The Collapse of the American Dream

The American dream has always been about the freedom to associate with whomever you choose, and the assumption that you are not supporting anything illegal until it has been proven otherwise. This is a fundamental underlayer to the Legal system. The freedom to associate, as set out in the fourth amendment is under attack in the form of the patriot act II it's a sweeping piece of legislation that would, among other things, allow the government to disenfranchise any citizen who is associating with a terrorist group, wether they know it or not. This like the 'terrorist watch list' would be kept secret, effectively allowing the government to decide who gets to keep their citizenship. As in the watch list, you'd find that like these peace activists dissident voices are associated with terrorists. When did we, as a people, decide that in order to preserve the illusion of safety we must surrender all of those freedoms that are 'annoying' and 'make life difficult' for law enforcement? Don't misunderstand me, I support law enforcement's attempts to combat crime, and feel that they should be given every reasonable tool to do their jobs. However, my concept of reasonable does not stretch to include disenfranchisement of unsuspecting and probably naieve citizens. Take for example all those who donated to The Benevolence Fund, whose director pled guilty today to using donations to support Chechen rebels and was suspected of diverting millions of dollars to Al-Qaeda. What should be done with them? They unwittingly supported terrorism: do we, as a nation, intend to strip those citizens of their so called inalienable rights? Does the constitution only apply to a docile and pliant citizenry?