History repeats itself?

Countless amounts of times, I remember sitting in my high school U.S. History classroom with students half asleep during the teacher's lectures. Those who remained awake seem too preoccupied doodling in their notebooks and daydreaming about their crushes. The question would somehow always come up, "Why are we learning about this anyway?? It's all done and over with!". The teacher would simply respond, "We learn about history so that we won't have to repeat our mistakes again...". The reason why I give this short story is because I thought about this situation in my readings of the Alien and Sedition Acts. There seemed to be many correlations with the past and our present. Could it be possible, that history does indeed repeat itself? The Alien and Sedition Acts rose in 1798, at the heat of the the U.S.'s Quasi-War with France. A series of acts were passed in order to limit the rights of the immigrants and critics of administration. The Congressional Sponsors would claim that these extreme measure were "necessary wartime measures". Two of the series of acts were the Alien and Sedition Acts. Th Alien Act allowed the President to deport any non-U.S. citizens that were a threat to U.S. government while the Sedition Act made it illegal for any person to oppose the government in any fashion or interfere with the execution of a law. These acts created much controversy within U.S. citizens since it infringed upon their freedom of speech and the press. Even though there were mixed emotions throughout the nation, U.S. President John Adams remained adamant and believed the acts to be constitutional as they protected the future of the republic. This situation in history almost identically parallels our present one with the War in Iraq and President Bush's introduction of the Patriot Act. Much like the Alien and Sedition Act, the Patriot Act infringed on people's freedom of speech and the press as it allowed the government the power to access your medical records, tax records, books that you buy or borrow and intercept in phone calls that may seem "terrorist like". Although, many U.S. citizens believe the Patriot Act to be a complete invasion of privacy, U.S. administration call it a necessary deed in order to protect the nation against terrorism. Though, the Alien and Sedition Acts only lasted until March 3, 1801, when the next President was elected... Must we wait until our next Presidential election to see a change with the Patriot Act??