It’s pretty simple, really. Just reduce the Patriot Act until is does one thing, and does not do another thing.
1) It is used exclusively against terrorists and those that directly support terrorists and terrorism.
2) It is not used against US citizens for any non-terrorism reason; and not randomly.
A lot of the concept of the Patriot Act was connecting intelligence and police agencies so they could share information. However, they did not calculate these agencies would share information unrelated to terrorism.
The descendant of CARNIVORE, the FBI system to monitor all electronic communication, is called NarusInsight, made by Boeing.
They also use CALEA, the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (1994), which creates back doors in communications and Internet companies, allowing federal agencies to monitor all telephone, broadband internet, and VoIP traffic in real-time.
Homeland Security has created 72 “fusion centers”. They are used for information sharing at the federal level between agencies such as the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. military, and state- and local-level governments.
DHS has its own system, called ADVISE (Analysis, Dissemination, Visualization, Insight, and Semantic Enhancement), a massive data mining system.
PRISM - Finally the NSA gets involved. (PRISM is a government codename for a data collection effort known officially as US-984XN.) The NSA shares data with state and local law enforcement through a secret outfit called the Special Operation Division (SOD).
LinX - The (Law Enforcement Information Exchange) has already amassed 506.3 million law enforcement records ranging from criminal histories and arrest reports to field information cards filled out by cops on the beat even when no crime has occurred. It is managed by the US Navy NCIS.
You know, like the TV show. Except much, much larger, and spying on civilians.
Finally, the non-police and non-intelligence related federal agencies keep their own databases and dossiers of personal information of US citizens, as well as engage in intelligence gathering activities.
I don’t care who you are, that’s funny right there.
Tell me, FRiend: How many Laws have STAYED innocuous? Seat belt? Smoking? Income taxes? ‘Gun control’? Healthcare/insurance? and the list goes on, and on...
I cannot lay a finger on where govt, given an inch, has NOT taken a MILE+
Let alone, those that scream ‘It’s there for OUR protection’, never mention the open border, importing Muslims/etc., ‘lost’ visa over-stays, or the numerous terrorist attacks on our soil that WEREN’T stopped (Boston...HOW many times did Russia tell the U.S. ‘hey, watch out for those guys’??)