Or how about not.

Our genius Commander-in-Chief has, in all his infinite wisdom, decided to support the extension of several provisions of the USA PATRIOT ACT, including illegal wiretapping and the infamous “national security letters” that compel businesses to hand over records to the feds, and then impose a blanket gag order on the very mention of said letters.

The PATRIOT ACT has been a giant shit stain on the Constitution from day one.  It has always been unconstitutional, bad law at best, and insidious police state machinery at worst.  It was enacted by manipulative politicians who capitalized on the politics of fear in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, in order to extend federal power into whole new areas of our lives.

What I find most striking is how the Great Leader’s repeated campaign promises to break with old school politics and bring “change” to Washington were dropped and forgotten as soon as he finished reciting the oath of office.  The Bush administration did plenty of damage to our nation’s civil liberties and international image, and much change is needed.  Instead of implementing that change and moving forward in a positive direction, President Obama has slipped comfortably into the culture of slimy deal-making and political fear-mongering that dominate the post-9/11 debate on national security.  This is not only a wasted opportunity, but an epic failure of a politician who once embodied the promise of a new direction.

Surely most of you have heard the old story about putting a frog in a pot of tepid water and slowly turning the heat up until he boils to death without noticing.  The point is that if you drop the frog into a pot of already boiling water, he’ll jump out to save himself.  But with the gradual increase in temperature he won’t notice and will get cooked alive before he realizes what’s happening to him.

This story is often used when discussing issues of liberty and personal freedom relative to changes in our society and laws.  I think it’s an appropriate and accurate analogy to make; we don’t easily notice gradual changes in our lives.  Look no further than the ageing process.  Show a 15-year old version of yourself a picture of what you look like today and he’d be shocked by the changes.  But seeing ourselves in the mirror every day hardly produces any reaction at all.

My friends, the total lack of real change from our new leaders in Washington means the temperature in our national pot continues to rise.  Today we have a story out of North Carolina about 16-year old Ashton Lundeby getting bitch-slapped by the most mis-named piece of legislation to date: the USA PATRIOT Act.  Some gems from the article, emphases are mine:

[A]ccording to the United States government, the tenth-grade home-schooler is being held on a criminal complaint that he made a bomb threat from his home on the night of Feb. 15.Around 10 p.m. on March 5, Lundeby said, armed FBI agents along with three local law enforcement officers stormed her home looking for her son. They handcuffed him and presented her with a search warrant.

Ashton now sits in a juvenile facility in South Bend, Ind. His mother has had little access to him since his arrest. She has gone to her state representatives as well as attorneys, seeking assistance, but, she said, there is nothing she can do.

Lundeby said the USA Patriot Act stripped her son of his due process rights.

“We have no rights under the Patriot Act to even defend them, because the Patriot Act basically supersedes the Constitution,” she said. “It wasn’t intended to drag your barely 16-year-old, 120-pound son out in the middle of the night on a charge that we can’t even defend.”

“Never in my worst nightmare did I ever think that it would be my own government that I would have to protect my children from,” Lundeby said. “This is the United States, and I feel like I live in a third world country now.”

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Is this really where we are?  Sixteen year-olds getting hauled off to jail with minimal evidence of wrongdoing?  Have they declared this kid an enemy combatant yet?  He may get to go to Cuba before Obama lifts the travel ban.

As I’ve said before, various federal agencies have been indoctrinated to see terrorists on every street corner and do their utmost to stop them.  As these terrorists are largely imaginary outside of Af-Pak, the net effect is a federal law-enforcement culture that encourages its personnel to wield enormous (and unconstitutional) power over law-abiding US citizens in their own country.

It’s easy to look at a single incident like this and dismiss it as the work of a rogue agent or bad tip.  But this is far from the only time something like this has happened since late 2001.  From NSA spying on US citizens to data mining to border checkpoints up to 100 miles inland, we are allowing the machinery of a police state to be constructed right under our noses.  That may not have been the intention of those who authorized these laws and procedures, but it’s the reality of what continues to go on in this country day after day.  And one day, we’ll have a terror event so big, or a government so inclined toward authoritarianism, that this liberty-destroying machine will be turned on us with full force.  And we’ll be so acclimated we won’t even notice.