The idea that it's "all over for democracy in the US" is usually undergirded on a belief that civil rights are being chipped away over time. That belief is ignorant of history.
Matthew Lyon, a Republican Congressman, was prosecuted, convicted, and imprisoned by the Adams government for publishing letters critical of the administration. See also, the stories of Thomas Cooper, James Callender. If Obama acted like the founding fathers, half of Fox News' anchors would be in jail!
The history of the republic has been a back-and-forth between the civil rights and security. Heck, the impetus for the Constitutional Convention was the failure of the federal government to put down an insurgency in Massachusetts!
Objectively, Americans have more civil liberties today than they were when the ink on the Constitution was still wet. That was before expansive readings of the First Amendment. That was before broad readings of what "due process" requires. Was a time when the Bill of Rights didn't even apply to the states!
The idea that NSL's are a signal of the end of the republic is ludicrous and ahistorical.
You have a good point here, but I consider this perpetual struggle a matter of liberty vs. power, rather than security. True security actually encourages personal freedoms to an extent.
In 1789: http://www.fjc.gov/history/docs/seditionacts.pdf
Matthew Lyon, a Republican Congressman, was prosecuted, convicted, and imprisoned by the Adams government for publishing letters critical of the administration. See also, the stories of Thomas Cooper, James Callender. If Obama acted like the founding fathers, half of Fox News' anchors would be in jail!
The history of the republic has been a back-and-forth between the civil rights and security. Heck, the impetus for the Constitutional Convention was the failure of the federal government to put down an insurgency in Massachusetts!
Objectively, Americans have more civil liberties today than they were when the ink on the Constitution was still wet. That was before expansive readings of the First Amendment. That was before broad readings of what "due process" requires. Was a time when the Bill of Rights didn't even apply to the states!
The idea that NSL's are a signal of the end of the republic is ludicrous and ahistorical.