How can we look down on governments that have kept their country in a bogus "state of emergency" for decades to restrict rights, when the US is kept in a state of emergency to restrict rights via the "Patriot" Act for over a decade?
The extent of emergency powers, in law and in actual practice, vary wildly. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_emergency provides an overview.
And, 14 years is by no means a record; Israel has been in a State of Emergency since 1948, Syria from 1963 until last month, Egypt since 1967, etc.
The other standard method is by not comparing the free world with dictatorships. We can criticise both the Patriotic Act and the state of emergency in dictatorships and hold them to different standards or criticise them in different tones based on the degree of digression as compared to the values they claim they uphold and our own values.
"During the Watergate scandal which erupted in the 1970s after President Richard Nixon authorized a variety of illegal acts, Congress investigated the extent of the President's powers and belatedly realized that the U.S. had been in a continuous state of emergency since 1950....The Act terminated the emergency of 1950 on September 14, 1978"
So,currently only halfway through the US's longest state of emergency, which lasted 28 years.
[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_emergency#United_State...
I do still disagree with maintaining the Patriot Act though.
The constitution-free zones, the airport security-theatre, the electronic surveillance-state -- no matter how many times abuses and power-creep hit the news, no-one much cares. I'm pretty much convinced now that even the limited outcry about the TSA's porno-scanners was just a media-creation to fill space in the annual travel stories around the holidays. Because they're still there. But no-one's talking about it anymore.
And, honestly, we shouldn't be surprised. The Drunk-Driving laws provided plenty of data going back decades. People just don't seem to think too much about having their rights trampled in the name of 'safety'.
You're not going to win this battle by getting the chattering classes to agree with you. The in-laws (or people at your place of worship, or people bowling in a non-ironic fashion) are the folks you need to convince that civil liberties protect them just as much as they protect people that they're afraid of.
Edit: I get it, kind of like the G20 where the only free speech zone was at home.
It was kind of disturbing. While the TSA agent that (man)handled me was polite and professional, I couldn't help but get the feeling that the patdown is designed deliberately to be overly thorough as a "lesson" taught to troublemakers like myself.
What is far more disturbing than that is that in the probably ~100 people I passed security with, I was the only one that opted out. One lady got the patdown anyways after going through the Rapescan, though.