Reality Check:

Once you surrender rights, you DONT get them back. Thinking otherwise is either foolish or through a haze of bong smoke.

Says who? Where is your proof?
Sure you may be able to come up with short term restrictions but there is no pattern to your theory.
There is no formula whatsoever that backs up your claim.

Foolish? In my opinion it is foolish to be shortsighted. The people who are running our governments have plans in place that will take years to unfold. Can you prove to me that the eventual removal of freedom is their goal?

Rights don't get returned? I see evidence of rights being returned all over the world in recent times.

Please. Your concept of freedom clouds your logic. It's an emotional word but it's also a concept that you need to understand.

All I can say is that if your opinion is the average brits, the UK must be great at producing submissive sheeple.

As far as term limits on these police powers, lets look at the record. Patriot I did indeed have "sunset provisions" that would automatically expire after so many years.

Patriot II, which is goiing to pass, has a section that specifically removes those sunset provisions and make all acts PERMANENT with NO PROVISION for removal.

I seriously question whether you really understand the purpose of these actions: they are NOT to prevent terrorism... they never were. The terrorism was CREATED to give the excuse to enact these laws... these laws are SPECIFICALLY to REMOVE personal rights.

Rights don't get returned? I see evidence of rights being returned all over the world in recent times. Posted by Leveller

Please provide specific accounts. About the only cases of new rights being granted are through rebellion and replacement of a government with a completely new system.

I disagree.
There is hardly anything in this world that is PERMANENT. Times change, people change, societies change.

The simple fact is that you are at war. Don't look so suprised. Bush told you straight that this wasn't going to be easy so you can't complain that you weren't warned.

For those of you that see yourselves as American these new laws affect your lives hardly at all. The main critisism that you have is that those laws are there in the first place.

But don't you see that if you have full freedom over there then so does anyone else trying to hit you? You can't be given freedom without it being given to your enemy. And he WILL abuse it.
The very thing that you are campaigning for could bring about your destruction. Grin and bear the hard times for now. Things WILL get better. Liberty in a society at war is not a possibility. Win the war and you will gain your freedom.

As for examples of freedom?
I can name plenty but I'll give you one big one to start with.

Dude, you're using it now. You have supreme power if you are intelligent enough to use it.
The internet provides you with a voice that is more powerful than anything that has ever gone before. You can write a few lines and help change the opinion of another person who lives halfway around the planet from yourself.

I'm not saying that eventually there won't be restrictions on the net, but this is one example of how you as a person are free to put your opinion over to people whom you have never met and probably never will. You can express yourself and your views as you've never had the opportunity to do before.
That's not only freedom dude - that's power too.

The simple fact is that you are at war. Don't look so suprised. Bush told you straight that this wasn't going to be easy so you can't complain that you weren't warned. Posted by Leveller

If we are at war, the terrorists have already won, because they have achieved thier main goal, regardless of human losses on thier side: they have managed to make the US a police state. They have achieved the destruction of our fundamental personal freedoms.

Were we warned? Oh yes we were. One of the main voices warning the American people was Alex Jones among others. Too bad no one bothered to listen to him and he was otherwise drowned out by prepared government rhetoric.

The main critisism that you have is that those laws are there in the first place. Posted by Leveller

You are totally missing the point as to why most Americans oppose these laws, and it is because you are NOT american, and have never known what it is to truly be free.

The main opposition isnt that these laws are fairly innocuous and really dont affect our lives... that is incidental. What bothers those who really understand is that these are "gateway" laws, IE, the fact that we are allowing these laws (or having them shoved down our throats, more accurately) is giving legitamacy to being controlled, and will give the all clear for future, more restrictive laws to be launched.

A corrollary that I mentioned once in a piece on gun control: ANY gun control law is damaging, simply because it gives the right to the lawmakers to regulate what you own and what you do. They dont have to outright ban a gun... if they pass a law saying they can regulate barrel length or even grip size, and it passes, they now have the legitimate right to regulate ANYTHING... then its just a matter of time before the complete ban goes through.