The False Dichotomy of a Young Republican

"Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."
~~~Hermann Goering

Jenna Pryor of Right Off the Shore recently denounced Russ Feingold for not supporting the Patriot Act and falls just shy of endowing him with the power to bring an end to our Republic in a Patriot Act-less Götterdämmerung. To wit:

This is why we need the PATRIOT Act, and why Russ endangers the country with his opposition to it. This act allows governmental agencies to share information much more efficiently and quickly. Imagine if this was in place five years ago. Imagine if our law enforcement agencies could have shared information about this hijacker. Imagine how many lives could have been saved.

Either we have the Patriot Act or we get killed by terrorists. Nice false dichotomy. In what ways does this act all allow governmental agencies to share information more quickly? She makes it sound like some G-Man had cracked the Enigma code of Moussaoui and the hijackers in the antelucan hours of 9-11 but got lost in the CIA's labyrinthine automated voice response system.

"Press 1 for toppling the governments of sovreign nations..."

The plot to set a bomb off at LAX was foiled without the Patriot Act so it's not like the country was completely defenseless prior to its passage. Still, I want to give Pryor some benefit of the doubt. Take this passage from Coleen Rowley's memo to FBI Director Robert Mueller regarding Moussaoui:

The Minneapolis agents' initial thought was to obtain a criminal search warrant, but in order to do so, they needed to get FBI Headquarters' (FBIHQ's) approval in order to ask for DOJ OIPR's approval to contact the United States Attorney's Office in Minnesota. Prior to and even after receipt of information provided by the French, FBIHQ personnel disputed with the Minneapolis agents the existence of probable cause to believe that a criminal violation had occurred/was occurring. As such, FBIHQ personnel refused to contact OIPR to attempt to get the authority.

First of all, note the bureaucratic hoops. Second, notice the intra-FBI disagreement. Does the Patriot Act eliminate the hoops? Does it end turf wars between agencies and within them? I ask hoping someone can point me to some information regarding the Patriot Act and exactly how it "allows governmental agencies to share information much more efficiently and quickly".

Let us also ask the following question which also cuts to the heart of Ms. Pryor's false dichotomy: Must we endanger the Fourth Amendment in order to facilitate the flow of information between governmental agencies? I firmly say NO. What has one to do with the other? Making sure that the FBI, the CIA, the INS, et al relay data to one another quickly and efficiently is a bureaucratic matter. If the Patriot Act does, in fact, contain provisions on this matter, then they should have been segregated from passages authorizing secret searches and the like.