Children don’t understand that Batman is himself a criminal, and a threat to the security of the people of Gotham. They’ll never see a movie in which Batman makes a mistake, and persecutes an innocent person he suspects of being an arch-villain. In real life, government agents given the dark vigilante role that Batman represents make those mistakes on a very frequent basis.

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Saying that the FISA Amendments Act is ‘a bill going through Congress giving immunity to telephone companies involved in the Bush administration’s controversial warrantless wiretap programme’ is like saying that a giraffe is an animal with ears.

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The FISA Amendments Act gives the government the power to send spies to search your home or office while you are gone, without any search warrant, without any judicial approval at all, and never tell you that they were there. Again, if the FISA Amendments Act becomes law you won’t have to even be suspected of a crime. The government will be able to search your home for no reason at all, or for political reasons, or because you’re gay, or because you’re African-American, or because you’re not a member of the right religion, or just because somewhere in the government there is somebody who doesn’t like you.

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