I can see why you might feel that way but, in the long-term big picture, no, they're really not. There was a time when law enforcement wasn't required to recognize your right to be silent, for example, and most of the civil rights advances of the sixties still hold. Civil forfeiture is dangerous and relatively new, but there was plenty of dangerous stuff back in the day.
Now, the fact that things could be a lot worse is depressing in a whole different way...
I can see why you might feel that way but, in the long-term big picture, no, they're really not. There was a time when law enforcement wasn't required to recognize your right to be silent, for example, and most of the civil rights advances of the sixties still hold. Civil forfeiture is dangerous and relatively new, but there was plenty of dangerous stuff back in the day.
Now, the fact that things could be a lot worse is depressing in a whole different way...