Suppose Congress asked all Americans to register some of their most personal information with the federal government for it to use however and whenever it wanted. Suppose that information included your name, address, phone numbers, the billing information and history for each phone line you have, your email address, street address, the computer domain and host from which you access the Internet and the Internet Protocol (IP) address of the computer you regularly use.

You'd think that the vast majority of Americans would respond to the government with a resounding, "Hell no!"

By deadline Friday, Americans had registered 50 million phone numbers -- a third of the residential lines in this country -- with the federal government through the federal no-call registry and in the process many turned over the information listed above.