What a silly article.<p>&gt;&gt; <i>A lead author of the U.S. Patriot Act has some advice for European officials as they wrestle with the balance between personal liberties and security in the wake of the Paris terror attacks</i><p>That implies that security <i>is actually achieved</i> through a reduction in liberties, which is obviously not the case.<p>For example, monitoring the shit out of the general population didn&#x27;t seem to help prevent the recent spate of shootings in the US.<p>&gt;&gt; <i>He notes that at the time, a broad range of lawmakers, from security hawks to civil libertarians, voted for the bill</i><p>What&#x27;s a &quot;security hawk&quot;? In light of the developments in the past few years, wouldn&#x27;t it be more accurate to call them &quot;<i>tyranny</i> hawks&quot;? That would sound kind of unpleasant though.<p>&gt;&gt; <i>The USA Freedom Act was signed into law in June, and government’s authority for bulk data collection ended this week</i><p>But let&#x27;s not mention that in reality, the legislation did nothing to curtail the surveillance. It&#x27;s unconstitutional to begin with, so why would any other law be an impediment?<p>&gt;&gt; <i>Among other things, the prime minister proposed allowing authorities to hold suspects for 72 hours without a warrant and tag extremist young people with electronic tethers. “We must always preserve the balance between safety, freedom and privacy of citizens,” he said.</i><p>Extremist young people, you say? Here&#x27;s the UK government&#x27;s helpful advisory on what that might entail: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cscb-new.co.uk&#x2F;wp-content&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;2015&#x2F;10&#x2F;CSCB_Radicalisation_and_Extremism_Single_Pages.pdf" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cscb-new.co.uk&#x2F;wp-content&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;2015&#x2F;10&#x2F;CSCB_Ra...</a><p>&gt;&gt; <i>&quot;Showing a mistrust of mainstream media reports and belief in conspiracy theories&quot;</i> [..] <i>&quot;Appearing angry about government policies, especially foreign policy.&quot;</i><p>So I guess if you&#x27;re &#x27;mistrustful&#x27; of the US government telling you the economy is doing fine, that makes you an &quot;extremist&quot; that should be &quot;tagged with an electronic tether&quot;, whatever that might be.<p>You shouldn&#x27;t question foreign policy either. For example, clearly the US has done a wonderful job of fighting ISIS, right? To suggest otherwise would be heresy! Don&#x27;t complain about meddling in other countries&#x27; affairs either, or you might find yourself &quot;tagged with an electronic tether&quot;!<p>Everything in &quot;The Free World&quot; is just doubleplusgood all around.