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Comment by electric_muse | Hacker News Reader

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A few years ago, I tried to open a bank account, and was turned away because my visa stamp expired (despite having valid immigration status). The clueless clerk and her advisor were going through The Patriot Act to find justification.

Fortunately, other banks weren't staffed with idiots, and I was able to open an account elsewhere after providing my documents.

I say you dodged a bullet, then. They are probably just as clueless handling everything else.

Possibly, but this not unreasonable for regular employees. They are not paid enough to deal with the consequences of making a mistake in a low volume situation.

If they go off-piste, even when that is a valid action, then they are likely going to be penalized by their employer's compliance department. That's because that piece of bureaucracy is still required at the next stage of bureaucracy. Now level 2's life is harder. It's best just to ignore and move on. There will always be some non-zero failure rate like this as long as bureaucracies exist.

It’s worse than that. Roe v. Wade associated privacy with abortion in the US, so the Supreme Court eliminated the right to privacy as part of the decision to overturn Roe v Wade.

Mere criminality wouldn’t put privacy in such an indefensible position. Look at who’s president.

Agamben wrote some interesting analysis of this [1], expanding on the concept of the "state of exception", which was a older concept introduced by a much more odious man who employed it very effectively in the early 20th century. Agamben argued that modern governments now try to create permanent states of exception, of which I would argue the Patriot Act is a perfect example.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giorgio_Agamben#State_of_Excep...

Really hope they ban it in the US so it can flourish in countries that actually need and respect it

Thank you for writing this. You are absolutely correct and made me step back to realize that the dollar is a global reserve currency and the US will do everything it takes to keep it that way.

I still have the 2600 issues before and after 9/11.

At the time it was pretty clear that the federal government was going make a large and permanent power grab.

> concentrating power in a few regulated intermediaries. That’s not healthy for innovation, or democracy.

How are "regulated intermediaries" not democratic? If they're regulated by the democratically elected government, that seems entirely democratic to me.

He said "not healthy for democracy", that doesn't imply the process to create the law wasn't democratic.

Democracy always has the risk of sabotaging itself by naive actors who don't respect fundamental freedoms because they fear the public.

> Democracy always has the risk of sabotaging itself by naive actors who don't respect fundamental freedoms because they fear the public.

That sounds like a very radical statement. How are we to decide on these "fundamental freedoms" without putting them through the same democratic process we usually employ? Are we to ask the king for his opinions on how our democracy must be restricted? Are we to ask you? If the democratically elected officials "feat the public" what are they fearful of? Not getting elected? Are you implying the democratically elected officials shouldn't do what the public want?

Additionally, do these "fundamental freedoms" include the right to transact with any counterpart at any point? I have not found that right in any established human rights framework.

No one willingly gives up power and if it’s the U.S. government there is a large ecosystem worth hundreds of billions around the patriot act, it’s never going to be sunset, and it not going to grow

> concentrating power

Isn't that the actual point? of laws like this? Keeping those in power in power and further entrenching the moats around them.

"I will only insert the tip and briefly, I promise" - then proceeds to f*ck the nation unconscious.

We all remember fighting this battle at the time ...

Great to know our prediction of where this would end up was right.

Tragic to know our prediction of where this would end up was right.

I can only hope those at the time who denied this are caught up in said dragnet. A bit like immigrants voting for Trump, I digress.

As a quite political teenager (not even from the US, never been there to this day) I argued that this law is going to stay. I wish I would have been wrong. These types of laws are not a good thing to have in the hands of power-hungry narcissists that like to rule not represent.

If only there were some sort of loud opposition to this act, predicting exactly the situation we're in today. Our elected representatives would have had to take a hard look at this and reject it due to its danger!

Couldn't agree more. Blocking SOPA / PIPA a decade or so ago was a nice reminder that when enough people speak up, bad laws can be avoided.

At the same time the legislature snuck in turning the US into a police state into the 2012 Defense spending bill. So while SOPA and PIPA was defeated, people did not pay “enough” attention in the end.

If we had that kind of reaction to making your internet worse as we did to making our rights worse we would be better off.

And it happens exactly as predicted. Surprise!

Could not have said it better. You put it up beautifully. Thanks.

Democrawhat?

This should surprise literally nobody. Let me briefly explain the US political landscape.

Classic liberalism is a pollitical and moral philosophy that came about in the last 600+ years that (among other things) enshrined individualism and private property. This evolved hand in hand with enclosures (ie private property) and ultimately led to capitalism as an economic system.

Colloquially, "liberal" is used to describe someobody who is socially progressive, typically a Democrat, but that really has nothing to do with the origins.

Neoliberalism is what liberalism evolved into, primarily in the 20th century. The key principles are that capitalism (the "free market") is the solution to basically all problems and deregulation (to increase profits, basically).

Everybody is a (neo)liberal. Democrats and Republicans both. Note that "leftists" are by definition not neoliberals and are anti-capitalist but people often mistakenly use terms like "liberal" and "leftist" interchangeably when they couldn't be more different.

Imperialism is the highest form of capitalism. Fascism is capitalism in crisis. The Democratic Party as it exists in the US today, is controlled opposition.

So we come to the Overton window. This is how it goes:

1. Republicans pass some legislation like the Patriot Act to take away rights, usually under the guise of "security". The Patriot Act of course was passed in the aftermath of 9/11;

2. Ultimately the Democrats get in office and... don't reverse it. It becomes the new normal. They do this by being institutionalists. But defending institutions is merely an excuse for inaction.

3. Come the next election the Patriot Act or the border wall or whatever will the new normal and some even more fascist legislation will be on the table. As an example, try and find the daylight between the immigration plan of the Kamala Harris 2024 campaign and the Trump 2020 immigration plan (that Democrats opposed at the time).

Nobody cares about our individual rights. Things continue to get worse because both parties will always choose the US imperial project and the profits of corporations over your rights. We are six companies in a trenchcoat.

That's a very nice lecture, but I think it's almost entirely digressive.

The "success" of the Patriot Act really has nothing to do with classic liberalism, neoliberalism, leftists, Democrats, Republicans, or Kamala Harris. These are the current background details in which an age-old dynamic plays out: A threat gives those in power a chance to grab more power and they take it. Once they have it they do not give it up easily.

It just boils down to a truism: Those who seek power seek power. There's really nothing more to it than that.

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