Damned if ye do; damned if ye don't
It's with decidedly mixed feelings that an American considers this bill and its defeat. About the closest analogy one can make is to compare it to a bill regulating wife beating. Everyone abhores wife beating, but it's come to be accepted as inevitable in certain social strata, so hence the need for rules for permissable beatings, and rules to punish those actions that cross the line.
Of course, that ignores the original posit that wife beating was never legal, a restraint that over time has been weakened by the reality that only rarely is wife beating lethal to the victim and constant calls to the police have been an expensive inconvenience to the government. Thus a certain compromise of principle has resulted.
If this analogy is a bit too obtuse, consider that the US Patriot Act authorized general warrants, which are patently unconstitutional (as wife-beating is clearly unlawful) but over time since 9-11 we have come to accept as inevitable that certain less egregious constitutional violations have proven convenient for government purposes. Now, however, it's feared by some that unchecked violations are proving lethal to democratic governance (as unrestricted wife-beating is lethal to the wife) and we're being asked to regulate the situation.
Problem is, once we decide to regulate it, we would also legitimize and authorize it ... both the hypothetical wife-beating, and the all-too-real unconstitutional post 9-11 surveillance practices.
It's a pity these issues require complex analysis. Politicians and despots love simplifying such questions for the benefit of the masses.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
