Well, after a good night's sleep I find that even my attempt at a reasoned post was tinged with a bit of paranoia.

While the majority of the posts on the bust were indeed deleted from the TBD boards, the Mods have been 'fessing up to deleting them early in the day.  The rational was based on the highly speculative and derogatory posts which showed up early as well as an attempt to wait for the full and accurate story to emerge.

So, while we should assume LE was and perhaps still is watching the boards, the deleted posts were not necessarily a sinister attempt to perpetuate the sting.  My bad.

While I would bet that TBD will not survive in its current form, the boards are still active albeit with less than their normal amounts of traffic.  As has been noted in the AP post and elsewhere, it ain't a crime to post. It would be silly (and just a wee bit paranoid) to assume even Ashcroft himself would take the time and effort to prosecute thousands of misdemeanor charges without any proof of a crime.

So life goes on, some of the more paranoid will stop visiting the boards or even quit hobbying altogether.  The rest of us will become a little more careful, but otherwise continue to enjoy the community of hobbyists and providers on this forum and others. The hobby comes with risks.  We all know that.  Those that participate weigh the risks against the reward and find a suitable balance.  

My sincere sympathies go out to the people involved. As a community we should be supporting them rather than worrying about some over-zealous DA coming after us.  Let's keep this in perspective.

So party on ... but - as always - be careful out there.