Re: It's not just the FBI to blame
The US Federal government was under multiple states of emergency before 9/11, and had been continuously since the 1970s. 9/11 was a good excuse for escalation, but the Feds had no difficulty excusing their abuse of their own powers prior to that. Even before the 70's they had plenty of rationalizations: wars, Prohibition, the Civil Rights movement (remember COINTELPRO?), and of course the all-time favorite bugbear, Communism.
In the US, the only effective curtailments to abusive policing, historically, have been squelched and overturned convictions (the "fruit of the poisoned tree" doctrine), and civil-rights trials against individual officers. And the latter has been effective only against relatively low-ranked members of local law enforcement, as far as I know, and in much smaller volumes. Basically, we have to rely on the judiciary to block the various policing forces by spoiling their endgame. In this context FISA is a particular abomination, since it pretends to be a part of the judiciary but makes a mockery of that role.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
