A law could have been crafted to let the leadership of both houses quickly give the president authority to use the military to save a city. That way, we try to ensure that it is a real emergency; and only the emergency will be looked after. The law as written is everything Republicans feared that the Democrats wanted to do in the 80s. Now look, it is the Republicans who did it! -- bucky1

Define "saving a city" and "real emergency". Don't Katrina and 9/11 both fit that characterization? I understand your concerns, and think they are valid. My particular point is that people who want to demand specific actions by the government usually have no idea what is entailed, or why the Feds are (have been) prohibited from doing that action. Put less delicately, reflexively blaming Bush for every ill in the world leads to ignoring reality.

It's rather like advocating universal health care from the Government while simultaneously bemoaning wiretaps on overseas calls. The reality is that if the Government has one's most intimate physical records on demand every little aspect of one's life (family, employment, health, SS, residence, etc.) is an open public book. After that wiretapping phone calls overseas looks pretty innocuous. But hey, maybe total loss of privacy is the master plan from the Dems?

Translation: being able to conduct investigations for any reason we can concoct, like the Plame affair, will advance the cause of punishing Bush for his many sins.

Bring on the inquisition!
As always, IOKIYAD.

Let's go down the list and and point out all the things that AREN'T happening.

* Authorities continued to infringe on citizens' privacy rights.
Only if you call Al-Qaeda overseas.

Government technical regulations that require Internet service providers and telecommunications companies to invest in equipment that enables the [Foreign Security Service] to monitor Internet traffic, telephone calls, and pagers without judicial approval caused serious concern.
Clinton program, called Carnivore.

* Lengthy pretrial detention remained a serious problem.
Only if you're not a citizen.

* Article 21 of the Constitution prohibits torture, violence, and other brutal or humiliating treatment or punishment; however, there are credible reports that law enforcement personnel regularly use torture to coerce confessions from suspects and that the Government does not hold most of the torturers accountable for their actions....
torture by police officers usually occurs within the first few hours or days of arrest and usually takes one of four forms: beatings with fists, batons, or other objects; asphyxiation using gas masks or bags
Citizens are protected from such treatment with the exception of Padilla, In Gitmo currently everything is now outlawed.

* Russian authorities took measures in two "espionage" cases involving foreigners who worked with Russians and obtained information the authorities considered sensitive. In both cases, proceedings took place behind closed doors and the defendants and their attorneys encountered difficulties in learning the details of the charges.
Habeas Corpus for citizens has been reaffirmed by the Supreme Court.

*While the President made statements about the need for a "dictatorship of law," the Government has not institutionalized the rule of law required to protect human rights. Most abuses occur at lower levels, but government officials do not investigate the majority of cases of abuse and rarely dismiss or discipline the perpetrators.
Abu Ghraib and Haditha were brought out by the Army brass, everything else is speculation. Or, has been corrected by the courts.

* There were reports of Government involvement in politically motivated disappearances in Chechnya. According to credible reports, units of the Government were involved in the detention and the temporary disappearance of journalist Andrey Babitskiy in January.
Like I said Glenn would have been "disappeared" long, long, ago. Here he can bash Bush daily with no fear of reprisal.

* The concentration of ownership of major media organizations -- already a serious threat to editorial independence in 1999 -- increased during the year.
The only threat to editorial independence here is obvious bias and public backlash.

* Internet experts and right-to-privacy advocates say that interagency technical regulations called SORM-2 (SORM is the Russian acronym for System for Operational Investigative Measures), which were issued by the Ministry of Communications,
Domestic communication surveillance still requires a warrant.

What monsters. Thankfully, the U.S. has the moral credibility to vigorously condemn such totalitarian and abusive practices.
And isn't this just a beautiful example of dredging up a pre-9/11 sentiment, and trying to smear someone in a post 9/11 world. How irrelevant, how sanctimonious, how "guilt by association". It never fails to amuse when seeing writers complain loudly and publicly, how put upon they are by government oppression.

El Cid: As tooter4x4 points out, in many, many ways the United States could be graded better than various dictatorships and near-tyrannies present and previous.

Therefore the only logical conclusion can be that everything done by our current political leaders is exactly right and moral and anyone who thinks the current government should not do something which tyrannies do Hates America.

Or... as is the case here, one can hate our political leaders no matter what they do.