Strangely, I can not find online what I learned in high school (during the Reagan administration). The closest indicator that I can find is
this which indicates that the individual states (and not the federal government) are
in charge of the police - but I don't see anything spelled out as clearly as what I
know that I learned. That fact suddenly makes me realize that if all information is transferred to only being available online, and the government is in control of the internet, all they have to do to change a law is purge history of the old law off the internet...
You are right that the
USA PATRIOT Act changed many laws, taking away many civil rights. It was passed not only in the panic after 9/11, but was also voted on so soon after being released that most of those voting on it didn't even read it before voting, and it was not debated on the floor. I'm not so sure that this is a result of general cultural attitudes as it is just a result of power-hungry fear-mongers manipulating the sheeple (granted, that is a fine line to differentiate). Yet, since the
Bush administration claims that US military can police American citizens, the Bush administration has been in office for 8 years, thus highly influencing the minds of the young who did not know any different, therefore capturing the voice of the more vocal. Most adults are too busy working and doing other mundane things to pay too much attention, and then are stressed enough by the end of their duties to just want to stick their heads in something mindless rather than deal with even more stress from political reality - so not much is heard from people who remember differently.
(slightly off-topic, but related to the reliability of information out there - Yahoo Answers has to be one of the more nauseating developments on the web. Someone asks a question of whoever happens to read it, gets a number of replies, picks the answer they like best - and then when someone Googles the same question, that pops up. That isn't even bandwagon fallacy. This probably requires a new fallacy name - like succumbing to the whim of a random individual...)
Anyway,
Amendment IV of the Constitution clearly protects us from unreasonable searches and seizures. but
the DEA has been exempt from that for quite some time. Thanks to the USA PATRIOT Act, now
the federal government is also exempt from Amendment IV of the Constitution. Merely protesting the government can now get you and your stuff taken away (yet I continue to talk about this stuff, and wonder why the IRS continues to insist that I owe over 400% of my income for 2005, not including penalties or interest).
D, maybe I missed your point. What is the difference between someone higher up encouraging or at least allowing this stuff to happen, and local agencies going bad all by themselves and not having anyone higher up to answer to?