The Irony of it All

[Lore]

Patriot Act author introduces bill to block
NSA's use of the Patriot Act


Now that it’s 2013, can you imagine how embarrassing it must feel to have authored the Patriot Act a dozen years earlier? Especially considering that we live in an age where Americans are increasingly outraged that the National Security Agency tracks their phone calls—an act made legal through a secret court interpretation of that very law.

The Patriot Act's author, Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), is going to try and fix it.

He’s introducing the USA FREEDOM Act, a bill specifically aimed at countering the portions of the Patriot Act that were interpreted to let the NSA collect telephone metadata in bulk.


Link

[Diogenes]

Isn't this just one example of "going down the old slippery slope"?

I can think of many bill passages which perhaps at the time sound like a good thing but as time moves forward they prove disastrous and far away from the original intention.

[Lore]

That is because there is always someone who is corrupt enough to want to use the contents of a bill to suit themselves.

I personally don't subscribe to the theory that if you are innocent you won't mind the scrutiny for wrongdoing. To me it is the difference between living free (unscrutinized unless there is strong probable cause) and living in a police state full of paranoia.

I read somewhere that if a government passes enough laws, and constantly looks for problems where there probably aren't any that soon all citizens are presumed to be criminals. I firmly believe this is true. We are all presumed to be threats just because we exist even though there is no probable cause to suspect the majority of us as having committed crimes against the state or against other people.