is much talk and legislation to put these tracking devices in your driver's license and state id cards. Frequent visitors from Canada have these devices in a decal that allows them to cross the border without benefit of being advised there is a tracking device being added to their vehicle. Your right to privacy is under major attack from all sides. If you are for any reason declared by the powers that be to be in anyway connected to someone they consider a threat to national security, you can have your property searched and even seized. You can be imprisoned without due process or right to any trial let alone a speedy one. (Just ask someone at Guantanamo being held against their wishes.)

OnStar is hardly needed in this modern day but if it was deemed needed, I am sure the government would co-opt it for their own use.