I don’t share Andy’s confidence that “exacting congressional oversight” can stop the abuse of the executive powers granted by the PATRIOT Act. As many have already pointed out, it was Congress that retroactively immunized warrantless NSA wiretaps in the past, Congress that actively allowed the executive to keep secret its interpretation of its own powers under the PATRIOT Act, and Congress that kept the present NSA program under wraps. Members of Congress now claim the program is no big deal. Some of this happened under a government divided between the two parties; imagine what is possible given persistent control of Congress and the White House by the same party.

Nor do I think the solution to a problem like the NSA is to elect better leaders. I admit to indulging in a bit of partisan schadenfreude seeing President Obama embrace every bit of the national-security state Senator Obama condemned President Bush for presiding over. And I rejoice in the frowny-faces of the idealistic young Obama supporters who have watched their man’s descent from Harvey Dent into Two-Face, if only because, as Poor Richard said, “Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other.” But the reason I take such joy in their cruel lesson is that safeguarding our constitutionally protected liberties means understanding that bad political leaders are inevitable — that all elected leaders are capable of abusing their power, and that institutional checks and the rule of law, not electing “good guys,” are the best bets for preventing such abuses.