It's called "plausible deniability". The government can try to pull crap like this just to see what happens. If it flies without much resistance, then good for them. But if there is a lot of flak generated, then they can blame it on some scapegoat and claim it isn't official policy. We've seen this sort of thing time and time again.
But certainly, passing this sort of thing in a HUGE omnibus bill where no one can possibly read all the fine print, CAN certainly happen, if it has not already, under the guise of homeland security. Certainly the world trade center attack was a huge windfall for those people who would like nothing better than to reduce us even further to just being working tax cattle who do as we are told and button our lips about what we think about it.
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