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Comment by staunch | Hacker News Reader

I'd be happy if the name was at least changed to something less Orwellian.

The real, full title of the act is even more scary:

Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct

Is it only US public sector that is so obsessed with pretty acronyms that seem to have more meaning than their unwrapped form, or is it common in Europe too?

note: I'm not from US, honest question

Politics loves acronyms to rally behind some vague concept.

You should see some of the PAC names and referendum law names, they are often the exact opposite of what they actually aim to accomplish, very much on purpose.

Digital Rights Management

When it comes to proposed US laws, the simple way to tell if the law is good or bad is as follows. If the name makes it sound like it is good for you, then it is definitely bad for you and should be voted against.

Terrorism

I thought it was Tequila

In W.'s book (Decision Points), he wrote that he regretted the way congress named it because it eludes that if you don't support it, you're not a Patriot.

Not that that's of much help, but it's interesting to know that not everyone responsible for it was behind the name.

Easy to write now. At the time, he was already drumming up support for the Iraq war and had 1,000 surrogates saying, almost exactly, "If you don't support this administration then you're not a patriot".

I believe his exact words were: "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists."

That's out of context. The full quote is

"We will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism. Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime."

This makes it clear he was talking about nations, not individuals. Neither of us may agree with that proposition, but it's a lot more reasonable in the context of a world with many nations that stated they were against terrorists but secretly sheltered them.

Thanks for the whole quote. While not a W fan, I think it is also clear in the quote that you have to take action to be against us: harbor or support terrorists. The default, do nothing, state is "with us".

I don't know about you, but that attitude does not gain any nuance at all just because you apply it to nations instead of individuals. In fact, given that nations contain a myriad forces opposing each other that an individual would not (and therefore conflicting views on pretty much anything), it seems considerably worse to apply it to nations than individuals.

And it's already bad enough using patriotism to blackmail individuals into supporting you.

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