PATRIOT Act Fuss

There was an article on Slashdot recently, about the Continuing Hunt For PATRIOT Act Abuses, in which few were found by the Dept. of Justice, and the question asked, "Could it be that there has just been a lot of fuss over nothing?" As the Bush Administration seeks renewal of the USA PATRIOT Act, here's a response that hits the nail on the head, saying, in part:

The rules we have to regulate our law enforcement activities are not there to make law enforcement easier or harder. They are there to protect us against ourselves - they inscribe a well-known and ancient protection against human nature, and our ancestors had to bleed into the earth for many, many generations to secure these freedoms, after wearying, inconceivable repitition of abuses, time, after time, after time.

We made our constitution difficult to change to protect our children from cowards. Cowards who run crying, begging for protection from terrorists at any price - even though they kill fewer people than slipping and falling, even though they are selling freedoms that sufficed for us through many, many crises before.