I'm still really angry/terrified about the state of civil liberties. Today hasn't helped. There was the announcement that the Patriot Act would continue to spy on citizens and their reading habits. And yet we were also put on notice that the terrorists are planning to strike again.
The first thing that came to my mind on hearing the latter was that the Republicans in charge must be really hoping something happens, something that terrifies the American public more than they already are and has them fearing any electoral change. The scariest thought - which I don't want to believe but I find disgustingly plausible nonetheless - is that if something happens, it might somehow be enabled by the powers that be as a means of consolidating political power. Meanwhile others have noticed that the timing of these announcements and vague warnings seem to be all about terrifying people so that they stop noticing the huge flaws in the Bush presidency rather than having anything to do with productive leadership. If the fear is that the terrorists will try to disrupt our elections, we can take steps now to ensure that they won't be disrupted. Including reminding people about how the process works, and how no attack can railroad the Constitutional mandate and the relevant powers manifest in the States. We hope we never have to face such a crisis, but if the threat is truly as imminent as Our Leaders want us to believe, then we should expect them to make sure we are actually prepared. Scared shitless is not a sufficient state of readiness. Confident that our Constitutional processes and principles can survive no matter what, which they can with the right preparation, is what the situation actually calls for. If only we could be.
The threat itself further points out the fallacy of the liberty-encroaching laws we've had to endure. We have all these new rules, all these new laws. And yet we are not any safer apparently. Our reading habits, our thoughts, our behaviors and the things most personal to us can be scrutinized and criminalized. And yet the terrorists are still out there, plotting away.
IF there was no other way to know what they were plotting, maybe then the sacrifices on liberty would be reasonable. But the authorities can't seem to manage processing what they know from more legitimate sources. Putting the entire populace under suspicion does not seem helpful in the slightest, and in fact it seems harmful, wasting resources now needed to parse all the newly available information about innocent citizens rather than chasing down the actual threats.
Meanwhile, today I learned that my favorite Washington museum, the Air and Space, now requires you to go through security to enter it. You used to be able to walk in and out of there whenever you wanted. Discovery and learning in a public institution could happen at will. Now it can't. Yet more invasive gauntlets need to be run first. Gauntlets which inhibit personal freedom yet provide no substantive increases in safety.
I remember when I used to be free. I miss it a lot.