There does come a point where the risk of danger, even violence, becomes preferable to our government having basically unlimited access to our personal lives. Complete safety is a chimera and the result of attempting to attain it will result in an Orwellian environment that would be the envy of the NAZI police state.
Our government has demonstrated that they cannot be trusted. Even a cursory examination of the statements issued and the realty show lies and obfuscation. Post 9/11 laws have been directed toward criminal matters that were never the stated targets when they were under discussion. The FISA "court" is a reeking corruption of the term "court"; our courts are not secret, are not held in private with results that are kept from our citizens. Allowing this horror shows how far down the absolutist path we have gone.
We need more than a restatement of a few aspects of the relevant law, we need to gut what is there and then have a national, public debate on how much we are willing to give up for the promise of safety (which seems hollow given the notion of personal Jihad).
We do need to wake up and take control of the policing that threatens to make all of us look over our shoulders, not at terrorists but at agents of our own government.
