Unfortunately the "upping" part of the ramp is only an illusion.

There is only one ramp, and this ramp has been going upwards since the Patriot Act of 2001. And it will keep going up, no matter who is in office.

I disagree with the "whoever is in office part". I believe there are several contenders for the 2020 election that would ramp down.

It was supposed toramp down under Obama. It didn't. The man was a fraud. Who in 2020 won't be the new boss, same as the old boss?

That's what people said when Obama was first running.

If we have to rely on the next guy, then don't you think this reveals a fundamental flaw in our system?

Imagine if you're designing a system, and you notice that a hacker has exploited some issue and is causing damage, do you really tell people complaining about the exploit as "Not all our customers are going to exploit this issue, the next guy who accesses our system would definitely not use this exploit.

You don't see an architectural problem here?

America is a democratic nation, this is a choice not an exploit. It's a feature not a bug.

America is not a democratic nation (that's like saying all bugs were written by the programmer so all bugs are features). Democracy was tried in Greece and even Romans didn't use it.

The sheer fact that we have a constitution to limit the powers of the democratically elected govt means that we applied a patch on democracy from beginning itself.

If relying on the goodness of the govt were a feature, then we wouldn't need a constitution (which technically isn't even a patch but rather a unit test supplied with the system, which in itself can be modified).

A republic is basically democracy with a few extra steps added: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representative_democracy

Yeah you're not getting the point here. I am trying to show you problem with your thinking about the system, and you think as if I don't know enough to make an ignorant point when it doesn't even look like you read my comment fully.

Until we disregard the DNC/RNC and their theatre democracy (they admitted in court they have control of rigging the primaries), eliminate billion dollar campaigns, there will never be an honest candidate without strings attached.

So you're saying that if Hillary Clinton was elected she would have instituted a Muslim ban?

Would she have repealed the "Patriot" act? That was the point of GPs comment, that the Patriot act was the reason for a trend that has been consistently increasing since 2001 and the war on terror.

A strong ramp-up takes time to plan and implement. Especially in a large organization such as the TSA or U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Give me a break. It doesn't require a Manhattan Project to ask more people to unlock their phones. The spin you're putting on this thing is stealing angular momentum from the whole goddamn galaxy.

This could be (and likely was) as simple as a phone call from the powers that be, demanding that "you do this NOW or else". You do know that such things do happen in hierarchies, don't you?

It's not like the TSA has publicly visible and strict guidelines they are held to. All it takes is the word to spread through the DMZ.

Unless the ramp-up isn't actually planned or policy oriented. It could very well be simply related to feelings among agents that they're allowed to do more.

I will grant that ramp down takes immense work, considering the head of CBP hired by Obama last year to reform the organization resigned after the Border Patrol Union went after him.

Not true. The muslim ban for example, was uncoordinated and unclear at first - with lots of TSA confusion.

An indicator that planning took backseat to "decisiveness".