Yes, but not permanently. When the danger is passed then your civil rights should be given back to you.

Marcy

• from the Federalist Patriot website:"In the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks against the New York City World Trade Center and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., the U.S. Congress, at the urging of the Bush administration, overwhelmingly passed legislation known as the 2001 USA PATRIOT Act. The act, standing for "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism," was primarily intended to provide law enforcement agencies with a legally-defined mandate to preempt and respond to real and potential terrorist threats against the United States".

It's highly doubtful that the government will go around knocking in public doors to their homes. If someone makes a complaint against a citizen such as "I see people going in and out at all hours with equipment, large boxes, etc." then the police have a right to enter your home with a warrant.

I don't trust our own government and I know the U.S. is even worse because of terrorism, so I do agree that it could give them too much power which could be badly misused.

PATRIOT Act Most of the PATRIOT Act passed sunset and is now in law until it's reversed. Among many other things, the PATRIOT Act allows for the following:

• Wiretaps and monitoring without a warrant, judicial oversight, or suspicion of any crime. All that has to be presented is an Administrative Letter from any agency that can declare they have anything whatsoever to do with national security, and there has to be a "sincere belief" that this act is in the interests of national security. There is no need to reveal what caused this sincere belief. A civil suit is impossible, as you cannot subpeona information held in the interests of natioanl security, nor can you even determine the level of classification. Wise readers will note that the US Senate as a body has tried and failed to get this sort of information.
• If you are suspected of terrorism (without a legal determination of the term Terrorism I might add), you may be detained without due process or legal representation until a miltary tribunal sees fit to review your case.
• You may be transported out of the country, and into another forgiegn country, and held there under that country's laws, again without representation or access to counsel and without due process, if there is reasonable cause to believe you have a direct or indirect invovlement with a terrorist organization.

FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act). Passed in the 1970's this law was pretty harmless until 9/11, when its scope was drastically expanded. Under FISA, you may be surveilled and investigated if you have percevied or potential contact with anyone who may be a foreign agent. While this sounds pretty safe, the number of foreigners or even people with foreign names, who are suspected of foreign intelligence invovlement far exceeds the number of people who actually are. This, in addition to the problem of name tracking, where, for reasons far to obvious to detail, real intelligence operatives try hard not to be identified by name.

TIA (Total Information Act). Started under Presidential fiat, this act was de-funded in legislature. But, in the words of the NSA, "the program was disassembled, but all the parts are retained". Budgeting for what was TIA was moved into the "black budget" which isn't openly reported to the legislature and there is questionable if any oversight. This omnibus act deals with the old FBI "Carnivore" program, which monitors email traffic (and presumably instant messaging), the old TIA structure, which combines credit and bank reporting, customer service reporting (selections of items purchased), and even elements as far distant as traffic location reporting and cell phone use (both location and communications). At this point in time, the scope of this project is unknown to the public. However, for a taste of what you're looking at, check out the private sector data mining operation Axcoim, who sells information to the Federal and State Govts. -- it's amazing what information is tracked. Some say this exceeds the 4th Amendment expectation of privacy and right to search only by due process.

And of course there are other Acts.

There is no indication that any of these bills will be repealed, and most (excepting TIA) have long passed their sunset and are now fully in law.

I should close by saying that none of these measures has produced visible results in terms of interdicting terrorism.

This remark originally appeared in the introduction to a POGO book, where Walt Kelly paraphrases Oliver Hazard Perry's famous dispatch after having won the battle of Lake Erie: "We have met the enemy and he is ours." Kelly writes "We have met the enemy, and not only is he ours, he may be us." Kelly loved to recycle his jokes, so the idea reappeared many times, including as the title to one of the later POGO books.

"WE HAVE MET THE ENEMY AND HE IS US" all caps.

It is set in the Okefenokee Swamp in Georgia:

• Pogo ....................... possum
• Albert ....................... alligator
• Howland ................... owl
• Churchy la Femme .... turtle
• Porky Pine ................ porcupine
• Beauregard .............. hound dog
• Fremont ................... bug

You see I'm a 70 year old American and have been taking advice and direction from POGO for years. The older I get the wiser POGO seems to get. I believe he must be a descendent of a Roman philosopher. The Romans didn't listen to them either.

****Note: The ORIGINAL was first published in 1950-1951 in a book by that title: We have met the enemy and he is us. The book was a political tome' in protest about pollution.

Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

This means that 87 years ago (from the time of the Gettysburg Address) our ancestors built up a new nation where there would be liberty and the belief that everyone is equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure.

This means we were then going through a great war which would determine if this nation (or any nation with liberty and equality) can last a while.

We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live.

The Gettysburg Address was delivered during a dedication ceremony for the soldiers, and it took place at Cemetery Hill (a site of the battle of Gettysburg). People were gathered together on the battlefield to dedicate a portion of it as a cemetery for the soldiers who gave their lives defending our nation.

It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract.

This means that it was sensible to dedicate Cemetery Hill to the soldiers, and yet it really wasn't in their power to do that - to set apart that section as sacred. The brave soldiers who fought in the battle had already done that more than the gathered people ever could, simply by fighting for freedom there.

The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.

This is saying that no one will remember what was being said there (which is ironic because this is an incredibly famous speech), but rather what will be remembered is what the soldiers did there. So instead of dedicating Cemetery Hill to the dead soldiers, the people should be dedicated to what all the brave men have done, to their unfinished work that was brought so far.

It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us--that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion--that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.

This means that these dead soldiers gave their lives fighting for freedom, and that the nation's people are now devoted even more to freedom because of that. Those soldiers will not have died in vain because "we the people" are going to be devoted to what they fought for. "We the people" will make sure that liberty and equality remain. And "We the people" will make sure that a government of the people, by the people, and for the people is going to be here to stay. I would also suggest checking out Simple English Wikipedia, they have a pretty good translation there. http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gettysburg_Address

Yes, they released top-secret government information

In order to explain my answer (and to rebut the above answer), I need to clarify a few points on how national security works.

After WW-II, the international security community had developed a staggering number of security classifications in what was a hierarchical attempt to sequester certain information. Unfortunately, information doesn't often fit into a rigid, pyramidal, hierarchical structure. There is no "man at the top" who can know everything, as even then, everything was beyond the scope of one person.

In an effort to address this, most of the classifications were removed, with only three remaining in the classified world: Classified, Secret and Top Secret. And of course not everything fit into these three. Some information was so important that it needed to be shared only with those that needed to know. And so Compartmentalized information was created. In this case, information that was sensitive was classified within a project or compartment name. So, for instance, your Top Secret clearance wouldn't get you anywhere near the "Ultra" information that had to do with Japanese encryption during WW-II. This sort of compartmentalization exists to this day.

Even with this simplification, however, problems existed. Think of the poor security officer tasked with developing classification. If he declassified something, there was a chance he'd get in a lot of trouble, if the datum turned out to be really sensitive. And if he declassified correctly, well… nothing. No awards for that. So quite naturally, a lot of information became or remained classified at higher levels than it needed (if indeed it needed to be classified at all). The result of this was that, entering into the 21st century, the US had a dazzling amount of stuff retained under security classification, that really didn't need to be classified at all. This caused a huge problem in terms of intelligence analysis and collaboration, highlighted by some of the investigations after 9/11, where data wasn't always passed for fear of compromising security.

Both the Bush and Obama administrations have made it a priority to declassify a huge amount of information held under legal classification. It's a great idea, has bipartisan support and no real opponents. The problem, of course, remains that, even with a presidential directive or edict in place, the job of declassification is both extremely difficult, politically dangerous and utterly unrewarding. The result is predictable: not nearly as much has been done as was mandated.

Enter WikiLeaks. In America and most democratic/republican governments, there is a requirement for openness in all matters of government. Naturally, this is offset by the requirements of national security, and everyone agrees with both these principles. The government needs accountability to the people, the people want it, and most good government does too. This doesn't mean every door is open, but most should be.

Over its existence, WikiLeaks has been presented with a wide array of information, often acquired from whistleblowers, declassification, news sources, etc. WL has shown a lot of care in what actually gets released, and how. The more controversial items in the last large release had been offered beforehand to the US Department of State (DOS), for them to vet what was potentially really critical and what wasn't. WL has, at government request, redacted documents. And they do maintain the 1st Amendment shield of the free press.

To date (2012 Feb), I cannot find a case where WL released data with a classification higher than Secret; no Top Secret data appeared in my search. Nothing in the areas of WMD's, encryption, satellite intel, COOP/COG, or C4I where released that I could see, and this is a good representative slice of what modern governments consider to be the holiest of holies. We do seem some opinions expressed by the DOS about foreign leaders that are somewhat derogatory and not what I'd like said about me, but then Americans are famous for being open about their political opinions. We see obsolete SpecOps "manuals", and budgetary talk about the Iraq war and Afghan action. We don't see the wing design of the B2 bomber (although Testor's Model Company, makers of plastic models of planes and ships, apparently has a pretty good handle on that).

In summary, while I haven't reviewed every jot and tittle released by WL, I haven't seen anything that would endanger the US national security at all. I have on the other hand seen the upholding of a great free tradition: government accountability to the people.

For these reasons, I would suggest that the WL leaks have helped the US far more than hurting us.
Yes and no.

The release of 'classified' information damages the security of the United States. The problem with people is that they don't realize this while they are cheering on Wikileaks. The damage can be as simple as a growing distrust between countries, which is a threat to US security as well as every western nation.

The release of 'non-classified' information could beneficial to the political processes of democracy.