I don’t quite “get” the big public outcry in the US about George Bush’s domestic wiretapping program. I’m thrilled that outcry is happening – it’s one of the few indications in years that the US general public holds on to some concern for privacy and civil rights – but it seems incongruous in light of the years of non-response to the PATRIOT act. Maybe this is a little less obvious given that the PATRIOT act has just gone through it’s statutory review period and as such actually briefly generated some coverage and discussion, but really this is the first time it’s gained much widespread notoriety since it was introduced. The Act legalized a raft of horrible ideas, domestic wiretapping among them – if Bush had wanted to establish widespread domestic wiretaps ‘above board’ I’d be suprised if he would have had much trouble, given that the PATRIOT act was in part dedicated to weakening of judicial oversight of exactly that sort of activity. In fact, if memory serves he *did* establish roving domestic wiretaps, and that went pretty much unremarked upon at the time. The Act also, let’s not forget, legalized indefinite detention without charge, secret trials, and deportation without due process.

The message seems to be that it’s bad if you do this stuff illegaly, but okay to make it legal, and okay to do once it’s legal. But if it’s legal, that just means it’s going to happen more often.