I don't mean to minimize the civil liberties issues - I think they're very real - but my opinion (perhaps wrong!) is that ultimately all of this stuff is about the grift.
But the grift and the civil liberties issues are one and the same. We might be able to trust civil servants toiling away at decent if not huge salaries for the greater good. There's no reason we can even imagine trusting a giant network of for profit companies bilking taxpayers for everything they can.
I've told this story a million times, but it was the most instructive overheard conversation I ever had the privilege to overhear. At a resort in Palm Springs: "Katrina happened, and then everyone got rich."
Obviously everybody didn't get rich. The victims didn't get rich. But this guy and his friends did.
