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Originally Posted by Poppinjay
Examining an issue by 30 year periods is considered academically correct. Whenever you consider now to thirty years prior it is called the "modern era".
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Very good, that means we can completely ignore Watergate next year since it will all pass out of the 'modern era' and have no bearing current politics.
This is truly an academic question because while on the one hand we have the patriot act, the other hand is '30' years of gradual changes, which no one here is going to go through and quantify. I can't tell you if we lost 'more rights' because we don't have all the information. This also makes one wonder if what we have 'lost' was something that was needed.
Over 30 years ago, back when we had this thing called WWII, which is obviously unimportant to todays politics, the most terrifying weapon brought to bear on the US were the kamikazai's at the end of the war in the pacific. You can plan defenses around what you think of as 'sane' attacks, but how do you stop someone who is not just willing to die but expecting to die? What saved the US from horrifying losses was how the kamikazi's attacked. Instead of concentrating on the capital ships en' mass, they would come in 1's and 2's, and despite having all of the firepower of the ships directed at these single targets, they still managed to cause great harm.
Today we face the same kind of weapon, only the targets are not armored warships bristling with guns, but hotels, schools, office buildings, restaurants and other 'soft targets'. Our weapons in stopping them are not adequate to do so. Whats ironic is that while some fret about imagined infractions of their rights, the most obvious weapon, that of racial/religious profiling, is not allowed because we
are so worried about rights.
There comes a time where you must trust your government to some extent. If they are going to abuse their powers, they will do so regardless of the law. I know again, this example is too old to matter, but ask J.E. Hoover what he thought of wiretapping rules, and if they mattered to him. The foundation of the US is such that if such abuses do happen they can be questioned and changed, but to hobble us in trying times out of a fear that maybe someone might find a way to abuse such powers is in itself irrational. I have no fear of the FBI using my library records to harm me in any way. I am doing nothing illegal and if they wanted to somehow blackmail me for checking out the illustrated Karma Sutra for the 10th time, they would do so regardless of the legality of the search. If they do start such abuses, such as Hoovers time they can be delt with.