Diagnosis: Paranoia

The NYTimes in an editorial against renewing the Patriot Act, acknowledges that administrative subpoenas are already allowed in civil fraud cases, but doesn't want them allowed to terrorism investigations:

The bill's defenders note that administrative subpoenas are already allowed in other kinds of investigations. But these are generally in highly regulated areas, like Medicaid billing. The administrative subpoena power in the new bill would apply to anything the F.B.I. deemed related to alleged foreign intelligence or terrorism, and could, in practice, give the F.B.I. access to almost any private records it wanted.

Why can we trust the FBI and Justice Department in cases of Medicaid fraud but not in cases of international terrorism? Why does the left assume that the FBI will take advantage of such subpoenas to use them outside of their intended scope? I wish they'd just explain why we shouldn't trust the people we hire to protect us to do their jobs? Or are they still worried about Nixon's enemies list?

I don't get it. Why not call for the elimination of the FBI, if it's that corrupt? It seems that a lot of liberals think that being watched, whether out of suspicion or for one's security, is somehow evil. One would think that the FBI has more important things to spend its time on than keeping dossiers on people who aren't suspected of anything. If they have evidence to the contrary or to justify their fears, they should print them so that we can all determine for ourselves whether we can trust law enforcement.

What is more likely is that this is just part of the Subterranean Homesick Blues scenario in which liberals have been steeped since the 1950s. Why do we complain about the FBI and CIA failing to warn us about 9/11 when we don't want to give them the authority to investigate these things?