Leslie Harris, A Technology Agenda for the Next Administration, The Huffington Post, Sept. 29, 2008

It’s taken a little less than eight years to demolish the Constitutional balance between security and liberty, all in the name of protecting Americans against threats real and imagined. The next President inherits a “civil liberties deficit.” This privacy nightmare was born one on the one hand of bad legislation, abusive surveillance tactics and politically-motivated fear mongering, and on dramatic changes in technology on the other.

“Lawmakers and the administration have steadily stripped the American public’s privacy portfolio of hard-fought protections and oversight. This process began in 2001 with the hastily enacted Patriot Act, then persisted into this year’s fight over the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), and continues through recent hearings on the expanded investigative powers being given the FBI.”

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