Simple question. Despite perceived flaws with the Patriot Act, have you personally lost any freedom but more importantly, have you been injured or had a friend killed by an attack?
First of all, based on how the law was written, it would be illegal for me to know if I've lost any freedoms due to Patriot Act Surveillance. There are very clear penalties in the act for revealing any government activities conducted under it. (Doesn't that make you feel good about it.)
Second, having to present my papers to a federal employee when I travel within the borders of this country, or even within my state makes me feel that I have lost freedoms. If I knew the extent to which the government is automatically monitoring all of its subjects communications and activities, I am certain I would feel that even more.
Third, can you identify any injuries or deaths that were averted directly because of The Patriot Act? If there were any (and I doubt that there were) I must've missed the announcement.
The way the law was written it can and has (see
Adam McGaughey) been abused by law enforcement for things that are clearly not terrorism. He probably needed to be prosecuted, but this using the Patriot Act for it simply emboldens the government to push the envelope of the bill more and more. There is no judicial recourse for this behavior; there is no way to prosecute the federal employees who abuse the act because they are operating within its purview.
In the early days of the Act John Ashcroft conducted an 18 city tour meeting with local law enforcement to explain to them how they could use "sneak and peak" warrants on any U.S. citizen under the law just by saying that the citizen might be a terrorist. That makes it pretty clear to me what the real intent of the act was.
If your contention is that the Patriot Act is good because it might have saved a few lives, think how much better things could be if we passed a lot more life saving laws. We could save almost 30,000 lives per year in the USA just by eliminating most folks right to conduct leisure driving. Eliminating fast food would save more thousands. The list goes on and on.
How and when do you draw the line?
