The Patriot Act - A "Slippery Slope?"

While conducting another epic battle with crazed Maryland drivers during my usual 42-mile commute this morning, I surrendered myself to the snail-like flow of traffic and tuned off of local radio (traffic reports) and dialed up C-SPAN to take my mind off of the drive. I found myself intrigued by today's guest and her subject: The Patriot Act.

Ms. Heather MacDonald, who is a John M. Olin fellow at the Manhattan Institute ("a think tank") and contributing editor to City Journal, was addressing caller questions concerning the Patriot Act and the need to reauthorize it. I found that I was VERY impressed with Ms. MacDonald's logic, clarity and broad knowledge on this subject.

Virtually every caller was armed with questions and concerns that either fell well out of the realm of the Patriot Act (drug busts and childhood pranks), or were completely misinformed about the program's procedures and oversight. Like Social Security Reform, the Patriot Act has been bludgeoned and propagandized by Liberal and Libertarian smeer campaigns into an unrecognizable, sinister entity engineered to harm and take things from us - in this case, our privacy and civil liberties. The threat of terrorism REQUIRES a federal mechanism to protect our citizens in a post-9-11 world. As stated by Ms. MacDonald, "Protecting ourselves doesn't lead to tyranny."

I encourage you to read her article, The Patriot Act is No Slippery Slope.