I'm not totally sure I like the depiction of historic events in this thread. Elected dems did vote for the patriot act, but I never saw a liberal voter who supported it or a libertarian, never encountered one lib online in any of the forums I posted that was for the patriot act. What I did encounter on many occasions were Bush supporters defending it and often aggressively. Especially in Bush's first term. Back then there were a multitude of voices on the right for the patriot act and outright mocking anyone who felt the patriot act in any way endangered liberty and the constitution and some of those later discussions were here, I won't name names, they know who they are. Opposition came especially from those who signed on to the "neoconservative views" for a while. and I know many don't want to admit they did, but... well, they did... and those fellas on the right largely supported the patriot act and there were plenty of them... There were also plenty of people back then trying to tell the right that they would not like the things being put in place if a lib dems gets in control... But that always fell on deaf ears...
Not intended to piss anyone off, just what I personally remember.