It was inconceivable before 9/11 that we would ever have something called "Department of Homeland Security" or be "asked for our papers". Yet, right afterwards, we were given the "Department of Homeland Security" and the "Patriot Act", which has been extended every single time, despite how it has been regularly abused. My children have grown up into adults not knowing anything else. Just wait a short while. If you don't do something, you will live under the "Ministry of Truth".
Since the patriot act when I was a kid, and now beyond, it's felt worse and worse. Feeling violated every time I remember a particular law is having me inspected.
9/11 shook many to their core which lead to the Patriot Act. Now — almost 20 years later — every conversation is tracked, every packet intercepted, 19 years of war overseas, millions killed or displaced, extrajudicial detainment and torture abroad, unaccountable secret government entities.
Time will only tell whether the existential threat of free speech is real, but my best guess in “no”: people are still in shock of recent events, but over time it will be clear that giving up our freedoms in a rash reaction to a crisis is not the right decision.
Wasn't the original PATRIOT act written before Sept. 11, 2001? The frequency with which laws are named grossly inappropriately suggests something a bit more sinister than incompetence, even if it's not 100% malice.
The Patriot Act was time-limited too, until we found more reasons to keep it around after the limit. We should be skeptical of this kind of thing, although I'm not so absolutist that I'd say it's never worth it.
Interesting read. As someone who had just turned 20 around the time of 9/11 and was in college in upper Manhattan at the time, I went along with all of the "Patriot Act" nonsense because I was angry and because I didn't yet fully understand what happens when you give the government more power. It never gives it up and it almost always ends up abusing it.
I think a lot of people regret their support for the various responses to 9/11. Hopefully that means that we (in the immortal words of The Who) won't get fooled again.
I read it similarly, but not everyone may recall the ins and outs of the Patriot Act's passage—it was nearly a dozen years ago now. Many of the folks on HN were in grade school.
I was trying to draw attention to the line that government keeps giving us about how "they are trying to prevent another 9/11" with the secret laws and secrets courts that enable warrantless wiretaps and constant surveillance.
One problem is, it’s very hard to get a government to give up so-called “emergency powers” even after the emergency is long over. How many times has the Patriot Act been renewed now?
The 'Patriot' Act was written 8 days after 9/11. It is time for it to go and be rewritten in saner times.
The founders and framers of the Constitution and Bill of Rights knew the tyranny that can happen, but they have never seen what abuse of technology can be in terms of privacy.
The people that say 'they have nothing to hide' don't realize that personal, business, ideas, private, market information can really be used in many other ways beyond helping fight terrorism.
Strong anonymization and approvals to access the individuals responsible for the info need to be rethought and it should be a public discussion if all our data will be accessible.
If you weren’t old enough to live through 9/11 and witness the transformation of the country you are probably being naive about contact tracing today.
At first everyone was on board and patriot act was justified: we were under attack. There was no clear end of this attack, so the patriot act got renewed.
We caught bin laden and killed him. Great! End of the patriot act? Nope, there was still a “threat”. 19 years later it’s normalized.
I predict the same thing will happen here. There is no scenario in which this will not be abused.
Can we please repeal the Patriot Act or Freedom Act or whatever it is called now? It’s been a one-way ticket down the toilet since this travesty was foisted on the stupid scared populace of 2001. I really frame my life in America in two sections, before and after the planes hit the Twin Towers. Not because of the tragedy which it was, but because that is when the America that I know changed and started becoming twisted. Optimism gone, privacy gone, thinking gone, replaced by fear and ignorance and lowest common denominator politics and TV.
The security/intelligence establishment were just waiting for an opportunity to put them into action and that act of terrorism provided all the justification.
They are gross opportunists of the most obscene order.
"They wanted to expand surveillance while telling us they were protecting us."
The issue is that they (i.e. government) have always done this. I'm only 35, but I remember this being very clear immediately after 9/11. You just say the boogeyman is terrorism, and that is used to justify end-runs around the constitution via the "PATRIOT" Act, etc. etc. Before terrorism, the excuse was communism. Maybe I'm just cynical now or read too much "1984" as a teenager, but I feel like there will always be a new boogeyman that they use to justify more authority, more powers, and all the while saying it's for our own good and to 'protect' us.
If you consider the account of what happened surrounding the passing of the post-9/11 legislation as given here[0] factual, it was very much transported on emotion.
Sure, the original concept wasn't new, but I'm fairly certain the emotional landscape at the time was intentionally used as a vehicle to pass these kinds of laws.
The saddest part is that many people who did pay attention at the time were fully aware of where this would go and were criticised or ridiculed at the time. My first thought upon learning of the PATRIOT Act was that it's a creepy name for a bill that permanently erodes civil rights and protections, but apparently most people thought it was okay because A) it has a name you can't possibly argue with (being considered un-patriotic in the aftermath of 9/11 would have been outrageous) and B) it's only for dealing with terrorism anyway.
Kinda reminds me of the Internet censorship bill our politicians in Germany tried to pass some years ago. It was only to be used to restrict access to child pornography, of course. Because if there's one thing that's easier to rally people against than terrorism, it's child abuse. And who can argue with combating child abuse?
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