IT Blog

For the second time in a generation, Americans are having to make critical choices that will affect our fundamental way of life in order to defeat an insidious enemy. In 2001, we watched in horror as nearly 3,000 of our fellow citizens were killed and thousands more injured when fanatics launched hijacked airplanes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Today, more than 41,000 Americans have joined the tens of thousands of victims of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Now, as then, as we seek to fight back against our enemy, we will have to make some tough decisions. In October 2001, President Bush signed into law the USA PATRIOT Act, giving the federal government expanded powers to go after terror suspects. From its inception the law was engulfed in controversy. Civil liberties groups and others pointed out the potential for the government to abuse its new powers, and the secrecy surrounding the new law enforcement procedures was anathema to the traditional American idea of…