The answer is, quite simply, no; absolutely no! Somewhere in the mix of alarm, fear and necessity is an illogical and irrational sense of purpose and it’s always retroactive. As with the case of any threat the validity of the same is only ever observed after the fact and all too often used as a tool for a most and far more deceptive threat that has nothing to do with an external force.
More often than any bureaucracy will ever admit the purpose of expanding authority is typically used to mask an internal failure and the case in point is that every one of the 911 hijackers were known to Federal authorities and yet not a one saw fit to act affirmatively, in a defensive act, using any of the key elements/tools already a part of their existing mandate.
This of course begs a follow-up question: If you’ve already the capacity to detect a threat then why the need for expanded authority to fail? Why the need to trend toward defeating sacred Constitutional preservations?
Now, on this particular point, let’s delve a bit further into the most common response to the Constitutional question, which is the typical response, that there is no Constitutional Threat. If this, that there is no constitutional threat, is in fact the case then why the necessity of sidestepping the constitutionally based prohibition by way of a legislative act? This being the case then asserting that the Patriot Act is a necessity can only be justified on terms which are best explained, if at all, as pure premonition, i.e., that if we don’t extend the Patriot Act something, we know not what, is sure to happen and we know not when.
This nonsense is, alternatively, best described from the perspective of the Titanic’s Captain who assures his passengers by stating that although he’s certain there is no gash in the hull he nonetheless fully expects it to be repaired momentarily so as to be certain that no iceberg hit the ship.
Affirming the Patriot Act is in no way a preservation of liberties but, in fact, a preservation of an illusion that advantages the Government apparatus at the expense of an ignorant and/or a detached public who will always be the unprotected victim of a self-serving government enterprise.
Curtis C. Greco, Founder
