Renewal of the Patriot Act?

How has the so-called ‘Patriot’ act done anything to stop terrorism? How exactly will the government examining what you read at the local library or compiling a trove of your emails stop a terrorist attack?

We already know there are provisions for secret trials and holding people permanently just based on an accusation (remember Jose Padilla, American born US citizen? If they have enough evidence to claim he’s guilty then CHARGE HIM AND TRY HIM!!). Why we need more of this, I don’t know.

And remember a past era, when the Senate, even in the heat of post 9/11, put in a ‘sunset clause’ that set these provisions to expire in four years. Have things really slipped so far in just four years that the only ‘debate’ is how much MORE we need to write into it, and make it ‘permanent’ (something they didn’t have the votes to do right after 9/11 because that was in an age when people still remembered what ‘freedom’ meant)

By 2008 (yes, that is before Bush even leaves office), we will have what is a national I.D. card that has to be renewed at the government’s disgression every five years (remember when even mentioning that was a ‘scare tactic,’ but now they are sliding it in under the guise of standardizing driver’s licenses from state to state), and you will need a passport just to go to Mexico or Canada (terrorists always have their paperwork in order, but it is necessay to protect Pfizer’s right to selectively gouge Americarns).

Maybe I will just leave the country and sneak back in so I can become an undocumented worker. Because right now, they, by virtue of not being ‘in the system’ or the government knowing who they are, don't have some of the concerns the rest of us have.