Allow the Patriot Act provisions to Expire

With the coming expiration of several provisions of the Patriot Act, Bush has been out to try to convince Americans and Congress that they are worth renewing. He is wrong. The Patriot Act was passed hastily and without the kind of review and deliberation that was necessary. It does little to improve the ability of law enforcement to catch terrorists, it's stated goal, and a lot to erode law-abiding Americans civil rights. For example, many cases in which it was used had nothing at all to do with terrorism, often they were for drug smuggling, not exactly the idea Congress had when it was passed. Supporters say that as long as we are not doing anything wrong we have nothing to fear from it. That is wrong because there is a constitutionally guaranteed protection from excessive and unwarrented government intrusion into people's personal lives and there are undoubtably cases in which innocent people's lives were intruded on, some cases even where they never know that they were being investigated, wiretapped or have their houses searched. There should never have to be a situation in which civil rights are traded for assurances of safety. For one it is a lie. It often creates a situation in which safety decreases. If the government can only wiretap someone's phone or search someone's house after going to a judge and getting a warrent, they will make sure that these efforts are not capricious because of the time committment of getting the warrent. If they do not need to go through such a process, there will be more unnecessary searches and wiretaps and a lower chance of actually catching terrorists.