Early 2000s? We have been chipping away at the bill of rights for decades. Things may seem extreme in this decade, but CALEA was passed in the early 90s, paramilitary police forces became common in the 1980s (with budgets that need not be approved by Congress every two years; in fact, some of these forces pay themselves with the proceeds from arrests, via a law passed by Congress), and the executive branch gained the power to declare drugs to be illegal without democratic process in the 1970s. In the early 1960s, the Kennedy administration was sending soldiers to Vietnam without a declaration of war by Congress.
What happened in the early 2000s would not have been possible with the decades of build-up. Without a standing army, without so much executive power, without such a vast and powerful law enforcement system, and without the already-established systems of domestic and global surveillance, it would have been much harder to see the provisions of the PATRIOT act or NDAA actually go through.
One of the few limits on government power that has any meaning in this day and age is the prohibition on granting titles of nobility. I suppose that is a good thing.
> We have been chipping away at the bill of rights for decades.
I see it as a little more mixed. Some things have gotten stronger, other weaker. The first amendment has mostly gotten stronger: 100 years ago, it was interpreted extremely weakly, to the extent that wide ranges of novels were illegal for containing sex scenes, pacifists were jailed under the Sedition Act for merely speaking out against WW1, you could still be prosecuted for blasphemy in some states, etc. And of course, the bill of rights was interpreted even more weakly if you happened to be black. So I'd have trouble saying things were particularly good for freedom in earlier eras of the United States.
What happened in the early 2000s would not have been possible with the decades of build-up. Without a standing army, without so much executive power, without such a vast and powerful law enforcement system, and without the already-established systems of domestic and global surveillance, it would have been much harder to see the provisions of the PATRIOT act or NDAA actually go through.
One of the few limits on government power that has any meaning in this day and age is the prohibition on granting titles of nobility. I suppose that is a good thing.