Heather Mac Donald at the New York Post is writing in defense of the Patriot Act. Her arguments boil down to the claim that of course the United States Government will only use the awesome, deadly power of the Patriot Act for good, because the FBI is fully reformed from Hoover's time, and the government had access to a less powerful variant of one provision (that she claims is the most controversial) before the Patriot Act without degenerating into widespread tyranny.

I had to stop, go back, and reread the article trying to make sure I wasn't missing anything, because it was so absurd on the face of it. In addition to the invalid extrapolation from the part to the whole, even assuming that the delayed search provision is in fact the "most controversial provision" (something I find a little doubtful, given the EFF's daunting array of issues with the act, and the fact that I've seen more people upset about the provisions that allow the government to secretly inspect medical and library records), she seems to be operating under the misconception that there have been no signs of governmental abuse in investigations in recent years, a rather bewildering assertion amidst the placement of protestors on no-fly lists for no reason other than their political views, the greatest amount of secrecy in investigations in memory, outright lies about how information from airlines had been used, unlimited detainment of various people, their legal rights and even human rights sometimes suspended, with no oversight and no proof presented, the mass arrests of protestors (and anyone else who happens to be nearby), the harassment of photographers, the torture, the outright murder...

And from this we are supposed to learn blind trust of the government?

It's telling that the Patriot Act would have been absolutely useless in preventing 9/11, and by sheer glut of information might even have made things worse. The problem wasn't an inability to gather information; the problem was that nobody knew where to look or whom to coordinate with. Evidence gained under the Patriot Act has been used in some criminal cases since its passage, although that evidence may well have been obtainable even without it, but it has also been used to lower the investigative standards sufficiently that innocents are being dragged through the system, and the potential for deliberate abuse is high. Google for Brandon Mayfield for stories about one man who was nabbed completely erroneously on insufficient evidence. The Patriot Act was used to search his home, according to the ACLU. This lowering of standards is at the heart of the difference between what Section 213 of the Patriot Act (among other sections) grants the government and what was available previously. The language is vague, with phrases like "a reasonable period" or "significant purpose", and what the act does is greatly reduce the burden that the government has to show before invading someone's privacy. As Republican representative Bob Barr of Georgia had to say about it, "It severs the very foundation of the Fourth Amendment to say that government can invade a person's privacy and gather information against them without having a sound basis for suspecting that they've done something wrong."

The power of information does corrupt, and the ability to gather information on people is already being used for personal purposes by law enforcement officials, as a woman in Orange County, California discovered when the sheriff dug out her records to send her an angry letter about her criticism of him and his department in a letter she wrote to the local newspaper.

As I wrote about previously, Montana has gone so far as to completely reject the Patriot Act, and direct its officials not to cooperate with investigations that violate civil rights. Support for the SAFE Act, intended to place limits on the Patriot Act, has support from the American Civil Liberties Union to the American Conservative Union to the Gun Owners of America, unlikely allies in other cases. It was a bad idea from the get-go, and passed in no small part because (by their own admission), many senators and members of Congress did not even read the full text of the Patriot Act before voting on it.

It's time to let it expire, before it does any more damage.

Link credit to Michelle Malkin for the New York Post op-ed, and to BobX at Daily Kos for the Orange County sheriff story.