From The New York Times:

WASHINGTON, March 9 — The F.B.I. has improperly used provisions of the USA Patriot Act to obtain thousands of telephone, business and financial records without prior judicial approval, the Justice Department’s inspector general said today in a report that embarrassed the F.B.I. and ignited outrage on Capitol Hill.

I don’t think I’m alone in being shocked and horrified by this development. But the thing to remember here is that there are no bad guys here. Nobody saw this coming. When the Patriot Act was passed in 2001 and renewed in 2006, nobody foresaw that there would be any need to safeguard people’s privacy or civil liberties. Hindsight’s 20/20, as they say, and just because this took us all by surprise doesn’t mean we should go around pointing fingers.

After all, does anyone really want to go back to the Time of the Judges?

Remember “judges?” Not a lot of people do. But back in America’s early days, back before the era of mandatory sentences and signing statements and warrantless wiretaps, a creature known as the “judge” roamed the Earth. They would stride heavily from place to place, exercising “judgment” on everything: How a guilty person should be punished, how fair a law (or “Act”) really was, and how and when the government could look into your personal beeswax. Some say that at one time these “judges” actually comprised one third of our government’s power, but that’s never been verified.

Anyway, over time, sometime after the Clintonnic Era, the judges became too large and cumbersome to survive in their new environment. They became known as “activist” and were soon hunted to extinction. Some of their lesser descendants can still be found in government buildings to this very day, stamping bits of paper and begging for appointments.

Sure, some might say that this FBI outrage might not have happened if empowered “judges” still walked the Earth, but that’s just speculation. It’s not something we could have seen coming, and the judges’ time was over.

So again, let’s pull together on this one and look for solutions. I favor something called “Patriot III” which would make all non-governmental communication public property and thus make the “legality” of “wiretaps” moot. Let’s roll! To the Legichopper!