I viewed the Patriot act situation as one where Bush tells Obama, "Hey, I know you beat me and all...but there is something I need to tell you about. You will want to see the stuff we can spy on. Dont tell anyone."

Seriously, with THAT kind of power, it would have to be damn near impossible to just say, "No...this is wrong". You can justify it by saying you did it to protect your country. Anyone getting in the way of this would be removed, "removed" or bought.


and the minute it comes out that SERIOUS wrong-doings occurred because of this power, THAT is when the entire planet needs to revolt. Its really hard though to figure out what was used for gaining what information, or proving that our govt used this power to prosecute someone. With Petraus, I viewed it as a situation where someone can say, "Well, Petraus left his computer open one day, while logged in, and we saw things, and reported them to higher-ups". Plus, things get spun so hard by both parties that you dont know which way is up. Each side is so blatantly full of shit against the other that its hard to fully trust either. Its a mess.