[ElevenLathe]

The bill is beside the point. Intelligence/law enforcement will do the stuff the bill authorizes -- and probably already are, and worse -- even if it dies in Congress, or the president's desk, or whatever. Legislation simply doesn't matter to people for whom there is no effective oversight by any branch of government, as is the case with these agencies. Time and time again people have painstakingly uncovered massive breaches of legality and constitutionality by the security state, and never has it mattered one bit. This stuff literally goes back to before the founding of the United States, probably before recorded history, and "democracy" has never slowed it down.

Maybe democracy is a good process for deciding on how much to spend on highways and social security (though this is doubtful as well), but it is for sure not something that has ever been a useful tool in restraining security services.