[random28345]

> It's starting to seem like they had these lists made up ahead of time and have been waiting for the right time to start cleansing the ranks.

Kind of how the 342-page US Patriot Act was introduced days after the September 11th terrorist attacks?

[ams6110]

According to Wikipedia's entry on the Patriot Act, it was introduced on October 23. Over a month to produce 342 pages of double-spaced federal legalese? Probably not incredible. That said, I'm sure the TLA agencies took advantage of the crisis to "suggest" a lot of things they'd been wanting.

[zymhan]

Aside from what the others said, the PATRIOT ACT (it's all an acronym) was based on an older bill that was not passed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnibus_Counterterrorism_Act_o...

http://www.wnyc.org/story/whats-bill/

[bkmartin]

You mean weeks after, right? Because it was weeks after, not days after. Good story though.