Macro machines • TechCrunch

The phrase "mission creep" entered the popular discourse in the early to mid-1990s. The trick is to do this without inviting what a senior official called "mission creep" -- the expansion of the role to include, for example, raiding neighborhoods controlled by General Aidid and searching for weapons. Like countless military and sports terms before it, we now understand it in a broader context. It's one of those phrases that perfectly encapsulates a commonly understood experience -- projects whose size, scope and focus shift so gradually you hardly even notice. I bring this up in the context of an op-ed the Electronic Frontier Foundation published last year.