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When an Act that fundamentally gives a government unfettered allowance to act in the name of National Defense is called a "Patriot" Act we should all smell a rat. While there are undoubtedly Articles under this Act that are intended to enable the applicable government agencies to gather information, and act upon intelligence for a defined good cause, those very same Articles allow the applicable government agencies to negatively impact any American's freedom without accountability. The operative word is "accountability", or lack thereof.

Therefore, whenever there is legislated permission to, for example, detain (read "arrest") someone without charging them for an indefinite length of time (or even for 30 days) there occurs an undermining of a freedom. Q.E.D..

And the irony is we have seen this type of legislation before, and America has aggressively campaigned against it when it is used in other countries. This so-called enabling legislation was the foundation of multiple detentions without trial in South Africa in the Apartheid era. The Russian KGB operated under similar enabling legislation, and today Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe throws people into prison with impunity under the guise of his anti-terrorism legislation. Should I even mention Sharia law, or might I be detained because it's one of the trigger words that is in the database of the FBI? And dare we even compare ourselves to these oppressive regimes? Did someone mention McCarthyism?

However, dear readers, it is not really the Act that undermines our freedom, but the people using the Act inappropriately.
That is why George Orwell's "Animal Farm" is a classic, and why Lord Acton's quote is oft repeated: "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely".

Learn more about this author, Chris Leach.
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