The author is clueless. Well, I have no argument that Rand is disingenuous and his arguments are made just to be “different”. But there is NO question that the Patriot Act needs to be scraped in it’s entirety. THIS is the Act that Conservatives need to worry about the most. It is fascism pure and simple.
What this act actually does is extend legal methods and techniques formerly reserved for organized crime. The only complaint you can really make is against the bulk metadata of phone records, but even that was inaccessible without a warrant, and its purpose is to allow the government speedy access to telephone records, since terrorists change their phones frequently, which could be especially useful if we are in the midst of a mass attack.
It is very unlikely that the wireless phone companies are going to cooperate, and I believe one of them has even declared they will not even be keeping that metadata on their own systems now, so we can't even get a warrant and ask them to provide it.
The only thing Ron Paul accomplished in demonizing that is put American lives in danger.