Cheney at his best: "Country is less safe"

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/16/us/politics/16cheney.html?hp

Good news citizens of America! Although he is no longer in office, we still have Dick Cheney telling us things we already know. Apparently America is going to be less safe and more vulnerable to terrorist attacks now that we've stopped torturing prisoners, given them fair trials, stopped trampling on the rights of American citizens, and stopped attacking sovereign countries. No shit, sherlock. It's as if Cheney actually thinks that just because it makes the country more safe it's automatically a good thing. Other things Cheney would probably support: death penalty for disorderly conduct, instituting a police state to crack down on "terrorist cells", and penalizing "thoughtcrimes" (pro reference to 1984). I don't think he understands that it's a continuum, not black and white. These things would certainly make the country safer, but how far are we willing to go? Don't we have standards? The price of a free society is that it isn't as safe. If you want to be in a place where terrorism isn't a problem, move to North Korea. And I think it's amazing how many people actually buy into the whole "good citizens have nothing to fear" idea. There are plenty of documented (and likely many many more undocumented) cases where, through the Patriot Act, innocent citizens were imprisoned without being charged. And how hard is it for people to imagine a government worker tapping someone's house and using it for blackmail or for less sinister things. I would bet my bottom dollar that that happens... just because you work for the government doesn't make you immune to corruption (usually the opposite actually). The bottom line is that citizens have rights, and just because something makes us safer doesn't mean its good.

/end rant