The Restrict Act: the Sequel to the Patriot Act

People of my age who were around for the aftermath of 9/11. We need to remember what the Patriot Act did to this country, what it did to us as a people. We don't talk about it enough, and it leaves younger folks not understanding the air they breathe today. 

September 11th was a tragedy that left a lot of people in a state of paranoia about there being untold numbers of terrorists living among us.

That fear gave birth to the Patriot Act.

They told us it was necessary. 

 

They told us it would make us safer.

 

They told us the would only use the expanded powers it granted on the bad guys, the "terrorists" who hated America and freedom for no good reason at all.

 

People who raised valid concerns about what this law could be used for were demonized as unpatriotic alarmists who were too weak to do the so-called strong thing, the necessary thing to "protect national security." If you've ever wondered why people of a certain age seem to jump and start becoming totally irrational the moment they hear that phrase, that's why. 

 

It's a deeply encoded trauma response from 9/11.

It's burritoed inside of the thousands of times they replayed the Pentagon with black smoke billowing out of it, the Twin Towers crumbling to the ground, and the downed flight that was headed to Camp David on television. 

 

Over and over and over and over and over and over again.

 

"National security" wasn't a phrase I'd ever heard before until that moment. And the only thing I knew was what not having it anymore looked like. 

 

It looked like desperate bodies leaping from skyscrapers on television and hitting the ground.

It looked like people covered in dust, running away from the towers as they collapsed.

 

It looked like every person around me, the ones I relied on to protect me, realizing for the first time in their lives that they felt totally powerless to protect anyone.

 

The Patriot Act was supposed to make us all feel better. It was supposed to be the thing we could point to and say: "The powers that be are doing something. This is what's going to stop this from ever happening again."

 

Why was everybody so mad at Edward Snowden? Because Edward Snowden popped the bubble of that myth. He introduced us to the existence of the NSA and revealed that its purpose wasn't to find and stop terrorists. It was to spy on all of us. That's why we have more domestic terrorists than we've ever had before with mass shootings on a regular basis, and the NSA doesn't do a damn thing to stop any of them. 

 

The promise was they would have the tools to do that, to keep us safe. We expanded the list of what the government was allowed to do in our names, selling our privacy and a bit of our souls with it, to make the fear go away. It hasn't worked. An unstable person with violent intentions can't take a full bottle of shampoo onto an airplane, but they can buy an AR-15 and shatter the bodies of children in their schools.

 

And right now, history is repeating itself. The government is trying to convince you to give them the power to restrict or shut down any and all access to materials online they deem to be a national security threat. They're telling you it's just for TikTok. Just the bad guys. Don't worry. They would never use it on YOU. They would never use them as a censor against YOU to control what YOU think, say, or do. 

 

The Restrict Act gives unrestricted power to an unelected person, who is only accountable to the president, to cut off access to any information they want from being distributed on any platform to the American people.

 

Where have I seen that before?

The Patriot Act walked so the Restrict Act could run.

 

This time, rather than creating a department of Homeland Security (yes, that also came out of 9/11), they're putting the censors in the Department of Commerce. In case you thought it was about anything other than money.