Is Anyone Paying Attention?

I really hate to post something political other than on Saturday but this is important, I think, and worth breaking that internal rule:

In the NY Times, I came across this little item of interest...

U.S. Is Secretly Collecting Records of Verizon Calls

I have sometimes offered the argument that the current administration is much worse than the previous one. Not simply because it hasn't lived up to its promises of closing the Gitmo detention camp or the one about transparency or the one about posting laws online before Obama signs them into law but because it is doing the opposite of what it promised in terms of personal liberty.

The Patriot Act, enacted after the the terror attacks of 9-11-2001, was reviled by civil libertarians and countless liberals who saw it as a huge trampling of civil rights. To be fair, I argued then that it wasn't as bad as the opponents presented it because we have had several instances in our national past where civil rights were suspended or infringed upon and, eventually, things were righted.

I have pointed out that Congress (in 2009), instead of paring the infringements in the Patriot Act strengthened and expanded them. Even the Huffington Post was upset by this.

I have a rule of politics to which politicians fail to adhere and the public fails to enforce:

Do not grant a power to your political ally or leaders which you would not want your political opponents to have.

I supported the Patriot Act under Bush for three reasons:
1. I thought it was needed at the time.
2. I thought the political opposition to Bush would ensure careful monitoring of the administration's use of it
3. And I thought that the courts would eventually limit, or nullify, the more odious parts of it.

Now that Bush is out of office, the second reason is no longer valid. And there appears to be little political opposition to the current administration.  The media tends to be supportive (until just recently), the other major political party has been greatly weakened, and the public has its concerns elsewhere, primarily economic.

It's time we woke up.