[Chris_Jay]

The US paving the way for such practices is not exactly reassurance. If the laws are so complex nobody is capable of operating within them, the result is a police state. Being subject to arrest at any time because the law of the land explicitly gives the government that power or because it is so byzantine that nobody can know all of it works out to the same thing in the end.

Your argument seems to be that a police state where the authorities have a lighter touch is preferable. That's obviously true compared to a draconian police state, but it's a police state either way.