Four more years!?!?! 7 high hopes and 7 big fears for Bush's second term

Reason, Feb, 2005

Daniel Drezner (danieldrezner.com) is an assistant professor of political science at the University of Chicago and the author of The Sanctions Paradox (Cambridge University Press).

I Fear ... Society Will Be Less Free

Bob Barr

THE LAST FOUR years have not been kind to privacy in America. In fact, the first administration of George W. Bush was the most anti-privacy administration in history. While the post-9/11 fight against terrorists has been the excuse given for virtually all of the anti-privacy measures instituted since that fateful day, many of the powers granted to or assumed by the administration have less to do with a clear-cut, narrowly crafted "war on terrorism" than with a general desire to gather as much information on the American citizenry as possible, as easily as possible.

The next four years are likely to be even worse. The newly re-elected president is certain to use the "political capital" of which he boasts to reauthorize all those provisions in the USA PATRIOT Act that are scheduled to sunset in 2005 and to dramatically expand the law's scope. Even more than outgoing Attorney General John Ashcroft, Attorney General-designate Alberto Gonzales appears to support virtually unlimited executive branch power to gather evidence on the citizenry.

Bob Barr (bobbarr.org), a former Republican congressman from Georgia, is the American Conservative Union's 21st Century Liberties Chair for Freedom and Privacy.