The Patriot Act Has Threatened Freedom for 20 Years

> Sounds like rule of laws then?

Yes and no, he was only arrested when his involvement became too obvious, but it was a well-known "secret" for many years on the streets that he was running the show the whole time.

And out of all cops and politicians accused of serious crimes (rape, murder, theft) it's very rare to see any of them condemned. And when they are condemned to a prison sentence, it's usually never enforced. Many well-known french politicians have been condemned to a prison sentence but i've never heard of a single one of them actually sitting behind bar. This creates a culture of impunity in the official representatives.

> arrest corrupt officials when they threaten the desired equilibrium

Yes, precisely. Only when they're too much of a bother to defend, they're rid of. I heard in germanic countries corruption and crime in State representatives is taken more seriously and it's not uncommon for ministers to be kicked out of public affairs even before they're condemned.

In France, corruption is business as usual, so you get in a situation where homeless people can be jailed for stealing food from a supermarket or cracking a squat in a building that was empty for many years, but people in power doing much more serious crimes will never face any sort of consequences beyond the very few independent media giving them bad press (which is not relayed by mainstream media which is owned by their friends from the industry). Differential justice based on class and connections does not fit into the definition of "rule of law".

EDIT: Strongly recommend reading Michel Foucault's Discipline and Punish. It offers a certain perspective on how modern social control operates, and how "justice" is not an independent power.

Well i'm at least somewhat glad there are some people pushing back against micro control of one's life. You of course might enjoy the odd tolaitarian diktat, but each to his own.

The idea of "freedom" mixes "freedom from" and "freedom to" ("freedom to shoot" is a thing, "freedom from being shot" is another etc.). If you demanded freedom from dumb, irrational positions from the public, you will want to demand the same freedom from dumb, irrational positions from the administration. Such freedom includes freedom from unreasonable restrictions - freedom to do what is reasonable.

I am not sure about the USA, but I grant you there has been extreme abuse of good sense around the world in the past two years (if literal, non generalized rules for Los Angeles had been made valid for the Mojave, for example).

Yes, that's definitely a tension. The unstated reason is that if you don't write that in specifically, then national government has default unmitigated power. Those clauses are a reaction to that fundamental American expectation of all governments, as informed by the experience vs the British.

And indeed they don't work, they just lead to creative workarounds; in the rare event that it can't find a foothold on any existing or implied power, then national government will enable regional and local government, or private interests, to do what it wanted instead.

Quite the opposite, actually. Originally there were three buckets.

Feds do it, States do it, People do it.

There is also an implied negative version of said bucket. Government explicitly CANNOT do.

Anything not explicitly enumerated for the Feds, or denied to the Feds, and not explicitly delegated to the States or denied to the States falls into the bucket of the People.

Never shall something move from one bucket to another except by legislative action. This goes for either direction. This results in the "tyranny in 3 Acts" state of affairs where since no one has the stomach for a good ole purging of Federal/regulations over time, or using sunset dates by default, our legal code has become a minefield/cornucopia of selective enforcement justifications for the ambitious prosecutor. Lincoln, I think, said it best; and I think it is best to let his words stand for themselves. The speech of interest is his Lyceum Address, and I cannot recommend a full read highly enough.

http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/lyceum....

Say what you will about the times, I find it extremely difficult to be dismissive of the essential points of that speech.

If the Temple of Liberty burns, it is because we have grown so overly complacent as to have put the torch to it. We have neglected the stone edifice of reason, erected a temple of sticks out of expediency, and burned it.

I'm not sure that's accurate at all. I agree that Trump isn't really to credit since he also pushed for another (earlier) surveillance bill but in this case it's very clear that his veto was crucial to block an extension of the sections. Your article is from march 2020 and while it does mention the house dems/senate GOP agreeing on a new bill, the Trump's veto threat came in 2 months later.

>House Democrats scrapped a vote to reauthorize national security surveillance authorities that have been expired since March after Republicans revolted from the measure following tweets from President Donald Trump urging them to oppose it.

[...]

>Pelosi charged at a news conference Thursday that Republican support for the bill "disappeared by a tweet -- the twinkle of a tweet."

[...]

>Trump issued a veto threat over Twitter Wednesday after telling Republicans to vote against it, and he celebrated the bill's failure in the House on Thursday.

source: https://cnn.com/cnn/2020/05/27/politics/house-vote-fisa/inde...

> It had literally nothing to do with Trump, the Democrats shot it down long before it got anywhere near him.

This isn't accurate at all and your link is outdated. Give the man some credit where it's due.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/28/fisa-bill-house-withdraws-su...

> House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., announced he would pull the legislation Thursday morning after the chamber failed to pass it on Wednesday. As the House considered the measure Wednesday, President Donald Trump pledged to veto it.

> "At the request of the Speaker of the House, I am withdrawing consideration of the FISA Act," Hoyer said in a written statement. "The two-thirds of the Republican party that voted for this bill in March have indicated they are going to vote against it now. I am told they are doing so at the request of the President. I believe this to be against the security interest of the United States and the safety of the American people."

He threatened the veto because of how FISA was used by Obama admin to spy on his campaign.

Pretty much why everyone criticized the act in the first place. I believe they were desparate to turn up any dirt. At this point I believe people to support such issues for the party they disagree with.

no proof but I thought increased airport security must have caught some stuff.

You should read literally anything from the last 15 years, especially from rights groups. EFF, ACLU, watchdogs, thinktanks.

If you only respect government sources then the GAO has plenty of gems on this topic.

I’ll make a separate comment for my other thoughts

Really?

Last I saw we just surrendered to the Taliban, freed 5000 of them including the current leader, the insurgency is now the de-facto government of Afghanistan, and we recently had a high profile journalist hacked to pieces with a hand saw in an embassy and didn't do a damn thing about it.

How is the war on terror "essentially won" in your eyes?

Also, for your bit about being hard to believe - the agency reported it themselves, so you're essentially saying you believe nothing except that which conforms to your existing world view. Not sure what to say about that.

> we essentialy won the war on terror

Are you from Afghanistan by any chance? Or are you trolling way too hard?

> we essentialy won the war on terror

Are you serious? The US looks terribly weak against terror because the fear alone makes them infringe on civil liberties on a massive and broad scale.

How do you believe we have won the war on terror?

We have very visible and emboldened domestic terror groups despite whatever state preemptive capabilities the Patriot Act brought in

And for Islamic extremists, the US mainland was barely ever the target. It just remains an eligible target due to an interpretation of jihad as long as we are seen as an invader in traditionally islamic lands.

Al Queda has more extreme offshoots which have destabilized regions including the effects of so many refugees sent all over the mediterranean

Strict Shariah from “not terrorist groups” are back in force despite 20 years of US wasting its resources and dividing itself over the budget overruns. This includes the extreme interpretation of Jihad that endangers US and all NATO countries.

Can you tell me more about your influences? Like how is your world, your newsfeeds, thrown you into such a niche where you can only regurgitate a 17-year old DOJ report to support it and believe it

Plenty of other people have responded to this comment, I don't have much to add except that you're literally the first person I've ever heard even suggest this.

> we won the war on terror

Apart of the zombie outbreak at January trying to hang the vice president in the damned Capitol of the USA all looks fine, yep

My favorite part was when he knee-jerk reacted to the towers being bombed by invading 2 countries that we knew had nothing to do with it.