I think it's what the world admired about you guys...and despite all the trash talk and what not, I feel sorry for all of you, sincerely.
I just don't understand how you guys let it happen...I guess fear is a powerful thing. 
[long]
Having the added prospective of observing our country over some time, I can tell you exactly how these things happened - and continue to happen:
It generally happens not in a huge step, even though the Patriot Act was one such event and may reflect society's more recent willingness to accept government intrusion. But rather, it often occurs in a continuous build-up of small seemingly innocuous incremental steps.
Nixon instated the DEA just before leaving office. But at that time full 4th amendment protections remained. Your car could not be searched without a warrant. The police were not allowed to look in your wallet. There was no legal tie between illegal drugs and your personal possessions, property, money, or other assets. Even if one was convicted of drug dealing, there was no mechanism to attach one's property. There was no drug testing. There was no alert dog used to circumvent the 4th. There was no confiscation of cash on one's person, with or without the presence of illegal drugs. Etc, etc., etc.
Hard to believe, huh?
The DEA initially only provided a federal agency as a high-level single-point alternative to the various agencies that individually handled narcotics crimes (Customs, FBI, etc). It handled only very high level dealing, often international, and had several hundred agents. It added no additional laws. It was only as time went on, starting early under the Reagans, that more features were added. It was then that financial monitoring of American's money was instated, with of course the IRS getting a copy as well! Then in the mid 80's, confiscation of one's money when found guilty of drug dealing was instated. But it was initially done through a separate court case, only after a dealing conviction, and only involving the proceeds proven to be directly gained from the drug dealing. Somewhere along the line, I'm not sure where, the need for guilt became removed for asset forfeiture.
Going into the 90's we saw new infringements like mandatory employee drug testing, no knock warrants, and DUI stops not requiring reasonable suspicion, along with the seizing of vehicles and other assets for mere possession. The new millennium gave us additional great things like alert dogs, the seizing of cash without the presence of drugs, flash grenades, and mandatory drug-testing of school kids in activities.
This is all off the top of my head, and stuff I remember through life. The exact years might be pretty close, but I can't claim them to be perfectly. There's so much I'm sure I don't know of, and some I'm sure I forgot.
But the main point is: Small incremental things are continuously slipped into legislation to remove our freedoms, and it often takes many years until these things accumulate into something unrecognizable to the seemingly innocuous original! I'm pretty sure no one from my generation would have allowed that very first step to take place, if they could foresee how it was to play out over the decades. But that's how incremental government works, and why even the most benign appearing abridgment to even the smallest freedom must be resisted.
My kids grew-up in a world where they must first prove they are drug-free to participate in life, and where the police set-up vehicular road blocks to inspect them for something they might have done. To my kids, this is normal. And of course their normal, which is my abridged abnormal, will incrementally change over time to something even they can't imagine, further eroding our freedoms. Sadly. Unless they keep extremely vigilant watch.
This was inadvertently exceedingly long, thanks for reading if you got through it!
