Quite frankly this scares the hell of me. There is a part of me that says that signing this into law is equivalent to signing a death warrant against America as a free country, thereby making us slaves to the federal government. All that's lacking is a "brand." Oh sure, they SAY it is only for 4 years and that it will be limited in scope, but wasn't the same thing said of the income tax at its inception? Can anybody cite a situation in which the federal government ever returned a power to the people once they had gotten it away? Why would this be any different? What I see is foreigners commiting crimes against us and Americans paying the price. What is wrong with this picture?
"Can anybody cite a situation in which the federal government ever returned a power to the people once they had gotten it away?" Of course. Habeus Corpus was suspended during the War of Northern Agression, yet we have it back today.
The right to purchase goods on the free market was curtailed during WW2 (rationing), yet we have that right back now.
The right to own gold was taken from the people by FDR during the Depression, yet we have that right back now.
More recently during this War on Terrorism, the right to fly was curtailed. Again, we already have that right back.
Sheesh, those are just four major rights that I've named off the top of my head. If you don't know about those and other such examples, then you just haven't been paying attention to history.
Other rights that we've lost and later gotten back include the right to drink (not that anyone around here has ever heard of Prohibition), abortion (not something that I like, either), use contraceptives, etc.
The Libertarian argument that "the people" only give up rights to government is completely wrong, and these examples serve as evidence to that fact.