The temporary law allowing warrant-less wiretapping is set to expire on February 1st. Congress is hurriedly trying to devise an appropriate update. If you want to know how government grows, it’s by passing temporary laws and then reauthorizing them forever. Eventually we forget that they were temporary and then we end up with a cabinet position which controls a department that is based on a law that would expire in five years or less. (That’s the real life story of the Secretary of Education and the law that grew into NCLB).
I don’t think that we will have a Secretary of Eavesdropping, but I do believe that congress should set a precedent and let this expire. If we really need a bill like this it should not be rushed through to meet a deadline. It should be approached carefully so that it is not full of holes like the current law.
